{"id":28598,"date":"2013-10-06T06:58:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-06T10:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyesofageneration.com\/?p=28598"},"modified":"2026-04-25T14:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T18:06:17","slug":"ive-never-seen-anything-remotely-like-this-take-a-lookthis-is-the-sony-bvh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/?p=28598","title":{"rendered":"This is the Sony BVH 500 Video Recorder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Ive-Never-Seen-Anything-Remotely-Like-This-Take-A-Look-This-is-the-Sony-BVH\" \/><br \/>\n<strong>In the video, notice that the tape reels are stacked on top of each other! One-reel spins one way and the other reel spins the other way!<\/strong> Amazing!<\/p>\n<p>There are some good war stories in the comments section below, but here is more on this unique machine.<\/p>\n<p>Being described as \u201cportable\u201d is fine, until you try to pick it up. It\u2019s one of the strangest transports ever put into the field: the tape reels are stacked vertically, spinning in opposite directions like some kind of engineering dare. It looks more like a prototype someone forgot to un\u2011invent.<\/p>\n<p>Operators who used these in the \u201970s and early \u201980s remember the same things: \u2022 Heavy as sin, especially once you loaded the battery \u2022 No TBC, but surprisingly solid recordings \u2022 Great as a recorder, barely passable as a player \u2022 A nightmare to thread if you were tired, rushed, or \u2014 as one commenter joked \u2014 \u201ca few beers in\u201d \u2022 Interchangeable with BVH\u20111000 decks, which made it useful as a field backup.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of those machines that makes you appreciate how far \u201cportable\u201d has come \u2014 from a 40\u2011pound shoulder\u2011breaker to a DSLR that fits in your hand and outperforms half the trucks these things fed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TEdGo1eGYEw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TEdGo1eGYEw<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How Reel-to-Reel Video Recorders Work\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TEdGo1eGYEw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/189359747768249\/posts\/578194705551416\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the video, notice that the tape reels are stacked on top of each other! One-reel spins one way and the other reel spins the other way! Amazing! There are some good war stories in the comments section below, but here is more on this unique machine. Being described as \u201cportable\u201d is fine, until you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_popup_image":0,"_vp_format_audio_url":"","_vp_album_images":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail":0,"_vp_custom_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail_cover":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[709,1273,793],"class_list":["post-28598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-engineer","tag-prototype","tag-sony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28598"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81360,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28598\/revisions\/81360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}