Video: The first thing that ever used MPEG4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g3afPmSnbY

Well! This is kind of a long time coming, although nobody knew that. While the ostensible topic (hey, it IS over 2/3 of the runtime, to be fair to me) of the video was a very recent discovery and acquisition, this is also a sleeper followup to a previous story.

At the end of my video on the Hitachi Mpegcam, I mentioned that their website did say they made a second model (at least, I think I mentioned that.) A few days after I finished that video I found one on ebay and ordered it.

It worked perfectly, and I believe we can extrapolate a lot of answers about the life history of the Mpegcam from it. It's better in every way, and definitely the device they intended to release in the first place, but I'll cover that more in the video.

What I didn't mention in the video (too far off in the weeds) is that I'm pretty sure if this story had gone differently, Hitachi wouldn't have become the name they did for DVD camcorders. Or, at least, they would have been selling both types, because they clearly had some good ideas about how to design a solid state camcorder. Because the Mpegcam was such a mess however, I think the optical division (Maxell) took the opportunity to muscle in, or the execs said "hey, let's focus on something that has other dividends."

Anyway, I've had that camera for half a year at least, but I just didn't want to do a ten minute update video (I am completely incapable of that level of brevity) so it's just been in a drawer. Then, a couple weeks ago, I stumbled across a magazine ad for "the first MPEG4 video camera."

Ordered one on eBay, and shortly before it arrived, realized it dovetails into this story. So that's convenient; it let me wrap both up at once, and while the resulting video is probably a touch... sprawling, I can only communicate the way my head thinks, and this is how I think about things.

The sequel to the mpegcam wasn't a story until I connected it to something larger, some point I hadn't made in the first video. I'm glad this gave me that opportunity, although I can only hope the length and complexity doesn't scare off too many new viewers.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it!