Like new VHS-C camcorder
 

I found this last weekend at a flea for $20. A vintage 2003 Pana PV-L353D VHS-C camcorder. It was only minus the A/V cable. It is like new with two new tapes. A color flipout LCD side panel and a BW LCD viewfinder. 23x optical zoom. 700x digi zoom. Minimal other options in the menu. The battery was stuck in place and some minor Deoxit got that out but it was still dead. I had a replacement on hand that the charger handled.

If you look at the innards on the loading side, it is a miracle that Pana found a way to take a full VHS and turn it sideways to only be the the head and loading.

I took it today to an antique car show for fun and the pix are great. I have the full VHS-C adaptor so I can play it in a big machine. I will do that and pull a pic soon.

Wow, I didn't know they were still making VHS-C in 2003, has to be one of the last!

I still have the one my parents bought in the mid 90s. No clue if it still works or not.

I found an answer from the web on the head size.

VHS-C head drum
To reduce the size of cameras, the VHS-C mechanism uses a two-thirds size head drum (41.3 mm diameter instead of the original VHS drum size of 62 mm). The wrap angle is 270 degrees instead of VHS's 180 degrees. The drum rotates at a proportionately higher speed, and four rotary video heads are used to trace out exactly the same helical recording path as a standard sized VHS drum. By adding more heads, the same small VHS-C drum can record and playback FM Hi-Fi audio that is also fully compatible with a standard sized Hi-Fi video drum.

Smaller is better.

Same here. Kind of shocked that it was still around that late.

Nice score Dave A!

JVC sold [S]VHS-C camcorders until at least 2005. I saw some leaflet mockups in PDF dated with 2006.