[ale] [OT] Video Camera Rant/Modern Media Formats Rant

[aaron]

On Tuesday 06 February 2007 15:53, Robert Reese wrote:
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> On 2/6/2007 at 2:16 PM Thompson Freeman wrote:
> 
> >FWIW, and because there are a number of people with varied  
> >interests around here, anybody around here have access to  
> >appropriate equipment that I might get these tapes  
> >converted?
> 
> IIRC, there are VHS transports/converters that allow you to insert
> a Hi-8 tape into a VHS "shell" and play it in a VCR.  I could be wrong....
> as you noted, it's been awhile.

Sorry... but definitely wrong. 8mm / Hi-8 / Digital-8 media is physically 
narrower than 1/2" VHS tape, so just about every aspect of the two tape 
formats is incompatible. You were probably thinking of VHS-C, a Compact
shell that holds a half hour [SP] of standard VHS recording tape. The format 
allows for small, inexpensive cameras and there are standard sized shell 
adapters that allow you to play the VHS-C tapes in a standard VHS deck.

I bought my daughter JVC VHS-C cam last year so she and her college
colleagues could tape and review their dance and cabaret rehearsals.
The whole package only set me back about $150. It's been very functional
for her, since she can get 90 minutes of record time in EP mode 

I also considered a Digital 8 camera, since the fading of the format means 
there are cheap ones to be found on eBay. For what Wolf _needs_ to charge Mr. 
Thompson to do Digital 8 transfers, he could get a NEW (~$250) Digital 8 
camera AND a DVD-R recorder (~$150) with decent real-time encoding for less 
than the cost of transferring 15 tapes. If he gets a DVD recorder that 
supports IEEE1394A (Firewire) input, you could even go digital to digital and 
get a slightly better DVD encoding.
 
<http://cgi.ebay.com/SONY-DCR-TRV280-DCRTRV280-DIGITAL-8-VIDEO-CAMERA-NEW_W0QQitem
Z130074642303QQihZ003QQcategoryZ48512QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem>

I have to empathize with the format rant, though. For instance, Mini-DV is a 
decent and well established consumer and prosumer format, but the 
manufacturers of consumer cameras seem hell bent on phasing it out in favor 
of camera's that record direct to DVD-/+R mini disks. Problem is that the DVD 
format is clearly and demonstrably inferior in quality to DV due to 3 times 
more data compression loss and, to top that off, the already flaky recordable 
DVD format is disastrously unreliable as a field recording media.  Worse 
product at the highest profit margin; proprietary corporate greed showing 
it's true colors again.  :^P

peace
aaron