The Video Recorder was an old Relic that fell into the possession of George Wilkins at some point during his exploration of the Silo. George would eventually hide the recorder in the cavern beneath the Silo.
The video recorder would eventually be discovered by Juliette Nichols and Holston Becker after George's death, but neither one had any idea what the video recorder was. Martha Walker eventually concluded that the recorder had lenses similar to those used to take photographs for the ID badges within the Silo.