Rewind: Four From the Videomaker Vault

by Joe McCleskey
April 1998

They seemed like good ideas at the time ...

Videonics: In the Beginning
Back in 1987, Michael D'Addio and Mark Haun were still in a Los Gatos, California garage design ing ways to make life easier for consumer videographers. Their first video editing product (shown here), the DirectEd, aimed to bring the power of a professional video editing workstation into the living room, at a price consumers could afford ($499 in its original release). This devicewhich Mark Haun later claimed was "trying to do too much," was not the company's great success; for that, the team would have to wait a few years for the first Titlemaker to hit the streets.


(Semi-) Portable VCR/TV
Shintom Industries thought 1987 was a good year to introduce their top-loading VP-5000 VHS VCR, which included a built-in 5-inch standard television for mobile presentations. The 26-pound unit included a monopole antenna, VHF and UHF tuners and a monaural speaker for playback. Not long after, someone discovered that it was much easier to put a VCR into a TV than a TV into a VCR.


Kids as Videographers
Anybody remember PixelVision, the toy camcorder format that recorded poor-quality video onto standard audio cassettes? The technology, which offered a rugged kid's camcorder for around $150, looked very promising in 1987, so much so that Matt York wrote about it in his Viewfinder column. "The fact that a child's video camera is now on the market suggests that the process of integrating video technology into our society is making radical gains." Ten years later, not a single new camcorder is available in this format, though some videographers make use of its ghostly images as a special effect.


Everything Old is New Again
Along with all of these quirky products that didn't outlive the Reagan era, 1987 produced some solid performers that managed to hang on for the decade. Though the ads for these products may look a little different (like the Bogen tripod pictured here effortlessly supporting the weight of Lester Bogen, founder of the company), the message is the same: quality lasts. Also: nothing beats a good tripod when it's time for a rest.

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