Norwood Entrepreneurs Launch Innovative Video Home Inventory Service to Ease Insurance Claims-August 20, 1975

Imagine the panic of returning home to find a house destroyed by fire or ransacked by burglars, only to realize the sheer impossibility of remembering every lost possession for an insurance claim. To alleviate this age-old dilemma, two young entrepreneurs—24-year-old Norwood resident Michael Cardaci Jr. and 26-year-old Watertown resident Christopher McKinnon—established Panvidicon Video Assurance Co. at 10 Quincy Ave. in Norwood.

Operating for five months, the innovative startup utilizes 20th-century audio-video technology to catalog home contents for up to ten customers a week. Believed to be the only company of its kind in the state and potentially the country, Panvidicon records a comprehensive visual and audio inventory of a residence. During a two- to four-hour session, the team films exterior views and pans every room, while the homeowner speaks into a microphone describing each item, its distinguishing features, book titles, and serial numbers, with special markings captured in close-up.

Once filming is complete, the tape is reviewed on the homeowner’s television, validated, accompanied by a signed notarized document of agreement, and sealed. “As long as the seal remains unbroken, Panvidicon guarantees the content of the tapes as evidence of what was in the home,” Cardaci explained, recommending clients store the tape in a safe deposit box. Priced as a one-time operation, the service has drawn strong interest from middle- to high-income homeowners and passionate collectors cataloging books, magazines, art, guns, and heirloom jewelry.

Cardaci and McKinnon conceived the venture after witnessing a friend’s home burn down and watching him struggle for months to piece together an itemized loss list. Though Cardaci studied law at Reed College in Oregon and McKinnon earned a civil engineering degree from Northeastern University, both gravitated toward audio-visual work while previously employed at Cody Video Enterprises in Watertown. Beyond home inventories, the duo harbors ambitions to expand into independent television programming for education, business, and medical fields. “To us, video means independence,” Cardaci stated. “People are happy, in fact overwhelmed, by the comprehensive detail… and they are amazed to learn that television is something that can work for them.” (Reporting by Nona Dearth, The Patriot Ledger).

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger