Sony CV-2000
The CV-2000 holds a real place in the record: it was the machine that brought helical-scan videotape recording within reach of the home, and the period press was unusually direct about its significance. Writing in the trade press, the CV-2000 was noted as the cheapest helical-scan unit ever to be sold in this country, with half-inch tape running at 7½ ips past a twin-head rotating drum with the heads set 180° apart. Only one of the two heads was used for recording — the second, "blind" head simply scanned the unwanted half-frame. The recorded signal comprised 25 pre-interlace frames (every other line), each frame scanned twice on playback to suppress visible flicker, with sound and sync tracks laid down conventionally near the tape edges. A complete system — recorder, monitor/receiver, tape, microphone and connecting leads — sold for £368 11s., with camera, lens and tripod an extra £131 5s.
The CV-2000 itself, by contrast, was a 405-line machine. That same piece confirms the CV-2100CE's linear tape speed at 28.6 cm/s (11¼ ips) ±2%, with picture stability achieved within six seconds of starting — and credits the belt-driven scanner and eddy-current brake arrangement as a design Sony had used since the original CV-2000.
There was also a monitor-less variant, the CV-2000D, advertised in the American press at $695. High Fidelity (October 1966, p.43) described it as "just like current Sony Videocorder models, but without the built-in TV monitor" — compact enough for a bookshelf and light enough (44 lb) to carry, with the option of adding a Sony camera for live recording. Audio (September 1966, p.21) ran a near-identical notice at the same price.
The CV-2000 was clearly a machine people noticed, and the surviving documentation — while not extensive — is enough to place it accurately: an early, affordable, twin-head helical-scan recorder whose basic architecture Sony would carry forward through later models.
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