Time moves on

I remember saving up for and then buying a Sharp 8mm camcorder in 1993. Did a great job. Then in 2000 I bought a digital8 camcorder, which was pretty damn good (manual exposure, white balance tuning, not just pointing it at a wall, ridiculously long zoom lens). Bought a Canon DV camcorder a few years later - what a load of rubbish! Picture looked like a bad NTSC to PAL conversion!

I'm tempted to bu one of the flash video cameras now, but don't really have a use.

The only thing I didn't like about 8mm was all the whirring and clicking necessary to get the tape going, even just putting it in rewind and the servos would start whirring and clicking!

Sony Stuff

Has it really been a year since the Walkman announcement was made? (The answer is no, not quite.)

Earlier this year, I was introduced to minidisc for the first time, with a Sony MDS-JE510 component unit--the first minidisc-anything I'd ever seen in many years of seeking out assorted pieces of audio equipment. (It's a slippery slope and I recommend not ever getting started. The stuff only multiplies!) It required near-heroic efforts to get it working again because I assumed it had worked from the factory. So many bad solder joints and the replacement of a few bad parts later, it came to life. It's still running today.

All I can say is that it is really too bad minidisc didn't really make it. It is everything cassette tape wanted to be when it grew up. Titling, full random access...really the only thing not to potentially like (other than the SCMS infestation) was the ATRAC compression and to my ears it never caused any problems. Then again, maybe I would like it. I'm still making mixtapes on high-bias cassette (remember those?) with a 1981 or 82 era Technics cassettte deck.

I'm also a latecomer to the 8mm video format. I never used conventional Hi8 machines, but I have a somewhat low end Sony Digital8 Handycam that I purchased secondhand not all that long ago. Despite its being a relatively low end model, it does a phenomenal job and has some nice features (slow frame rate recording, time lapse recording, stereo microphone, a light, some onboard video effects). If the Wikifiddlers are to be believed, Hi8 tape is actually a "safer" storage medium for the DV datastream that all Digital8 machines use due to its wider tracks. I gather that most of the modern Handycam product offerings don't do half of the stuff this one does (no Nightshot in particular). From what I've seen, today's flash-memory based cameras might be "better" due to no moving parts, and they might shoot HD video (something I have no interest in), yet many of them don't do as good of a job as the old Digital8 Handycam does. The cheap ones in particular tend to be fairly nasty, especially in lower light conditions. At least the 8mm tapes remain available and reasonably priced.

I'll get my coat. It's the one with the book of technological wonders that never made it, and a DAT Walkman in the pocket.