CompuServe Messages

Steve: >Thanks for the insights. My informal survey of nearby camera/video shops supports your claim — one sales person claimed S/VHS-C was to camcorders what Beta is to VCR's…< Well, not *quite* that bad–though VHS-C & S-VHS-C never caught on like the 8mm video formats did… (probably has something to do w/only being able to get 30 minutes on a fairly-fragile tape <g>) >ironic when you consider that the professionals use Betacam for their work (although I don't think that's the same Beta).< It isn't, exactly–it uses a *form* of Betamax tape, but runs it through the machine 5 or 6 times faster to get more information per frame on there. (Someone once told me you could, in a pinch, use plain Betamax tape in older Betacam camcorders, but they didn't recommend it since the home use Betamax tape wasn't designed to whip through the cassettes at the speed Betacam recorded at.) Best, Tim