# What the hell is wrong with my NON DIGITAL DEVICE??? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 13, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740 "2012-05-13T00:53:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/21 "2012-05-14T18:08:28Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Me too. Set the film speed, set the shutter speed, set the aperture, and click. No menus, no firmware updates, or operating systems. Mine still work perfectly (except for the film availability and development thing) > > Welcome to forced obsolescence, and the never ending treadmill of buyng more shit you don’t need or want, simply because the old stuff is “no longer supported”. > > It’s just a way to keep taking our money over and over and over. > > What? You thought this" new new new" all the time was for OUR benefit? \ This might be an issue of geography, but is it really that hard to find a place to develop & print 35mm film? You can certainly still buy it. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/22 "2012-05-14T18:33:54Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > And still looks like videotaped ass, compared to 1080p digital video that a [sub-$300 camera](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS459US461&q=1080p+video+camera&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=12434789153513196957&sa=X&ei=PkixT5ebKsid6AHZ5MSLCQ&ved=0CPoBEPMCMAQ) can capture. Amen. Folks, this isn’t change for the sake of change, or change to make money. They are making products that provide better results, and the people buying them _for_ those better results. I know you like your daguerreotypes, but sometimes newer is indeed better. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/23 "2012-05-14T18:55:27Z")
Do you play in an 80s cover band? ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/24 "2012-05-14T18:55:37Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > This might be an issue of geography, but is it really that hard to find a place to develop & print 35mm film? You can certainly still buy it. Availability of 35mm film is limited; it’s easy enough to find 400ISO color print film, but slide film is pretty much limited to specialty outlets, Kodachrome is no longer made, and Kodak even discontinued most of its Ektachrome films. Getting film processed can be done at most drugstore-type labs, but optical printing is no longer done: negatives are scanned and digitally printed, and not always well. Traditional B/W film usually needs to be sent out for processing and printing. And there’s so little film being processed that even having color negatives done by a local minilab can be hit or miss. That said, I agree with the above posters who prefer the digital methods. I spent eighteen years printing my own black and white; I don’t miss it all. My work is cleaner, faster and far more detailed than I could ever accomplish in the analog world. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/25 "2012-05-14T18:55:40Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > What’s the point of having all the latest technology if you can’t sneer at people who still do things the old-fashioned way? The point would be to have a better experience, whether it’s getting a better recording, building a stronger building, or curing a bacterial infection more efficiently. Unless you have that backwards: “What’s the point of sticking with the old-fashioned way if you can’t sneer at the people who eschew tradition?” ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/26 "2012-05-14T19:44:30Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > And just to confuse the issue, the OP mentioned being prepared to record the concert on both videotape _and_ film. He mentioned having a film camera, which I (and others here, I think) assumed was a 35mm still camera. > [@Jenaroph](#): > > And still looks like videotaped ass, compared to 1080p digital video that a [sub-$300 camera](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS459US461&q=1080p+video+camera&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=12434789153513196957&sa=X&ei=PkixT5ebKsid6AHZ5MSLCQ&ved=0CPoBEPMCMAQ) can capture. I wasn’t commenting on the quality, only clarifying incipient confusion between the 8mm film and video formats. However, it is not yet true that all digital systems are better than their analog predecessors. In motion picture photography, 35mm film cameras still have some advantages over the best pro digital cinema cameras. Although few people realize it, Kodak worked hard over the past 20 years to improve the emulsions it made for motion picture stocks, dramatically increasing their resolution, sensitivity, and dynamic range. And no one is even close to being able to match, much less exceed, the quality of IMAX film cameras, which have a frame that is ten times the area of a 35mm frame. This is why Christopher Nolan shot about an hour of _The Dark Knight Rises_ with IMAX cameras. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/27 "2012-05-14T22:25:08Z")
I wasn’t trying to correct your post, just expand on it. It takes longer to transfer an 8mm tape to the internet than a digital file, AND it looks like ass because it’s an 8mm videotape. Even if he’s using Digital8 video, that’s still a 13-year old format. As for his film camera, it’s of course true that some formats of film give a still higher quality picture than any digital camera out there, but I’d be surprised if what the OP’s friends are dissing is his IMAX rig. ---
**Author:** ![Jamicat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c67d28/32.png) [@Jamicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamicat)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/28 "2012-05-15T12:11:39Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > Do you play in an 80s cover band? hehe…no. 😛 Yea, it’s a Sony Digital 8 that uses little 8mm tapes and has USB Streaming Live to net if you wanted to. It was the fact that it wasn’t new fangled latest $1000 digital device…So,It must SUCK. :rolleyes: Hell, it even has Infared. 🆒 Im not breaking out the giant VCR cam from the 70’s the new crews use. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740/29 "2012-05-15T15:23:21Z")
So wait a minute, if it’s a [**Sony Digital8**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital8), then IT IS digital. I assumed that your recorder was Video8 or Hi8, both of which are analog recording formats. Digital8 is a digital recording format (duh!) which, as Sony says, “delivers 3X the color bandwidth of VHS with significantly less video noise, providing stunning video performance. Digital8 records digital audio and video comparable to MiniDV on affordable Hi8 tapes.” So apparently your friends were scoffing at the fact that your camcorder records onto tape instead of a memory chip, because they (and you) mistakenly conflated tape with analog. But your recordings are digital. And since it’s [DV format](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DV), it’s 720x480 pixels, slightly better than standard NTSC (640x480), although, as **Jenaroph** will hasten to point out, not as good as HD. But the fact of recording onto tape does not, in and of itself, make it significantly inferior to a DV-format memory chip recorder, _with respect to picture quality_. Of course, tapes have certain disadvantages: Being mechanical, they, or the recorder, can physically jam or break. If a bit of the oxide flakes off the tape, you can get a drop out in the image. And as I originally mentioned, you have to transfer footage off them in real time. So tapes are significantly less robust and convenient than memory-chip recorders. Now about that film camera you mentioned in the OP: What exactly were you talking about? A still camera or a motion picture camera? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-my-non-digital-device/621740.md?page=1)