The PXL2000 , or Pixelvision , was a toy black and white video camera, introduced by Fisher-Price in 1987 at the International Toy Fair in Manhattan, which could record sound and images onto Compact Cassette tapes. It was on the market for one year with about 400,000 units produced. After that one year, it was pulled by the market, but rediscovered in the 1990s by low-budget filmmakers who appreciated the grainy, shimmering, monochrome produced by the unit, and the way in which its lens allowed the user to photograph a subject an eighth of an inch away from the camera, and pull back to a long shot without manipulating a dial, while keeping as the background and the foreground in focus. It is also appreciated by collectors, artists, and media historians, and has been used in major films and spawned dedicated film festivals.
43-715: The PXL2000 was created by a team of inventors led by James Wickstead. He sold the invention rights to Fisher-Price in 1987 at the American International Toy Fair in Manhattan. The PXL2000 consists of a simple aspherical lens , an infrared filter, a CCD image sensor, a custom ASIC (the Sanyo LA 7306M), and an audio cassette mechanism. This is mounted in a plastic housing with a battery compartment and an RF video modulator selectable to either North American television channel 3 or 4 . It has
86-615: A PXL2000 to shoot key scenes, processing the footage with enhanced monochrome. The custom PXL2000 camera was fitted with windshield mount suction cups and painted with the red and white paint scheme of the Canadian flag. The PXL2000 was used by the characters Melody and Jess during the show Archive 81 . Fisher-Price Fisher-Price, Inc. is an American company that produces educational toys for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, headquartered in East Aurora , New York . It
129-486: A building addition on the north side of UCSB Library, a renovation of the two-story section of UCSB Library, and seismic and code upgrades throughout the existing buildings. The new and renovated facility added 60,000 square feet (5,600 m ) of new space and renovated 90,000 square feet (8,400 m ) more, including a 20% increase in study space, a 24-hour learning commons, a new home for the Art & Architecture Collection,
172-907: A film festival dedicated to projects shot exclusively on the PXL2000. The festival continues to occur annually in Los Angeles , California , usually at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and the Echo Park Film Center, with Fialka continuing as organizer and curator. Although the festival operates without a budget, it still manages to tour many locations including the San Francisco Cinematheque and Boston's MIT campus. Festival entries, oral history interviews, and other relevant materials donated by Fialka are being processed into
215-443: A minor revival in popularity since the 1990s among filmmakers, due to its point-and-shoot simplicity and low-grade aesthetic. Because the unit is degradable and obsolete, its use is aligned with a certain romanticized mortality, unfit for serious mainstream appropriation. Erik Saks wrote this: "Each time an artist uses a PXL2000, the whole form edges closer to extinction." In 1990, Pixelvision enthusiast Gerry Fialka founded PXL THIS,
258-416: A plastic viewfinder and some control buttons. The system stores 11 minutes of video and sound on a standard audio cassette tape by moving the tape at nearly nine times normal cassette playback speed. It records at roughly 16.875 inches (428.6 mm) per second, compared to a standard cassette's speed of 1.875 inches (47.6 mm) on a C90 CrO 2 ( chromium dioxide ) cassette. In magnetic tape recording,
301-528: A recorded cassette or the CCD and fill half a digital frame store at the PXL reduced rate, while scanning the other half of the frame store at normal NTSC rates. Since each half of the frame store includes only 10 800 pixels in its 120 × 90 array, the same as the CCD, the display resolution was deemed to be marginal, and black borders were added around the picture, squashing the frame store image content into
344-638: A state-of-the-art Special Research Collections facility, the Interdisciplinary Research Collaboratory, and bookable group study rooms. The project was certified LEED Gold . The $ 80 million project was funded by a State of California bond sale. The main library holds the general collection and several special collections: the Sciences and Engineering Collection, the Map and Imagery Laboratory, Curriculum Resources,
387-447: Is also open to the public, but to borrow materials, individuals not affiliated with the university must purchase a UCSB library card for $ 100 for one year. However, members of UCSB affiliates may join for a reduced fee, and students and faculty at other University of California campuses, public school teachers, and faculty from reciprocating libraries may also obtain borrowing privileges with no charge, subject to verification. Members of
430-478: Is among the most critically acclaimed pioneers of the PXL2000, one of which was given to them by their father James Benning around the age of 15. Benning's early video diary works gained popularity in the artist market, earning them a lasting reputation as an innovator, with an important presence in video art. Michael Almereyda used the camera for several of his films. Another Girl Another Planet (1992) and his short Aliens (1993) were shot with it entirely, it
