Re: [tlug] Linux / MacOS X and dv cameras

["Lyle H Saxon" <llletters@example.com>]

On 7/21/07, Stuart Luppescu <s-luppescu@example.com> wrote:
> The fragile part is not the medium, but the player. We had one 8 mm
> camcorder that lasted only a couple of years. I can't believe that the
> tape player mechanism in such a small camcorder is very robust.

Exactly!  I found that they burned out like clockwork every three
months - but I was taking about two hours of video a day and the
camera was running for about five or six hours a day.

> (Some people have stand-alone 8 mm tape players, which would probably last
> much longer.)

Not in my experience!  From the short life of the expensive Hi-8
editing deck I bought form Sony, I wouldn't be surprised it had
exactly the same mechanism as the bloody cameras that toasted
themselves every three months!

> I was afraid the camcorder would give up the ghost and
> we'd not be able to buy another one to play back all those tapes because
> the technology would be superseded. In fact, I would say it's probably
> impossible to buy a new 8 mm analog camcorder now. My choice of DVD was
> based on the guess that DVD players would be around a while since so
> much commercial content has be released on DVD.

For taking videos, I would like to try the flash memory route but the
current one probably relies too much on compression.  The only reason
I might get an 8mm digital machine is to rescue those tapes.  Video
was my life for about two years and there is a lot of material I'd
like to do something with.

Lyle