Geschreven door Among all the brands and types of recorders and cameras, there was a special brand that entered the market very briefly among all the brands with VHS, Video2000: Technicolor. The brand still exists and has an extraordinary history behind it in its existence.
Technicolor, formerly Thomson, is a French electronics and media group. Technicolor is listed on Euronext Paris. The company is headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, near Paris. Technicolor owns the RCA brand name, not to be confused with RCA Records owned by Sony Music Entertainment.
The current group is the result of numerous mergers and acquisitions. The original branch is the sister company of the American General Electric, which was formed in America in 1892 as a result of the merger between the Thomson-Houston Electric Company and the Edison General Electric Company. (Thomson-Houston was founded in America in 1879 by Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston.) The French company became the Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH) in 1893.
In 1966, CFTH merged with Hotchkiss-Brandt to form Thomson-Houston-Hotchkiss-Brandt (later renamed Thomson-Brandt). In 1968, Thomson-Brandt merged with Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie Sans Fil (CSF) to form Thomson-CSF (later Thales Group). Thomson Brandt retained a stake of about 40% in this company.
In 1982, Thomson-Brandt was nationalized. In 1987, Thomson acquired RCA and the consumer division GE Consumer Electronics from GE. The character of Thomson changed by offering not only electronics, but also media (through the acquisition of RCA and others). This was reflected in a new name Thomson-multimedia in 1995. In 1999 Thomson, without the defense branch, was privatized again.
In 2000, Thomson Multimedia bought the famous Technicolor. In the second half of 2006, Thomson bought the Dutch NOB Cross media facilities (formerly Nederlands Omroepproduktie Bedrijf).
In 2010, Thomson was renamed Technicolor. (source of the above data: Wikipedia)
We had a Technicolor VCR in the 1980s to which a camera could be connected. A portable model recorder that was quite remarkably nice and compact and lightweight. In those days it was an extremely good replacement for the much larger models by JVC and Philips. The cassettes were also much smaller, similar to Video 8 tapes, but much flatter. The tape itself is only 6mm wide. Still, you could buy 30, 45 or 60 minute tapes for this recorder. One small disadvantage: the tapes were always a bit shorter, so you didn’t get 100% value for money.
To this recorder our much used video camera could be connected again. It had the same connection as the JVC and Video 2000 recorders. I still have a CVC Technicolor tape lying around with the inscription that it contains recordings of my grandparents. But unfortunately I can no longer play those.
The recorder was stolen one day. Taken by a lady walking around our store with a large shopping bag. She asked about everything and in an unguarded moment she managed to take the recorder in her bag and ran off with it. It was a very inexperienced lady, though, because she had left the power supply and the camera. Two essential parts she should have had with it in order to sell it.
We never heard anything back from it and the tape, which is waiting for a recorder to play it back to capture it digitally. In a search on Youtube I did come across an enthusiast of these recorders who shows all the ins and outs of these particular recorders. Nice to see that recorder again and there was another special model he shows in the video. I have never owned that model.
Until the next one!