473-764: Is the university library system of the University of California, Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara, California . The library has some three million print volumes , 30,000 electronic journals , 34,450 e-books , 900,055 digitized items, five million cartographic items (including some 467,000 maps and 3.2 million satellite and aerial images), more than 3.7 million pieces of microform , 167,500 sound recordings , and 4,100 manuscripts. The library states that it holds 3.2 miles (5.1 km) of manuscript and archival collections. The library serves UC Santa Barbara's students, faculty, and staff. The library
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#1732793925124516-471: The California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives . The East Asian Collection was created in 1967 and is housed in the fifth floor of the main library. The East Asian Collection includes around 163,700 volumes of Chinese , Japanese , and Korean-language materials. The bulk of the collection is Chinese (60 percent) and Japanese (39 percent); the library began to acquire Korean works in 1992 when
559-579: The National Network of Hispanic Women , Victor Ochoa , Carlos Ornelas , Sheila Ortiz-Taylor , Ernesto Palomino , James Prigoff , Eloy Rodriguez , Patricia Rodríguez , Charles Rojo , Gil Sanchez , Self Help Graphics & Art , Simon Silva , Alvaro Suman , El Teatro Campesino , Rini Templeton , Mario Torero , Salvador Roberto Torres , Don Tosti (Edmundo Martinez Tostado), Emigdio Vasquez , Luís Valdez , Linda Vallejo , Esteban Villa , and Helena Maria Viramontes . The music library
602-634: The Wooden Railway line . Through Mattel's 2012 acquisition of HIT Entertainment , which subsequently became a division of Fisher-Price, Mattel now owns the property outright. With this, toys based on Mike the Knight and Bob the Builder have been subsequently released. During 1979–1983, Fisher-Price issued the Woodsey line of toys, whose characters were forest animals. It was accompanied by
645-562: The Woodsey Log Library , a companion book series written by Marci Ridlon and illustrated by Cyndy Szekeres . Installments in the series included Grandma & Grandpa's Grand Opening , Uncle Filbert Saves the Day , Mayor Goodgrub's Very Important Day , and Lightning Strikes Twice . Later in the line's run, Michael Hague took over as illustrator with Bramble Beaver's Bright Idea and The Seasons with V.B. Bird . Starting in
688-828: The 1980s, seven games which carried the Fisher-Price name were developed by GameTek for the PC and the Commodore 64 . In 1990, three of these titles were ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System : Titles developed by Davidson & Associates include: Other titles published by Fisher-Price include: Other Fisher-Price products include Activegear for families on the go, books, software, car travel accessories, footwear, music, eyeglasses and videos. University of California, Santa Barbara Library The University of California, Santa Barbara Library
731-460: The ASIC generates slower video timings than conventional TVs use. It scans the 120 × 90 pixel CCD 15 times per second, feeding the results through a filtering circuit, and then to a frequency modulation circuit driving the left channel of the cassette head, as well as to an ADC , which creates the final image for viewing. For playback and view-through purposes, circuits read image data from either
774-645: The Asian/Pacific American Collections include the archives of the Asian American Theater Company , Kearny Street Workshop , Chinese American Democratic Club, Chinese American Political Association, and Chinese American Voters Education Committee, and the papers of Iris Chang , Frank Chin , Bob Hsiang , Nancy Hom , Michio Ito , Genny Lim , Ester Soriano-Hewitt , Gayle Tanaka , Sam Tagatac , Elizabeth Wong , Flo Wong , and Nellie Wong . Holdings from
817-1093: The Chicano/Latino Collections include the papers of Oscar Zeta Acosta , Norma Alarcón , Juana Alicia , Carlos Almaraz and Los Four , Alurista , Francisco Camplís , Reynaldo J. Carreon , Sean Carrillo , Ana Castillo , Centro Cultural de la Raza , Federico and Bertha Claveria, the Comisíon Femeníl Mexicana Nacional, the Confederation of la Raza Organizations Collection , Lucha Corpi , Bert Corona , Richard (Ricardo) Cruz and Catolicos por la Raza , Eddie Davis (West Coast Eastside Sound Archives), Richard Duardo , Maria Duke Dos Santos , Ricardo Favela , Juan R. Fuentes , Adelina García , Ben Garza , Shifra Goldman , Maya Gonzalez , Hector Gonzalez , Dan Guerrero , Lalo Guerrero , Mark Guerrero , Paul Holguin , Leo Limon , Yolanda Lopez , Ralph Maradiaga , MEChA , Miguel Mendez , Marcy Miranda , José Montoya ,
860-813: The East Asian Collection, the Art & Architecture Collection, and the Ethnic and Gender Studies Collection. The Department of Special Research Collections is also part of the main library. Special Research Collections hold rare books and manuscripts and several collections, which include the Performing Arts Collection, the Wyles Collection on the American West , the Skofield Printers' Collection, and
