Hefner had the money to buy whatever tech available. But if he was a blackops asset then he likely didn't pay for anything. Before he died he dumped tapes into the ocean. My guess is those were personal rather than blackmail but he could have been running his own blackmail scams independent of anyone else -

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=hefner+dumps+video+tapes+at+sea&ia=web

Bits & pieces below about the VTR system he had. Can no longer find reference to an interview given by his former A/V technician after Hefner died. This guy worked for him since the 60s and took care of all the gear and ran it. But he indicated (without actually coming out and saying it) that the entire mansion was wired, any room could be monitored remotely with a video camera. Not hard to make the jump that there were eventually multiple video recording rigs to capture action in the rooms.

Paywalled: https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/17/books/how-tokyo-recovered-the-fumble.html

Screen grab from above: https://i.ibb.co/Y8DxfKF/hefner.png

https://archive.org/stream/PlayboyBunnies1972USA/Playboy%20Bunnies%201972%20USA_djvu.txt

Text from above link -

At center left, Hefner and girl-friend (((Barbi Benton))) operate the Ampex 660 color videotape machine.

https://campuspress.yale.edu/jdconnor/trans-canada-express/

Text from above ink -

“‘I have a whole $40,000 Ampex videotaping console,’ says Hefner ‘so I figured I might as well have the camera, too. It would be like having a tape recorder and no microphone.’”

General info thread discussing early VTR machines -

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/1965-sony-cv-2000-first-consumer-video-tape-recorder.255651/