Personal Video... to go

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard our nonstop flight to Dallas, with connecting service to Honolulu. This afternoon, we're pleased to be showing two films on board: 'Revenge of the Nerds, Part Four,' edited for flight, and a delightful nature short on otters. If you'd like to rent a headset, the charge...."

I mentally clicked off the pitch and reached into my travel bag. With one hand, I extracted my very own audiovisual entertainment system, a three-pound battery-operated marvel no larger than a hardcover book. With my free hand, I released the meal tray and plopped down the Sony Video Walkman, flipped up the screen and slipped in a four-hour cassette--a tape even smaller (and more smartly designed) than the standard audio variety.

My custom entertainment package for the trip, dubbed from cable the night before while packing, included Beetlejuice, Broadcast News and part of Late Night with David Letterman featuring Robin Williams and Joe Jackson. Here's looking at you, kids.

The color picture came up sharp and pretty on the flat LCD screen. "Wow, that looks like a regular TV picture," buzzed a suddenly friendly rowmate. I plugged in the good headphones I'd brought with me and the sound rivaled what you'd hear at the movies. I hit the fast-forward button to zoom past the opening credits. Now, this was the start of a beautiful vacation.

Ten years ago, Sony revolutionized audio entertainment with the introduction of the (continued on page 159)Personal Video(continued from page 93) Walkman. Super sound suddenly got personal and extremely portable. It was as if the audio cassette had sprouted wings and was carrying us along for the ride. Long commutes and daily jogs seemed much shorter and less tedious. Almost overnight, mild conversation became a series of shouts ("You know I can't hear you with headphones on!"). Formerly hostile territories were tamed or at least could be readily ignored.

This year will see the latest in technological downsizing, as the age of personal video is ushered in by at least half a dozen manufacturers in 8mm, VHS and VHS-C tape formats. Personal video is a product some envision as revolutionary and disruptive to traditional lifestyle patterns as its audio precursor was a decade ago.

Personal video radically alters the rules of the TV-watching game, as was suggested in a recent print ad showing a sky diver looking at a Video Walkman while in free fall. There's now no place on earth or in the sky where we can't partake of video information and entertainment (except in direct sunlight, since the LCD screens can't outshine the rays of the sun, making the ad, albeit effective, somewhat deceptive).

PV combines a wafer-thin LCD TV screen with a simple-to-operate, full-function VCR downsized with microcircuitry and tiny tape heads. It's powered by batteries as well as A.C., so you can cut the umbilical cord whenever you desire. The devices are small and light enough, at three to 14 pounds, to sling over your shoulder or stuff into a travel bag.

Japanese makers are pricing these products initially at $1000 to $1500--a range to which videophiles are accustomed when buying top-notch camcorders, VCRs or TV monitors. Personal-video combos are likely to drop to a more mainstream $800 within several years and could eventually settle in at a mass-appeal $400-to-$500 level. But can you wait that long?

Casio was first to introduce a small TV-VCR product to the U.S. market late in 1987. The device sported a lunch-pail design with a full-sized VHS transport, a three-and-a-third-inch color screen and a $1400 price tag. Still in the company line, the unit suffers from complications of premature birth, including a dim, blurry LCD screen using Casio's "high-quality matrix" design. Next year's promised "active matrix" screen should be a big improvement.

Sony followed on Casio's heels with its $1300 GV-8 Video Walkman, featuring a remarkably good three-inch screen and 8mm video recorder/playback machinery in a sleek matte-black package. That premiere Video Walkman is now joined by the GV-9, identical to the original save for a four-inch screen and a $1500 price tag.

The Video Walkman's one-thumb operation allows you to play a tape and shuffle through TV channels and record what you find (with auto-timer or sleep-timer shutoff). There are on-screen readouts of the time and VCR operations--including a real-time tape counter to locate program segments readily. The Video Walkman, like all the new PVs, mates with other video equipment and can make dubs to or from another VCR or play tapes on a larger screen. You can even plug a very small camera into its jacks. Unlike other PVs, the Walkman boasts a TV tuner. Other manufacturers claim that the primary use for PVs is tape playback. Tunerless models slip around certain tariffs slapped on most importers of LCD TVs, which can kick up the price 26 to 35 percent.

