G'day all.

Thought I'd share this with you all as a handy tip in the event your viewfinder on your vintage camera goes on the blink.

A few months ago I bought a vintage 1978 JVC GC-3300E colour video camera http://www.troysvintagevideo.741.com/gc3300.html and it was all working great until the viewfinder went on the blink. So I tried faultfinding the viewfinder but couldn't trace the fault, also replaced all the electrolytic caps too but no luck. I then thought about seeing if the video signal going to the viewfinder can be outputted as composite video and I located the video pin and earth pin and connected a video out lead to the TV set and success, video signal complete with light exposure level slide bar on picture!!! I then thought about getting myself a handheld TV and using that as a replacement viewfinder. So I bought off Ebay a handheld Casio colour TV and I then made a video lead with a capacitor/resistor circuit to strip most of the DC offset in the video signal (about 3V) and connected it from the viewfinder plug video out to the AV input of the Casio handheld TV and testing it out, success!!! :D I then strapped the Casio TV to the back of the camera with gaffer tape. I had the TV positioned on a slant because with handheld TVs you have to view them at an angle to see a proper picture otherwise the picture looks solarized. So there it is, a 1978 JVC colour video camera fitted with an early 1990s Casio handheld colour TV as a makeshift replacement viewfinder, so I now call it a Frankenstein camera lol.