BIRTV 2014 video: Chinese inventor hacks an old tape based Sony ENG camera to shoot 2.7K by putting a GoPro inside

By site editor Dan Chung:

Plenty of TV stations and freelance cameramen have old Betacams and DV based cameras lying around gathering dust. Imagine if you could upgrade them to 2.7K, or even 4K shooting? One Chinese inventor has been trying to do just that.

Would you really put a GoPro in an ENG camera?

At the BIRTV show in Beijing this week we were shown a prototype for a GoPro Hero 3+ fitted into the body of an old Sony tape based ENG TV camera. The GoPro’s lens is removed and the TV camera’s lens is utilised instead. Amazingly it actually works. The image can be displayed in the viewfinder, one of the camera’s buttons can be used to access the menu, audio inputs are supposed to work and a SD card is used for recording.

Unfortunately the picture quality of the sample we were shown leaves an awful lot to be desired. Check out the video to see just how bad it is.

Parts of the modification can be seen where the tape mechanism used to be

The GoPro sensor is visible inside the old Betacam

There is a handy HDMI cable for hooking up a monitor

Shot by Clinton Harn and translation by CY Xu.

By Dan Chung

Co-founder of Newsshooter, Dan Chung has over 20 years of experience working behind a camera. His career started in photography but evolved into documentary, multimedia and broadcast TV. He shot the first news video on a DSLR and has been on staff at Reuters, The Guardian and CNBC. Dan heads up the editorial team at www.photogearnews.com.