When Progress Goes Bad...

I know there's a saying somewhere on the internet which, according to my memory, says "Any technology invented before you are 30 is new and exciting, and anything after that is scary and unneccasry". I'm not quite 30, but I've just discovered a worrying trend...

It's really hard to buy a MiniDV Camcorder anymore.

And I mean REALLY hard... They're all miniDVD or Hard Disc Cameras now...

I need to find a couple of MiniDV ones for work, and my reasoning for this is as follows - The advantage of having a MiniDV camera is you can change the tape when it's full and keep working, and also you can take that tape and, if it's important, you can put it somewhere safe so that whatever else happens to that footage when you edit it or transfer it, you will always have the original.

I don't understand this desire for Hard Disc Cameras. They're OK for short term stuff I suppose, and they have the advantage that you don't have to spend the time digitising the tape before you can edit it... but eventually you'll have to delete the raw footage from both the camera and the editing machine, leaving you with just, say, a DVD copy of the edit.

So what happens if that gets scratched? I know in regular consumer-ville where camcorders are used to film your kids playing, or christmas, or a particularly good night with your other half then it wouldn't be the end of the world - but at work I need to keep backups of everything from the last 3 years... If I didn't have it all on tape it'd be impossible!

Oh and don't even get me started on the unreliability of mini-DVDs.... they're utterly rubbish.

This isn't the first time I've noticed technology progressing in a bad way (last year I attempted to find some decent size "Boom-Box" type stereos for use at work, I was unsuccessful as no-one makes them anymore, you can either get tiny little portable ones which are tinny, or seperate stereo systems...) but this is starting a worrying trend.

Is it just me? Does no-one else see this problem?