An open letter to the doom-sayers

[Shaun Roemich]

Folks, my pet peeve is the pronouncement that things are DEAD because from one's own particular (and necessarily NARROW) viewpoint, they don't see a purpose for them any more. It would impress me greatly if we could get away from this RIDICULOUS idiom.

Things that ARE dead:
Analog over the air transmission of television in North America, the 700MHz band of wireless for audio transmission in North America as WE video folks know it, U-Matic (although I would suggest it is creeping around like a zombie)

Things that AREN'T dead:
Analog video, standard definition, 4:3 aspect (Kubrick filmed Eyes Wide Shut in 4:3 - any other showing of it is INACCURATE, in terms of how the director intended us to view it), tape based capture, shoulder cameras, DV/DVCam, HDV, linear editing (although it's starting to smell PRETTY bad...), DVD, film, genlock, timebase correctors, video lenses (in favour of still lenses)... and many more.

I understand that the student scraping up enough money for his/her first "real" video camera sees the Sony EX1r as the Holy Grail, but it ISN'T the pinnacle of modern imaging. I recognize that each of us has a glass ceiling that we can't ever see ourselves working above but that does NOT preclude the EXISTENCE of those that do or the equipment that they use.

So please... unless you are a broadcast engineer or an undertaker, PLEASE refrain from pronouncing things "dead"

Thus endeth the sermon.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

I understand that the student scraping up enough money for his/her first "real" video camera sees the Sony EX1r as the Holy Grail, but it ISN'T the pinnacle of modern imaging.

Are you talking about the Alexa?


;)


(I know I've been guilty of saying things are dead. I'll try to heed your advice in the future and term them... "fallen into disfavor")

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Are you talking about the Alexa?

I was thinking more along the line of the Barbie Cam... <evil grin>

Frankly, I don't even KNOW what the pinnacle is anymore... obviously something I can't afford to RENT right now, forget OWN...

[Vito DeFilippo]

You forgot to mention that 35mm adaptors are dead....

Okay, just kidding.

[David Morgan]

I'm likin' the undertaker analogy. When they say something is dead, there's really not much room for discussion. I wouldn't argue with them anyway as most of the one's I've met lack a sense of humor.

[Don Bloom]

Shaun, are you saying I should not get rid of my s-vhs tapes? ;-)

Seriously, I agree 100%. Never say never, never say always.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Don Bloom

Shaun, are you saying I should not get rid of my s-vhs tapes? ;-)

In terms of keeping them as part of an archive, yes, Hold onto them. Do I recommend going out and buying an S-VHS camcorder and selling your services as "the next great thing - it's ANALOG! AND it's Y/C sep!"? Well...

[Jason Sovey]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

Folks, my pet peeve is the pronouncement that things are DEAD because from one's own particular (and necessarily NARROW) viewpoint, they don't see a purpose for them any more. It would impress me greatly if we could get away from this RIDICULOUS idiom.

Things that ARE dead:
Analog over the air transmission of television in North America.

Even that's not dead. There are still some low power analog signals on the air: religious broadcasters, foreign language and translators mostly in this area.

[Shaun Roemich]

And there you go! Even the guy standing on the soapbox can be "proven" wrong.

[Tim Kolb]

So pronouncing things "dead"...

...is being pronounced....uh...


Oh...I can't do it. (sigh)

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

Analog video, standard definition, 4:3 aspect (Kubrick filmed Eyes Wide Shut in 4:3 - any other showing of it is INACCURATE, in terms of how the director intended us to view it), .

My impression is that he composed for both 1.85 and 4x3, so that you didn't have pan and scan or cropping on the 4:3 TV of that period. Interesting to know what he would've done as 16;9 combined with larger screens has been replacing 4;3 since his death. Although that aspect ratio still is very much around if you don't automatically zoom to widescreen on your TV.

Barry Lyndon was 1.66 and I understand that he had a survey of the cinemas screening it to ensure the correct projector gate was used.

[Allan Black]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

So unless you are a broadcast engineer or an undertaker, PLEASE refrain from pronouncing things "dead"

Thus endeth the sermon.

Brother Shaun, just in case you're referring to my http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/long-bla...etic-tape.html string.

My references for writing that obituary are .. I was heavily involved with a very similar plot, when the commercial music bulk audio cassette recording industry (TCMBACRI) was killed stone motherless dead by the introduction of music CDs and their replication. (IOMCATR)

And if it wasn't for its enormous third world use, magnetic recording tape would have been buried by now, except for mag strips on credit cards and other non denominational uses. I'm booked to post the service there too.

BTW the first magnetic tape I ever did an autopsy on was made by the Kraft company, yep the cheese people. It was a 7" roll of thin cardboard coated with mag oxide on a white plastic reel, it was very difficult to disect. It topped out at 2Khz and smelled dreadful.

But if you're not referring to said thread .. then, as you were.
Cheers.

[David Heath]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

And if it wasn't for its enormous third world use, magnetic recording tape would have been buried by now, except for mag strips on credit cards and other non denominational uses.

Errrr - what about LTO data tape? Which seems to be the current high end medium of choice for archive in "tapeless" :-) video work flows?

VIDEOtape may be slowly dying, DATAtape most certainly is not.

[Jim Andrada]

I certainly hope that data tape isn't dying - that's the industry that I work in - LTO specifically

HOWEVER (There's always a "however") the role of data tape is evolving more in the direction of archive and less in the direction of back-up. Lots of reasons for this among which are technologies such as de-duplication and lower cost disk drives as well as more online systems where the speed advantage of accessing a backup enjoyed by HDD over tape is important. Not the amount of time required to actually restore the data, mind you, just the time required to load the tape and space down to where you can start transferring the data. Tranfer rates on LTO are very fast indeed, it's simply that in a lot of todays environments taking 10 or 20 or 30 minuts to get the the data mitigates against a tape based solution. Archive on the other hand is a totally different story and LTO is aguably the best technology currently available for the job.

A lot of people aren't aware that there were actually two forms of LTO tape established by the LTO consortium, one of which is the current square cartridge which holds only one reel - the take up reel being permanently mounted in the drive.

The other tape standard they published was for a thinner cartridge that had both take up and supply reels inside the cartridge and was nominally positioned at the physical midpoint of the tape thus cutting average "seek" time in half.

This version was never successful and was never implemented by any maker or media company. This version of LTO had been intended as a follow on to the IBM 3570 tape drives which are now out of production. $ per GB won out over speed of access.

[Jason Sovey]

I heard a story on NPR the other day saying that audio casette tapes are making a comeback. A lot of indie bands are releasing their EPs and demo tapes... on tape, partially for the novelity factor, partially because it encourages listeners to listen rather than instantly skip to the next track.

Some labels are buying up all available casette stock.

Sounds weird, but then again, if someone told me 5 years ago that Best Buy would be selling vinyl LPs, I would have laughed.