903-575: The Fisher-Price name. In 2004, Royal Caribbean Cruise lines launched Fisher-Price Cabanas, play laboratories for children on each of their cruise ships. On August 2, 2007, Fisher-Price recalled close to a million toys, including the Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street toys, because of possible hazards due to the toys being coated in lead-based paint. Fisher-Price recalled all 4.7 million of their Rock 'n Play sleepers on April 12, 2019, days after
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#1732793925124946-576: The Performing Arts and Moving Image Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library . Recalling the PXL2000's initial promise of accessibility, Fialka's vision includes accepting submissions indiscriminately, juxtaposing the works of established artists with those of amateurs and children. PXL2000 cameras have been used occasionally in professional filmmaking, with camera modifications to output composite video , enabling it to interface to an external camcorder or VCR . The PXL2000
989-641: The UC Alumni Association may obtain a courtesy library card, which provides borrowing access, but not access to licensed databases or interlibrary loan , or the ability to check out journals. The main library has eight floors, with the Pacific View Room on the eighth floor offering a view of the Pacific Ocean . The UCSB Library underwent a major construction project between 2013 and 2016. The project included three parts:
1032-457: The company recalled 250,000 infant soothers. The product, introduced in 2009, holds the sleeping baby in an inclined position. More than 30 infants have died while sleeping in a Rock 'n Play. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said these deaths occurred "after the infants rolled over while unrestrained or under other circumstances". Years before the introduction of the Rock 'n Play sleeper in
1075-483: The company's first. By the end of the 1950s, Fisher-Price manufactured 39 toys incorporating plastics. During the 1960s, the Play Family (later known as Little People ) product line was introduced and soon overtook the popularity of earlier toys. The 'Family House' was one of the more popular Little People playsets. Herman Fisher retired at the age of 71 in 1969 and The Quaker Oats Company bought Fisher-Price
1118-405: The faster the tape speed, the more data can be stored per second. The higher speed is necessary because video requires a wider bandwidth than standard audio recording. The PXL2000 records the video information on the left audio channel of the cassette, and the audio on the right. In order to reduce the amount of information recorded to fit within the narrow bandwidth of the sped-up audio cassette,
1161-565: The following. California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) is a permanent program of UCSB and a division of the Department of Special Research Collections. Its collections on ethnic studies "document the lives and activities of African Americans , Asian/Pacific Americans , Chicanos / Latinos , and Native Americans in California. The collections represent the cultural, artistic, ethnic, and racial diversity that characterizes
1204-465: The four founders took 16 of their wooden toys to the American International Toy Fair in New York City and they quickly became a success. The first Fisher-Price toy ever sold was "Dr. Doodle" in 1931. In the early 1950s, Fisher-Price identified plastic as a material that could help the company incorporate longer-lasting decorations and brighter colors into its toys, introducing "Buzzy Bee" as
1247-432: The imaginary trial, incarceration, and eventual pardoning (by newly-elected president Jesse Ventura ) of Pee-wee Herman for the sale of Yohimbe . The PXL2000 was used by the characters Maggie ( Anne Hathaway ) and Jamie ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) in the 2010 film, Love & Other Drugs , although the black and white footage from the camera is shown at full film resolution. In 2018, Toronto filmmaker Karma Todd Wiseman used
1290-502: The mid-1990s, the American Academy of Pediatrics ' Back to Sleep campaign recommended that "babies should not sleep for long periods in inclined devices". In babies under one year old, dying during sleep (also known as SIDS , or "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome") is the leading cause of accidental death. The recommendation that babies sleep flat on their backs, in an empty crib, has cut this death rate in half. The Rock 'n Play
1333-432: The middle of the frame, preserving pixels that would otherwise be lost in overscan . An anti-aliasing low-pass filter is included in the final video output circuit. The market success of the PXL2000 was ultimately quite low with its targeted child demographic, in part due to its high pricing. Introduced at US$ 179 (equivalent to about $ 480 in 2023) and later reduced to $ 100 (equivalent to about $ 270 in 2023), it
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1376-447: The money and action. Early toys were made of heavy steel parts and ponderosa pine, which resisted splintering and held up well to heavy use. The details and charm were added with colorful lithographic labels. Mrs. Price was the first Art Director and designed push-pull toys for the opening line, based on characters from her children's books. The mayor of Aurora, New York supported Fisher by raising $ 100,000 in capital. In 1931, three of
