Ultra Standard Definition

Ollie Bartlett · June 11, 2008

Hi there,

Somehow i've come into possession of a camera that i know nothing about, and was wondering if someone might be able to shed a bit of light onto it.

Its called a 'Ferguson Video Star', and the internet tells me nothing about it, although i believe the model number is 3V06 (the camera head 3V06A, the handle/microphone 3V06B, the viewfinder 3V06D, dont know what or where 3V06C is).

Anyway, theres no VTR. The signal has to be sent via the below cable to a recorder, although i dont know what that is. A little research on my part has yielded a JVC recorder from the 70's that in the UK was branded a 'ferguson video star.'

The lens has a pull out manual iris control (????) that ive never seen before and is a 1:2 17mm -102mm zoom lens, but doesnt seem to have a manufacturers logo anywhere.

Theres 2 controls on the camera itself... a record switch and an AGC switch (which ive never heard of).

I still havnt found a 12v DC in mains lead in the house so at the moment i havnt even managed to turn the lil' beast on.

Has anybody ever seen one of these before, and if so, what chance have i got of getting my hands on the VTR section? What is this lens and who make it? Basically.... what the hell is this thing?

Cheers people,

Ollie

June 14, 2008

Thats a standard 10 pin video plug popular in the 80's. it can connect to a power supply which then gives you video and audio out connections or it can plug directly into a VTR giving audio, video, and start stop control and playback preview through the camera viewfinder.

1. Video Out/In

2. Video Ground

3. Serial Data In/Out (*)

4. Serial Clock /IN Tally (*)

5. Standby Control (high) / Right Audio out (*)

6. VTR Record (H)/ Pause Out (L) Out

7. Left Audio Out

8. Audio Ground

9. Power Ground

10. +12v IN

you can buy a power supply or recorder for this on ebay most likely.

BTW that is a tube camera and likes having the iris closed when not in use as light entering the lens can damage the tubes if the image is to bright especially when the image is static and will burn in an image permanently.

Ollie Bartlett · June 17, 2008

Cheers Patrick... found out that if i take the handle off i can run it off 6 or so of those common chunky round batteries (the kind for a stereo). Cant record though but can at least get the thing up and running and signal through the viewfinder.

Keith Walters · June 18, 2008

Hi there,

Somehow i've come into possession of a camera that i know nothing about, and was wondering if someone might be able to shed a bit of light onto it.

Its called a 'Ferguson Video Star', and the internet tells me nothing about it, although i believe the model number is 3V06 (the camera head 3V06A, the handle/microphone 3V06B, the viewfinder 3V06D, dont know what or where 3V06C is).

Anyway, theres no VTR. The signal has to be sent via the below cable to a recorder, although i dont know what that is. A little research on my part has yielded a JVC recorder from the 70's that in the UK was branded a 'ferguson video star.'

The lens has a pull out manual iris control (????) that ive never seen before and is a 1:2 17mm -102mm zoom lens, but doesnt seem to have a manufacturers logo anywhere.

Theres 2 controls on the camera itself... a record switch and an AGC switch (which ive never heard of).

I still havnt found a 12v DC in mains lead in the house so at the moment i havnt even managed to turn the lil' beast on.

Has anybody ever seen one of these before, and if so, what chance have i got of getting my hands on the VTR section? What is this lens and who make it? Basically.... what the hell is this thing?

Cheers people,

Ollie

I think that could be a re-badged JVC G71P. Most if not all Ferguson video equipment was JVC.

In its day, the G71P was quite a respectable camera, much used by ad agencies for "video storyboarding".

It was too "manual" to be successful for home video use, but the later GX77 and GX88 (JVC nos) had a form factor more like a super-8 film camera and were much more popular.

I think the G71 had auto-iris, but there was no auto-focus.

Before you get too carried away, those old cameras used vidicon tubes, which only had a guaranteed operational lifetime of 1,000 hours! Having said that, I have a 1982 vintage GX88 which still works, however as the tube ages it loses sharpness, which means it can't resolve its colour stripe pattern. Since that picks up the red and blue signals, it interprets loss of those as green, and so the pictures tend to be green. I've made it work by fiddling with the equalization circuitry, but that's not for the faint hearted.

The VTR it was designed to work with was the JVC HR4100 if I rememvber correctly. The later HR2200 portable and HR7700 tabletop machines had the same 10-pin camera socket.

Somewhere I've got a bag of those connectors I bought for next to nothing in a disposals store.

As an antique, this camera might hold some interest, but even at their very best, the cheapest and nastiest Mini-DV camera you can buy today would absolutely slaughter it for image quality! Even a half-decent cellphone camera will probably give better pictures!

Ollie Bartlett · June 18, 2008

As an antique, this camera might hold some interest, but even at their very best, the cheapest and nastiest Mini-DV camera you can buy today would absolutely slaughter it for image quality! Even a half-decent cellphone camera will probably give better pictures!

Dont worry... im really not expecting much quality from it. Just wanting to find a way to fire it up, more out of curiosity than anything else.

Cheers for all the info though. Nice to get a bit of history behind it. Ill post back after ive got some power to it and let you know of the results.

Cheers guys,

Ollie

Mike Washlesky · July 2, 2008

Dont worry... im really not expecting much quality from it. Just wanting to find a way to fire it up, more out of curiosity than anything else.

Cheers for all the info though. Nice to get a bit of history behind it. Ill post back after ive got some power to it and let you know of the results.

Cheers guys,

Ollie

Thats pretty cool man. If you get any images outta that thing, post em for us to see. I actually like the smeared archaic look of Pixel Vision cameras for nostalgic effect at the very least. Curious how this will look.