Category — Hi8 Camcorders

Another movie I discovered at the rental store was Loaded with Catherine McCormack, Thandie Newton, and Oliver Milburn. It’s the first feature from Anna Campion.

The movie follows a group of English twentysomethings over a weekend trip to the country. The main purpose of their excursion is to film an amateur horror flick. The audience gets to see the grainy video footage of the student film as the characters shoot each scene. They were probably using a Hi8 or vhs camcorder to give it that amateurish feel.

The main character, Neil, is troubled by repressed childhood memories. The film is interlaced with scenes from his therapy session and memories. Campion focuses on this group to explore how one’s perception can change literally overnight. Things always get interesting when you add a dash of drugs and murder.

It seems like these days almost everything is caught on tape. Anyone can buy camcorders online or in a Wal-Mart at the very least. This means that ordinary people can unknowingly capture controversial news. And the news stations will run their tape if it’s something controversial. Or at the very least, it will show up on somebody’s website. Then, it can go viral and be virtually everywhere instantly.

At theme parks, camcorders are abundant. And apparently, this father was trying to film a family moment.

The cameraman (father) claims that this employee (Tigger) assaulted his son. To me it looks like the Tigger was falling backward and hit the kid by accident. The father happened to get this all on tape. And now Disneyworld has to offer damages and discipline their employee.

If there wasn’t a tape, I’m sure the situation would not have escalated to this point. But now the father gave his tape to the local news. And that’s bad publicity for Disney. Thus, the camcorder helped strengthened the father’s claim. It’s hard to argue with a tape. It’s much easier to deal with a customer issue without photographic evidence. Because obviously the father interprets the situation in his own way while the employee has another pov. Nevertheless, it looks bad on tape. Sucks for Disney. It’s already international news.

If you’re into suing companies with no real claim, or you just roll like that. You can pick up a Sony CCD-TRV138 Hi8 Camcorder for real cheap. It’s a Hi8 camera, but it’ll do the trick. It worked for this guy.

I don’t know if anyone still uses hi 8 camcorders. They used to kinda be a big deal. Just like VHS used to be more widely used. Hi8 is also known as Video 8, so as not to be confused with it’s predecessor, Digital 8. These are analog based technology camcorders, not digital ones.

Today, the world is all about digital information & image capture now.

You still have to use tapes with most digital camcorders, but at least they’re a lot smaller now. I do still see Hi8 tapes sold in stores, but on that same note, there are still blank VHS tapes being sold. I suppose the format won’t die out completely for awhile. The Hi8 cameras themselves, don’t look all that different from the newer format cameras.

I was looking at user reviews for the Hi8 camcorders, and the most recent ones were from like 2003! It seems that most people have gone the digital camcorder route. I know I will. I’m not crazy. I wonder how many electronic devices are trash now: old VCRs, laserdisc players (!), cassette players, even cd walkmans seem passe in urban areas. It kind of sad when you think about it. But if the technology and the world evolves, you gotta upgrade to keep up with them.