Death passes by…

In the 1950s something fantastical came out of the brain of an addled engineer – something strange and thin and wide. Videotape. On two inch reels. Finally…finally there was a way to preserve what until then had been live TV (let’s discount the kinoscope recordings).

Well that two inch tape was whittled down to one inch and then 3/4 inch and then half inch…and then rapidly 8mm and mini-dv (and even micro-mini-dv).

The world and how we preserved our memories of it kept getting smaller and smaller.

Until.

It disappeared.

Yep – we’ve known for years that tape was on the way out. Today I tried to purchase a single mini-dv head cleaning tape from a store. All I needed was one/to be bought at the last minute cause fool that I can be – forgot to go online to get one for an upcoming trip.

I tried Target…Walmart…Best Buy…even a reputable camera store down here in San Diego where I’ve taken up (very) temporary residence. To no avail.

Finally got turned on to Voices and Video…and they had not only the head cleaning tapes but also a goodly stock of Panasonic professional grade mini-dv tapes.

So I got what I wanted and needed for this trip. But for my next trip…looks as if I’ll leave the Canon HV20 behind and will need a new bestie for future road trips.

Goodbye old friend. I’ve worked with you since March, 1976 and had hopes we would be together for years to come. But sadly, you have been replaced by a smaller, thinner, lighter card that can hold oodles more than your tight little cassette. With much higher quality too, I might add.

So I’ll keep you around to transfer all of my old tapes…both SD and HD. And then will most likely farm you out on ebay to someone who will appreciate you more than I can at this point. Memories are good…but technology, like time, does not pause.