Although Casio beat it to the punch in the U.S., Sony began planning for the video-to-go revolution in the mid-Seventies. "Actually, the year before Betamax reached the U.S. [1976], we were thinking about a next generation of products built around a much smaller tape and tape transport," recalls Jay Sato, director of Sony's personal-video division. In 1981, Sony took the concept public with a camcorder called Videomovie, a name JVC later adopted.

The evolution of personal-video products largely hinges on the refinement of LCD-screen technology. The Video Walkman was held back from the market until Sony could "source" a three-inch LCD screen that holds its own against the Trinitron tube in color purity, contrast and perceptible crispness. This problem was solved when major-parts supplier Sharp developed the active-matrix design. According to Television Digest's David Lachenbruch, many of those who sell three-inch color LCD screens, and that includes Sharp, Sony, Magnavox and Panasonic, get them from Sharp. Some of the new PVs' four-inch screens will also come from Sharp.

Aside from screens, the major difference among PVs is tape format. Which will prevail? There's room for several. For sheer portability, nothing beats 8mm video: Its tape and transport are small yet record well. You can pack at least four 8mm tapes in the same space as one standard VHS tape. Besides Sony's two models, Sanyo is working on an even smaller, "clamshell"-design 8mm PV.

The cigarette pack--sized VHS-C tape format also has the potential to spawn portable systems. Matsushita (Panasonic, to us) has a cigar box--sized VHS-C system with a headband camera on sale in Japan, but Panasonic of America doesn't plan to market it here.

JVC's prototype "Concept C" modular system may hit the shelves in mid-1990. But to make this a popular machine, the 90-minute S-VHS-C tape has to be reworked for longer recording time to compete with 8mm's two-hour/four-hour tape modes.

Many of this season's personal-video products use full-size, standard VHS tapes, for consumers to whom the issue of size and weight isn't critical. These units can be moved around the house, over to a neighbor's or hauled off on vacation.

Leading in the VHS PV camp is Panasonic's Pocketwatch. Compared with the three-pound Video Walkman, the notebook-sized Pocketwatch is about double the width and weight yet still is small enough to sit on your lap comfortably. The Pocketwatch has a basic one-speed recorder/player transport (like a camcorder's), a built-in speaker, two sets of headphone jacks and a four-inch active-matrix screen mounted on the inside of a flip-up lid. This screen-protecting clamshell design eliminates the need for a separate carrying case, which is required to protect the vulnerable Video Walkman's screen. Magnavox and Quasar are planning to market PV models identical in design to the Pocketwatch.

On a heavier scale, there's the 13-pound Handyvision PV from Sharp. A solid lunch-box design reminiscent of pretransistor, tube-type portable radios, this $1800 unit is at its best on a library shelf, on a picnic table or in a conference room. It sports a four-inch flip-out screen, a side-mount opening for the VHS tape, a three-speed transport and a long-life, four-hour battery. This model isn't stereo ready, though a VHS hi-fi version is in the works.

Toshiba may have a major advantage over other manufacturers if it can get its six-and-a-half-inch screen out of the prototype stage. The VHS unit, due out next spring, includes a screen that can be viewed from three to four feet away from just about any angle--an important factor, since smaller screens require more PV-viewer intimacy.

Hitachi's VHS PV will have a five-inch screen that flips up from the top of a unit comparable in size to a compact home VCR. That PV will also feature two-speed recording and hi-fi stereo sound. It's likely that RCA or GE will market a variation on this model, because the companies source much of their video gear from Hitachi.

What else is on the near horizon? Digital stereo sound is likely to show up in some of Sony's Video Walkman products, since digital sound is already encoded on all prerecorded 8mm tapes, along with the standard FM high-fidelity track. Car-video rigs now available in the aftermarket from Sony and coming from Hitachi will become a Detroit factory option on the 1991 Dodge Voyager minivan. Heavy-duty PV models that handle shock, abuse and even water, as well as PVs that can take a slide-on magnifying lens to become a video projector, are just a few of the variations in development.