JVC First With A HD-Based Consumer Camcorder

kamesh writes "David Pogue writes in nytimes.com 'The days of storing computer data, music collections and Hollywood movies on spools of tape will soon be completely gone....JVC is the first company to see that particular light. Next month, it will release its new Everio GZ-MC100 and GZ-MC200.' Are tape based camcorders destined to die soon?"

Comments

Re:Why stop at camcorders?

[ScrewMaster]

Is it? That depends. How much is a 500 Gb tape backup system going for nowadays? I have about a thousand gigs of storage on my home network: how much would it cost me to back that up to tape? Sure, the cost per bit of tape is lower than hard disk (although the disparity isn't as great as it used to be) but the barrier to entry is much higher: high-density tape drives aren't cheap. So, from a corporate perspective (where there are substantial IT funds to invest in up-front hardware costs) tape makes a lot of sense: over the life of the drive the savings offered by the use of inexpensive tape are worth it. For small offices and home users a removable hard drive probably makes more sense for backup purposes.

Easy fix for the tapes

[Gordonjcp]

I have video tapes that are 10-15 years old and many have a white mildew on them, most are otherwise bad now, they will ruin the heads of any VCR you put them in. Gone forever.

Get an old video recorder, the older the better. You're looking for a seperate motor for each drive, top loader if possible, with a metal deck. Remove the top cover.

Glue two cotton makeup removing pads (the kind *without* moisturiser, just dry cotton pads) or something similar to two pieces of wood. Arrange them so they squeeze the tape gently.

Wind the tape backwards and forwards a few times, and the gunk will get wiped off the tape. If they are really bad, change the pads between each pass. Periodically hoover the mouldy gunk out of the machine.

If there is something really stubborn on the tape, soak two pads in alcohol, arrange a big long drying loop (you may need to remove the head block) with a fan to blow dry it, then two "dry" pads for a final wipe.

This works, and works well.

Re:Oh great.

[evilviper]

The idea that there are filesystems out there that don't fragment is a myth.

Well, if you are getting painfully technical about it, that is, barely, true.

However, while all filesystems may fragment data, most good ones are easily able to keep the fragmentation down under 1%.

My own BSD system is using FFS (UFS). I just checked, and my home partition is under 0.0% fragmentation, even though it's 90% full, and my most fragmented filesystem is nearly-full /var, with 0.1% fragmentation.

With a video camera, the same filesystems could rather easily keep the fragmentation down under 0.001%. Technically fragmented, but nominally so.

I wish I knew what was going through the minds of the mods that marked this insightful.