[1] The camera made its debut in the United States in February 1962, when CBS used it to document the launching of NASA's Friendship 7, its first crewed space mission to orbit the Earth.

[1] In 1972, Ikegami introduced the HL-33, the first compact hand-held color video camera for electronic news gathering (ENG).

The compact ENG cameras made live shots easier and—when combined with portable videotape recorders—provided an immediate alternative to 16mm television news film, which required processing before it could be broadcast.

According to these sources, Ikegami proceeded to sue Nintendo for unauthorized duplication of the Donkey Kong program code for the latter's creation of Donkey Kong Junior (1983, Tokyo District Court), but it was not until 1989 that the Tokyo High Court gave a verdict that acknowledged the originality of program code.

Many of the model numbers of Ikegami portable television cameras begin with the initial letters "HL", which stand for "Handy-Looky", an original translation from the Japanese.