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Originally Posted by jrc
Last year I sent weeks transferring grandpa's super 8 (film) movies to DVD. There are very few sources for consumer movie film. His fancy projector lost the now obsolete lamp. Luckily, the cheap project lamp overlaps with some modern use. There is still a lot of commercial use of 16 and 35 mm movie film but a lot more movies are going digital.
This year I transfered dad's VHS tapes to DVD. I had to do it before our last VCR dies. Still haven't decided what to do with the store-bought VHS library. I think analog magnetic media doesn't have much life left.
The next big transition will be analog TV. As of March 2007 all new TV's must have digital. I'm thinking this may also be the death of the CRT.
As final thought, Kodak announnced the end of their BW film production. These films are of course only used by artists and photographers, they will probably be last users of color film as well.
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Yup, VCR and tapes are headed to meet up with the dinosaurs in the next few years. I can only hope that the Blue-Ray and HD-DVD people can work out a common standard and the whole DRM mess before then. I've resisted (but only just) getting a DVD-DVR. A DVD only (no HDD) solution means remembering to pop in a new disc every day (or 2) until higher capacities (? perhaps dual layer recorders will suffice ?) come along. The HDD based ones are good but then you're stuck burning a DVD if you want to watch in another room. What I really would like to see is a unit with the DVD recorder electronics minus the DVD, it to be replaced by an USB2 (or Firewire) output that I could plug a portable HDD into. The portable HDD then becomes, in effect, a large capacity DVD. It could be made tomorrow but I'm not going to hold my breath while waiting.
Analog TVs have a few more years of life despite the FCC date. That'll get pushed back until DTVs drop more in price. I'm not going to buy an HD-DTV until the HDCP/DRM fiasco gets straightened out. I sure don't need to find out my large expensive HDTV will only be able to show standard definition stuff. With LCD monitors now becoming good enough for photowork and movies, CRTs will die along with VCRs and tapes. For TVs, I think LCDs and micro-mirror (DMD / DLP) will prevail (and perhaps plasma's replacement).
EDIT : Latest date for analog turn off - 2009. But they are now (finally) working on converter boxes for your old analog TV.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...px?i=2666&p=20