pxl-2000

pxl-2000

The PXL-2000 is a small handheld b + w video camera which records to regular audio-cassette. It was developed by a group of inventors in the mid-80's, led by James Wickstead, who then sold the rights to the company Fisher Price, who, in turn, began production in 1987.

It was on the market for just shy of a year with around 400,000 units produced. It's often said that the high price in comparison to other kids toys at the time was probably a large reason for the PXL's demise. It was initially marketed to kids for US$170 (roughly AUS$400 in 2014) and eventually went down to around US$100 (roughly AUS$220 in 2014) before being removed from production.  

They're amazingly hard to find now, though there is one ebay member in the states who circuit bends and sells them. Handily enough, they do them to include a light level adjustment knob, monitor outputs, freeze frame and a "bleed switch". 

Personally, i've been hunting one of these for a good few years and I'm adamant that there's one waiting for me, on the shelf of a country town op shop somewhere out Woop Woop. Waiting... 

specs

The pixelvision can record 11 minutes of footage to a standard c90 cassette tape. It records at a high tape speed of 429 mm per second, which is necessary for the high bandwidth required to record video to an audio cassette. The video information is recorded to the left audio channel of the cassette and the audio to the right.

Some of the faults that come about because of the design or manufacture of some pixelvision cameras also results in some of the camera's most recognizable effects. 

Such as; the decayed drive belt that causes the often-distorted, stuttering images or; the fogged blue filter, which is there to prevent infrared light from entering the CCD and causes miscoloured images. 

notable uses

 -A sequence from Richard Linklater's breakthrough film Slacker

-Sonic Youth's "Mote" video clip

-The hilarious short film Pee Wee Goes to Prison, which was shot using dolls and toys to stage the imaginary trial, conviction and eventual release of Pee Wee Herman for the sale of Yohimbe which, I assume, is an imaginary drug.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clObuUzV2jw

Oh, and this...

cheers