Canon RC-470 (1988)

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The Canon RC-470. Demonstrated at the Photokina 1988. Only a few months before, the 40+ companies implemented the Hi-Band standard. The Canon RC-470 was jointly developed with Panasonic (they delivered the optics for the camera). The RC-701 was marketed a year later in 1989 and targeted at realtors, insurance agents and professionals who needed a fast TV image. It featured infrared autofocus, programmable auto-exposure, built-in flash unit, field- and frame recording, automatic white balance and Hi Band mode. An incredible 20 frames per second was also possible (5 more than it's equivalent the Panasonic AG-ES 10).

Needless to say that the RC-470 got more press attention than the AG-ES 10. A year after market introduction Canon introduced a Professional Still Video Imaging Kit for $4,899 that included the RC-470, the FV-540 SV floppy disk drive and SV scan software. The FV-540 could be hooked up to a Macintosh computer via SCSI, then would read the video floppy disks, digitize the images in gray-scale, black and white or color and present them on screen.