Camcorder that uses Cassette Tapes - The PXL-2000

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In this episode, I take a look at the Fisher Price PXL-2000 video camera. Its most unique feature is that it records video to an audio cassette tape.

[AnotherMovieStudio]

Fun Fact: the Roswell autopsy was filmed on a PXL-2000

[scott]

Got one of these Christmas morning in1988 when I was 12. Was super excited until I filmed something. Dad noticed it was crap, noticed I was faking satisfaction & gratefulness. Pulled me aside and said hey look I wanted to get you a compound bow and your mom said no. We can take that camera back to hills tomorrow then go get a bow if you want to. So that’s how I got my first compound bow.

[theherblin]

The camera of choice for bigfoot enthusiasts

[MidtownSkyport]

Ah, the 80s. When simply adding '2000' to the name of your product made it futuristic and exciting.

[RitaBaumann]

I'm old enough to remember when this was the bee's knees. My parents worked for Fisher-Price which meant we got a discount on it. Real video cameras were still financially out of reach at the time, so this was awesome for us.

[MerwinMusic]

I had this camera when I was a kid. I never really used the tape or batteries. I had it hooked up to a portable tv as a security camera for my fort...

[MichaelSeneschal]

I had one of these when I was a kid. Late 80's / early 90's. :) As a 8-10 year old, I didn't even know to expect better video quality. The parents camcorder was better quality, but even as a kid I didn't expect my Fisher Price toy to rival my Dads camcorder. I absolutely loved it and made videos of my friends and me playing basketball, jumping in the swimming pool, etc.... regular kid stuff. As a 9ish year old, I even made a "movie" where I wore a cowboy hat and shot my stuffed animals (tied a string around the stuffed animal and had my friend pull the string when I 'shot' it). Pretty awesome for a 9 year old in 1989!
Unfortunately, I have no idea where the camcorder is, or where the cassettes are. But I can certainly say it was in the top 5 best toys I've ever had. Thanks for sharing!

[cowprez]

This was my sons first video camera. He LOVED it! He went on to a career in television. Good stuff back in the day. Thanks for the memories.

[BrandonFreemanAwesome]

I had one of these when I was a kid, and it was great! When I was 7, I didn't care about video quality, so being able to record any sort of video was amazing! It would eat through batteries, so my father ended up hooking it up to a car battery on a skateboard that I would push around.

[Robert]

I would love to see someone try to re-engineer this idea today. With codecs that are so much more efficient, it would be interesting to see just what cdould be stored on cassette in real time.

[champmarly]

They still use this format in 2019 in banks except to record the Teller.

[snowwhite]

Ideal Subjects to record using this Camera: Sasquatch, The Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, Alien Autopsy, Elvis....

[obsoletegeek]

5-10 minutes of use out of 6 AA batteries....DAMN! I thought the Sega Nomad was bad...

[guynakash]

Me after 15 seconds: My God! Why didn't I have one of those when I was a kid? This thing should have been a massive hit back then and a must at every home!!!
Me after 4 minutes: oh... I see...

[svRx]

I got one of these Christmas 1989, it was the best Christmas I ever had. My cousin and I spend years making home movies with them. While the quality is bad, I know for fact it wasn't as bad as you see in the video, i the the hardware aging has something to do with it. As David mentioned, the lenses fogged up over time and deteriorated which made the light sensitivity even worse. As far as usable footage, it all depended on the quality of batteries you used and the quality of tape. We used rechargeable ni-cd batteries and my parents bought the chromium tapes, maxell branded from Costco so it wasn't that expensive to own. I have many many childhood videos on this camera.

You have to appreciate a toy camera for kids. It was cheap enough and durable enough to kids to make memories with. And I think from that perspective it was a slam dunk. No parent in their right mind would give a 1000+ camcorder to their kids to make videos with, but for a hundred bucks, why not? You have to keep in mind those days kids didn't have iPhones and access to cameras easily, so making videos and memories was a very rare thing for kids,

I have really really fond memories of this thing. It has a special place in my heart, many summers spent making news casts and other movies with my cousins. Good times.

[Knapweed]

This camera was used extensively to record UFO sightings. Unfortunately, the image is still too clear and requires smearing vaseline all over the lens.

[JDSly]

I had just watched a short documentary about the history of television. The image quality that device produces is reminiscent of TV's of the 1930's.

[dingdongbells]

8bit guy working with Techmoan... that made my whole weekend.

[BimBims]

Damn, even video from WW2 military is more "HD" than this, lol

[irrh]

I still have mine! when I was a kid, my dad made me a battery pack out of a 12V Gel battery that fit in a little shoulder bag and hooked up to the DC of the camera. I could record for hours, just as long as I had enough tape.