fall inside a hole

Sony SL-F1 Betamax brochure (1982)

Sales brochure for the Sony SL-F1 portable Betamax and accessories. Also available as a ZIP. Click photos for full size

The front cover mentions the deck is 8cm tall and the size of an A4 magazine with a rather pretty photo

This page has some marketing fluff about how the portable nature of the deck will give you "free eyes" and allow you to fly as a "city bird"

A full spread about the size of the deck, as tall as a pack of cigarettes and about the size of a magazine (a Playboy, in this case). The rest of the page talks about the new head drum and the 711-style chassis with pancake motors introduced with the SL-F11.

The left page talks about Beta Swing Search which used the new pancake motors to control the deck's speed accurately enough to play in multiple speeds in both directions, switching rapidly between them with acceptable picture noise on screen. The middle section talks about the ability to play at double speed or perform picture search with less noise than older Betas with large AC motors. The right panel talks about the new Micro TP circuit that handles beginning and ending recordings at the end of an actual frame of video on the tape to produce cleaner transitions between shots. The bottom right panels talk about the RecReview feature on the more advanced Sony cameras that had a button that, when the deck was in pause-record, would rewind the tape a few seconds and play it back in the camera's viewfinder and then pause again, ready to carry on recording. The LCD display's functions and the tape return ability. The upper right section points out many of the controls and features of the SL-F1 as well as the price, 199,000 yen

The top-end camera paired with the SL-F1 was the HVC-F1 for 220,000 yen with power zoom. The bottom of the left page talks about the motorized 6x zoom F1.4 lens. It mentions the RecReview function again and the camera's electronic fade as well as the color viewfider with indicators (16 functions!) The bottom right side talks about the ability to invert the video for transferring slides or film as well as the HVT-3100 slide adaptor (only an additional 29,000 yen). The camera also has a remote jack for the HVR-4100 and will record in stereo if plugged into a deck with the camera connector and stereo capabilities like the SL-J9

The HVC-F2, only 170,000 yen, lacks the power zoom and stereo capabilities of the HVC-F1. The bottom left page talks about the Trinicon camera tubes - they are called Tri-Nikon (トリニコン) tubes here, and the page mentions that Sony's were developed by Nikon. The layers of filters to reproduce colors and white is explained as is the precise electron beam scanning the photoconductive film. The bottom right talks about the 6x zoom, easy operation, and black and white viewfinder as well as the RecReview feature

The 75,000 yen TT-F1 tuner/timer unit, with the same dimensions as the deck so the two can be sat side by side or stacked. The tuner/timer could also charge a battery inside the deck when connected (and the system was otherwise turned off). Other mentioned features include the 14 day, 4 event timer, receiver for the separate (5000 yen) RMT-F1 remote, programming system, and the layout of the features and buttons.

A great deal of accessories were produced for or compatible with the SL-F1 including many other Sony cameras and camera accessories like microphones, titling rigs, and carrying cases. For the SL-F1 in particular was a tight-fitting carrying case, solid metal carrying handle, a variety of cables for the jacks on the rear of the deck, and some batteries, chargers, and other adaptors

The rear of the catalogue advertising the J10 frontloader and the J9, the nicest of the Japanese toploaders.