This ‘90s Camcorder Was Upgraded with a Raspberry Pi

Our smartphones today combine all of the functions of a multitude of different devices from the past, so there is no longer any reason to carry around a dedicated DSLR, camcorder, calculator, watch, handheld game console, PDA, address book, or pocket calendar. That means you can purchase used examples of all of those for little to no money — your local thrift store is probably overflowing with them. As they are, they don’t have practical use aside from display purposes for particularly esoteric collectors, but they are good foundations for projects. Dustin has proven that by upgrading a vintage ‘90s camcorder with a Raspberry Pi.

This particular camcorder is an RCA CC540 that was made in 1993. It’s the kind of massive camera that is designed to be balanced on a shoulder and that records video onto full-size VHS tapes. Our younger readers may find this surprising, but cameras like this used to be quite desirable. Today they’re essentially useless and most of them are probably sitting in landfills. Even so, there are many of us who find the chunky design aesthetic and outdated technology appealing. Dustin is definitely one of us, and wanted to give this retro gem a new lease on life. Even the most nostalgic of us don’t want to deal with VHS tapes on a regular basis, so Dustin’s modifications updated the camcorder with modern recording and storage technology.

This project is still in progress and there are a number of features yet to be implemented, but the basic functions are working. Virtually all of the original electronics were removed, along with the majority of the mechanisms for loading VHS tapes and recording to them. Those were replaced by a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (8GB) paired with a Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera Module. An official 7” Raspberry Pi Touchscreen is mounted where the VHS tapes used to go and can be used to playback clips, edit videos, and even upload or stream those videos. On the software side, Dustin is using Picamera to record video. In the future, Dustin plans to add a second small LCD to be used as a viewfinder, sensors for stamping videos with data about the recording, and fancy features like on-the-fly video overlays. Even with the current functionality, it is great to see a vintage camcorder revived with modern technology.