Category — hard drive camcorder

I can see the opening scene now: Phelps shoveling down his 12,000-calorie breakfast, ending with those chocolate chip pancakes. There must be tons of footage available already thanks to all of those digital camcorders and video cameras that have been following him around.

I haven’t thought about swimming much since I was a kid, but watching Michael Phelps at the Olympics made me notice that something is missing from my life: the opportunity to eat whatever I want and not have it show.

Thinking of Phelps and all of the technology-assisted broken records as the subject of a film made me think of how Hollywood has looked at sports over the years. Here is a short list of my personal favorites:

1. Bang the Drum Slowly
2. The Natural
3. Hoosiers
4. Field of Dreams
5. Chariots of Fire

Rocky just rates an honorable message in my book.

During the season finale of “The Wire” season two, the cops use video tape evidence to catch one of their suspects. There was a security video at this port in Philly that caught the murder. They used some sort of video program to combine all the camera angles together to get an instant replay. The cops on the show thought it was so great and they replayed the system for the perp to force a confession. It was a great scene. God I love that show.

I wonder if that extrapolation software can be used on systems using hard drive camcorders. Not all systems need tapes, some use hard drives to keep the data as well. I would think that it wouldn’t make it a difference if both sources can be digitized. Once the images are uploaded, it could be used with a universal software.

Video evidence is pretty hard to dispute in court, as long as the source can be verified. I wonder how many cases are won with digital evidence. There are several video services that serve the court system so attorneys can effectively display such evidence. Apparently, the new trend is to videotape depositions, so video evidence is part of tons of cases. Looks like “The Wire” is pretty authentic. It is known for it’s grittiness and attention to detail.