history repeats itself ;)

[Hrvoje Simic]

Here we were, the 20th century, finally at a point where we were aware we'd want to keep some stuff for posterity's sake - and it is still gone.

It is gone because manufacturer wants it to be gone. Within 5-7 years.

 

[Patrick Grossien]

I think comparing an Alexa to a phonograph is a BIT unfair ;-)

why not? the phonograph has a bigger horn.
ergo phonograph vs. alexa: phonograph wins

muhahaahaaa
:emote_hippie:

 

[Patrick Grossien]

I think comparing an Alexa to a phonograph is a BIT unfair ;-)

oh, and comparing an epic to an old ipod is quite unfair, too. although the new ones also record moving pictures. hehe

hmmm... which makes me wonder...
I propose the creation of an MP3 module.

 

[Francesco Bonomo]

Sometimes, this makes me sad. There are lots of plastics we'd assumed would stick with us for thousands of years, which turn out to have half-lives of mere decades. Here we were, the 20th century, finally at a point where we were aware we'd want to keep some stuff for posterity's sake - and it is still gone. We're still not very good at it. It's probably not impossible to produce an Epic which will still work in 50 years, but things like touchscreen components... they haven't been around long enough to know just how they'll age.

I know how you feel, Pascal, but while I think it's part of the evolution of technology (and I have nothing against that per se), on the other hand it's also a matter of choice. A few months ago I found some black and white negatives my mother shot in the late '60s. I checked my dark room chemicals, turned my enlarger on, grab some nice paper, and voilà, 10 minutes later I was looking at beautiful prints made from a 40 year old negative, along with some pictures I had shot a week earlier.
On the other hand, 8 VHS-C tapes I shot 18 years ago during a wonderful trip in the US are gone: some (3) have deteriorated to the point that are almost blank, the others are still good-ish, too bad the quality of the images is so poor and it's almost impossible to find players and/or adapters to transfer them to digital files. I'm glad we brought a reflex with us back then and we still have dozens of negatives safely stored.

 

[Pascal Scheffers]

It is gone because manufacturer wants it to be gone. Within 5-7 years.

It is not that simple. That could be true for regular use, but I'm talking about careful use and conserving things. Manufacturers will try to get away with building things 'optimally' for their consumers, which is fair enough. We don't seem to demand things to last longer either. Or stuff becomes obsolete. But lots of things turn out to be a lot less durable than even the manufacturers or science thought. Museums are having a really hard time preserving things made from materials you'd think would be easy to store at first glance. Like plexiglas. That stuff just degrades rather rapidly.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

reduser.net getting more pathetic...

 

[Ed Carlton]

Soft and fuzzy is due to low resolution and I hardly think that qualifies as euphoric.

Thanks Phil for another very helpful post. Yeah these images are low resolution. I'll keep this in mind next time I shoot a zone plate commercial. In the meantime these chart posts are irrelevant to what I use film and digital cameras for. This is an Red, Arri, Sony, Canon tech fest, it's not my world. In my world we have to shoot great images with little or no time over long hours.
The spec war gives me agita.