Keeping up with the digital Jones

[christriplet]

I'm 36 and grew up with the VCR. Some of my fondest memories of the 80's include watching movies with my brother and best friend. We were raised in
a small town so we missed many of the classic 80's movies but were able to catchup on video tapes rented from the local "Video Venture" rental store. Don't get me wrong because we saw all the big hits at the local theater but longed for the day we could see them in our home and watch them over and over again.

In the late 90's like everyone else I finally purchased a dvd player and wow! what a difference in picture quality. I never knew we viewed our movies through so much muddy, foggy, color distortion, picture haze and just plain video garble. We had a $300 VCR in 1983 and it finally died in 1998.

I'm so thankful to have grown up with the VCR and I am equally thankful for
the advent of the DVD player. I bought a 30inch letterbox widescreen phillips tv
from best buy in 2002 along with a surround sound system and top of the line dvd player. The tv is not progressive scan but the picture quality still blows me away when I watch the now old SD dvd movies and will continue to do so
until I can no longer obtain standard definition DVDs.

It seems that you can never keep up with the tech race. DVXuser was started because we all loved the dvx camera but now people are moving on to the
canon hv20 or the canon xh-a1. People are ditching their dvd player for a
hd or blue ray player. I sometimes wonder if kids who grew up with the dvd player are now watching blue-ray movies and asking themselves how they ever
survived the poor picture quality of dvd movies.

I've made a choice to stay behind the tech curve and yes, I still love my dvd player, non-hd tv and my panasonic dvx100b and will continue to do so for
several years to come. I've always found it better to stay behind the times for at least 3 years. I'll be buying a duel core system when the AMD X2 6400 is $65 OEM and a Blue-Ray player when it is $39.95 from Sams Club.

Thanks for listening.

 

[mjjason]

Its always smart to wait for the second or third rev of a product that way early adopters work out the issues. Also, if a product dies out after its frist rev then you are protected.

Having said that though once I saw the HVX I had to have it. It was the first time I felt a camera would be perfect for independent film (I spent several years looking at the Canon XL1s, Sony PD150s, and Pana DVX cameras but was never satisfied).

 

[JasonFox]

I stay knowledgeable about technology, but I don't always rush out and buy it when it's new. I still don't have a flat-panel TV (although that's probably coming shortly) and my iPod is a b/w 3G 20gig that still isn't full. I'd love to have all the latest stuff, but even when I have the money, I'm kind of tired of taking the time to get it and use it.

The interesting thing for me is that we're expecting twins in a few months. We've already been talking about how different their world will be than ours. They'll probably never buy a CD or even know what a cassette is unless I show them one. They'll have an email address tied to their own URLs before they're even born (that'll be my doing). And if, God forbid, one of them develops diabetes like I have, maybe they'll have to suffer all of two days before being injected with new islet cells. A dad-to-be can hope.

Oh, and I still shoot in SD with my DVX.

 

[mikkowilson]

If it works, why change it? Because it can be better, without destroying the old.
The cool thing with progress is that it doesn't have to negate the past. You can still find a VHS VCR or Casette or even Record player if you want one. Or you can get an iPod-touch. It's your choice.

At IBC I was carrying 2 cell phones.. One was a brand new N95 with all the bells and whistles under the sun, 5Mp camera, video camera, 3G, WiFi, bluetooth, GPS, and various custom programs fresh out of the coding lab, etc..
The other was my over 5 years old 6310i; it's got a black and white screen, and I can call people with it.
The bells and whistles of the N95 where cool, but when it came down to what counted, I took a call booking me for a shoot on my old "junker" phone that did what it really had to.

Our country has gone to entirly digital broadcasting, but that didn't stop me from setting up my good old trusty analog 13" CRT TV this afternoon so that I can watch my favorate shows.

I still prefer an analog clock display to a digital one. But I can read both. The sad thing is that I know people who have trouble reading analog clocks today! I feel old.


The latest technology is always cool, but it's just another option, giving us more choice than ever. And the most amzing thing is how the old stuff lives on. I can use that N95 cellphone, or Skype running on my PDA; to call any telephone in the world, even if the unit on the other end is 100 years old, it will still work.

Works just fine with:

(both photos from here.)

That is amazing.


Ironically, one of those photos was taken with another camera phone, the other was probabaly captured using glass plates. But they can both be viewed here, side by side on a screen ... or printed onto paper or even film if wished. That's what I call keeping up with the times.


- Mikko

 

[Sad Max]

A few years ago some (investment company?) ad opened with a shot of a gaggle of sixth-graders riding the school bus, laughing, smiling...and the voice-over comes up:

They have never owned a vinyl record.

Later that day I put in an order for a coffin.

 

[mrWr0ng]

I've never been able to afford the latest & greatest... the HVX was my first "first revision," hell, NEW product that I'd ever bought. That turned out great, but I'd been following it since I was in college, and I'd been long graduated by the time I bought it.

Got the iPhone but got kinda screwed on that one. Who the hell would pay $600 for a phone? My girl got it for me (I didn't want one *that* bad but her company got her one & she had to get a new plan, so why not do a family plan & save some money. I'm totally happy w/ it though I'm not exactly thrilled with the price drop (we're gonna use the $100 to buy Quicken, which we were gonna do anyways, so we were only *really* dinged $100 but it just shows you how the bleeding edge can cut you).

 

[marketmd]

I have never owned a DVD player. I have a DVX and HV20 but no flat screen or HDTV.