Re: I would rent that!
VhsC
I remember it too, quite small but not that much smaller than my Sony portable, but picture quality, it was shocking, even the camera was not great compared to mine, which was known to be a bit average.
Back in those days the portable VCR market had about 4 or 5 main entrants. 3 most well known were, Jvc did a VhsC portable, Panasonic the NV180 which was reckoned to be the second best domestic portable. Sony the SL-F1 portable, which was the best, by a long way.
Others were from Hitachi, a full size Jvc and Sanyo/NEC.
Cameras, the best early camera was a top end Jvc*, best late a CCD Panasonic. There was some not very good cameras. But the Sony I had was basic but good, colour rendition was good, low light usable but not good, however it kept colour unlike early CCD chip cameras.
Done some digging GX-N70E, and Panasonic F10 I think.
People often mixed and matched which meant that running a top end camera from company A with recorder from company B, most common mix was JVC camera with Sony recorder. There was never a market for Sony cameras away from their recorders.
Kit differences were surprising, a cheap Jvc camera I have seen in use always ended up green tinged. Beta third generation were similar to Vhs edit masters. So the final product was better.
Raw footage -> Edit master -> final copies. Each one has generational loss.
Just ended up with Beta being so much better for this than Vhs some many little differences ending up making it a much better format for the job.