Hitachi SK-70

A broadcast camera that could be a studio workhorse or a shoulder-mounted field unit — and the modularity is the whole story.

Overview

The SK-70 was a modular system camera, and the modularity is the whole point. Hitachi's own literature describes it as "many cameras in one," a package that could be converted easily from studio to portable use while maintaining broadcast performance in either mode. The heart of the thing was a camera head built around three 2/3" Saticon tubes — a serious broadcast complement, and the specification that anchored the camera's picture quality claims across every configuration.

In its studio dress, the SK-70 was a fully equipped, self-contained color studio camera. In the field, the studio version could be connected directly to a VTR with only a co-axial cable, which is the kind of convenience that matters when you're hauling gear to a remote. For hand-held portability, the camera head carried a shoulder mount, an auto-iris portable zoom lens, and a 1.5" viewfinder, along with a DC and process pack. Hitachi's own description of the camera as "a sound investment for broadcasters, production studios, and universities who need broadcast quality performance in a wide variety of assignments, all for the price of a single camera" is marketing copy, but the configuration list behind it is real: portable lens, 1.5" viewfinder, camera head pack, 300 ft. camera cable, process pack, DC pack, shoulder mount, 3000 ft. co-axial cable, DCU, mount adapter, AC pack, VTR or FPU connection, operation panel, 5" viewfinder and mounting plate, video co-axial cable, portable lens with conversion adapter, and studio lens.

The Digital Command Unit was the piece that made the system genuinely flexible. Hitachi advertised up to 3000 feet of single co-axial cable between the camera and the DCU, which is the sort of reach that lets a camera head roam far from the control position without a backpack tethered to the operator. A 22:1 zoom lens was offered as another striking option, usable on the studio version of the SK-70 in the field.

The camera's real-world reputation was made in the field, and the field reports are candid about what the SK-70 was and wasn't. At WGBH-TV in Boston, the public television station used the SK-70 (their unit was modified to take Plumbicons rather than the normal Saticon complement, because engineering director Tom Keller found the Saticon too noisy for the station's usage) as the backbone of its nightly half-hour Compass show, paired with Sony cassette recorders. Special projects engineer John Folsom called the setup "remarkably rugged and reliable," but the station was careful to characterize the SK-70 as a mobile system rather than a portable one — producer-director Charles Stuart wanted a truly hand-held unit that could go into crowds and bleachers, and the SK-70 could get to the action but not quite into the thick of it. That's the honest verdict on the modular approach: it delivered broadcast quality in a transportable package, but it was not a one-piece shoulder camera.

The SK-70 also turns up in industrial and corporate video operations, not just broadcast. Fireman's Fund, the San Francisco insurance firm, used the SK-70 as its field camera, converting it from studio configuration to over-the-shoulder ENG and pairing it with a Sony 3/4-inch U-Matic portable recorder. Training director Dave Larson reported that "the SK-70 gives the U-Matic the best picture possible," with the footage then dubbed up to 1-inch on Sony BVH-1000s for editing and color enhancement. Dupont's TV facility likewise used the SK-70 as its field camera, renting Ikegamis when needed and running Panasonic AK-90s in the studio. The pattern is consistent: the SK-70 was the camera organizations reached for when they needed broadcast-grade pictures in the field without committing to a dedicated one-piece ENG body.

Hitachi itself positioned the SK-70 within a three-camera ENG lineup alongside the FP3030 — a low-cost, lightweight (17 lbs.) completely self-contained portable with a built-in battery — and the SK-80, a one-piece unit oriented more toward ENG than the SK-70. The SK-70 sat in the middle: more capable and more flexible than the FP3030, less single-purpose than the SK-80. That positioning is the clearest statement of what the camera was for. It was the modular option for the broadcaster or production house that needed one camera to do studio work and field work, and was willing to accept the bulk and the setup time in exchange for that flexibility.

Collectors chasing the SK-70 today are chasing a piece of ENG history rather than a piece of consumer gear, and the practical realities reflect that. The camera is a tube-based broadcast unit from the mid-1970s, and the tubes — Saticon in standard form, Plumbicon in at least the WGBH-TV modification — are the consumable that matters. A camera that has been sitting unused for decades is a camera whose tubes may or may not still be healthy, and the supporting hardware (DCU, process pack, DC pack, cables) is at least as important as the camera head itself, since a head without its support electronics is a display piece rather than a working camera.