But is it less or more confusing than that? He gets 8 by adding up all the storage mediums - miniDV tape, small format DVD disks, built in hard drives or flash memory - then doubles it (HD vvs standard definition) to get eight.
Which is grandstanding just a little, if you ask me. And why stop there? Why not look at the types of High Definition, or windows versus Quicktime formats, or the different codecs... Suddenly the 8 is looking a little slim. Perhaps like chaos theory, the answer comes down to the level of detail you choose to look at - like the classic problem of measuring a coastline. Do you measure around every peddle, at low tide or high tide? How much detail do you include?
Anyway, Jack's 8 does point to a basic truth - turbulent times are upon us. For the consumer and for the video professional both.
However, his article contains the basic fallacy number one of people brought up in the analogue era. The existence of competing formats, he says, "raises the question of whether you will still be able to view your movies in 10 or 20 years' time."
Er, nope. That's one question that it doesn't raise. However you capture to the device you hold in your hand the destination is always the same - onto a computer hard drive. Edit. Back out to - well, whatever format is available at the time.
Once in the digital domain we are far freer from formats and devices than we ever were in the analogue era. Maybe Jack will join us at some point?