1419-490: The recall after additional infant deaths were reported. Fisher-Price has created approximately 5,000 different toys since the early 1930s. One of Fisher-Price's best-known lines is Little People toys, which includes people and animal figures, along with various play sets such as a house, farm, school, garage and vehicles. The figures, which originally were wooden peg-style characters, are now molded of plastic and have detailed features. In addition to Little People, some of
1462-464: The same year. In 1991, Fisher-Price regained its independence from The Quaker Oats Company and became a publicly traded company . Two years later, in November 1993, Mattel bought Fisher-Price. A new management group set the company's focus on basic, infant and preschool products and began expansion into international markets. By 1997, Mattel decided to market all of its preschool products under
1505-568: The state's population." Established in 1988, the archives include the papers of many organizations and individuals. Holdings in the African American Collections are papers from Grover Cleveland Barnes, the Bay Area Black Panther Party , William Downey, Charles C. Irby, Anita J. Mackey , Horace J. McMillan, Kincaid Rolle, Tuskegee Airman Lowell Steward , and Samuel L. Williams . Holdings in
1548-638: The toys and toy brands that have remained popular for many years include Power Wheels , View-Master , Rescue Heroes , the Chatter Telephone and the Rock-a-Stack . Other brands marketed under the Fisher-Price name over the years include Disney , Sesame Street , Dora the Explorer and See 'n Say . Fisher-Price also designs and sells infant care products and has begun developing electronic toys for preschoolers. In 2009, Fisher-Price bought all toy rights to Thomas & Friends , except for
1591-528: The university began its Korean program, and now has a few hundred titles in Korean. The Department of Special Research Collections acquires, preserves, and makes accessible rare, valuable, or unique materials which support UCSB students, faculty, and research programs, as well as the scholarly community. The department's holdings are non-circulating but are available for research in the reading room. Special Research Collections includes many smaller units, including
1634-421: Was designed 15 years after these sleep recommendations were published and, according to an article from The Washington Post , violated them. Fisher-Price sold the Rock 'n Play without first getting medical advice from more than one pediatric specialist and without doing any real-world safety tests. They continued to sell it for years after the first deaths were reported. In January 2023, Fisher-Price re-announced
1677-489: Was expensive for a child's toy but affordable by amateur video artists. The PXL2000 was produced in two versions: model #3300 at $ 100 with just the camera and necessary accessories; and #3305 at $ 150 adding a portable black and white television monitor with a 4.5-inch (110 mm) diagonal screen. Extra accessories were sold separately, such as a carrying case. It was also produced as Fisher-Price PixelVision, Sanwa Sanpix1000, KiddieCorder, and Georgia. The PXL2000 has received
1720-731: Was founded in 1930 during the Great Depression by Herman Fisher , Irving Price , Price's illustrator-artist wife Margaret Evans Price and Helen Schelle . Fisher worked previously in manufacturing, selling and advertising games for a company in Churchville, New York . Price had retired from a major variety chain store and Helen Schelle previously operated Penny Walker Toy Shop in Binghamton, New York . Fisher-Price's fundamental toy-making principles centered on intrinsic play value, ingenuity, strong construction, good value for
1763-593: Was founded in 1930 during the Great Depression by Herman Fisher , Irving Price , Helen Schelle and Margaret Evans Price . Fisher-Price has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel since 1993. Notable toys from the brand include the Little People toy line, Power Wheels , View-Master , Rescue Heroes , the Chatter Telephone , and the Rock-a-Stack . The company also manufactures a number of products and toys designed for infants. Fisher-Price
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1806-532: Was used by Richard Linklater in his 1990 debut film, Slacker . A roughly two-minute performance art sequence within the film is shot entirely in PixelVision. Peggy Ahwesh 's Strange Weather (1993), which follows several crack cocaine addicts in Florida, was shot entirely on a PXL2000. This video relies heavily on the camera's portability to maintain an intimate presence. Video artist Sadie Benning
1849-587: Was used for point of view shots of the title character in Nadja (1994), and it was used by the title character to make video diaries in Hamlet (2000). The camera has been used for several music videos, including "Mote" by Sonic Youth and "Black Grease" by the Black Angels . Artist John Humphrey's 2003 video, Pee Wee Goes to Prison was shot on a PXL2000, employing a cast of dolls and other toys to stage
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