I was in Sakuraya (a large Japanese electronics retailer) today, and saw something interesting: Of the 20 models of video camcorder that they had on sale, only 3 used DV tape. One of these was a Sony HC-7 (HDV) and the other two were from Panasonic and Canon. Every other camcorder there recorded to DVD-R media or a built-in hard drive. Half of these were using the AVC-HD codec.
It is mind-boggling how quickly DV has become a legacy technology. Even HDV (HD MPEG2 recording to DV tapes), which has only been on the market for 3 years, is on the way out, at least in the Japanese market. This has interesting implications: AVC-HD requires a lot of processing power to decode, let alone edit. Also, the hard disk cameras need to be backed up to a computer, unlike DV tape which is its own archival medium. So clearly there are enough consumers out there with high-spec computers that the camera makers can start retiring DV from their product lines.
The workflow with random-access media (eg. DVD or hard disk) is so much quicker and easier than tape, that I think we will see a real surge in the production of amateur HD videos. Once again communications will become the bottleneck.
Future of video cameras, today
I was in Sakuraya (a large Japanese electronics retailer) today, and saw something interesting: Of the 20 models of video camcorder that they had on sale, only 3 used DV tape. One of these was a Sony HC-7 (HDV) and the other two were from Panasonic and Canon. Every other camcorder there recorded to DVD-R media or a built-in hard drive. Half of these were using the AVC-HD codec.
It is mind-boggling how quickly DV has become a legacy technology. Even HDV (HD MPEG2 recording to DV tapes), which has only been on the market for 3 years, is on the way out, at least in the Japanese market. This has interesting implications: AVC-HD requires a lot of processing power to decode, let alone edit. Also, the hard disk cameras need to be backed up to a computer, unlike DV tape which is its own archival medium. So clearly there are enough consumers out there with high-spec computers that the camera makers can start retiring DV from their product lines.
The workflow with random-access media (eg. DVD or hard disk) is so much quicker and easier than tape, that I think we will see a real surge in the production of amateur HD videos. Once again communications will become the bottleneck.