Banzi!!!
 

Place your bets now!!!

How long do you think it will be before MiniDV has had its days?

1) 2 Years?

2) 5 Years?

3) 10 Years?

4) Never?

Suggestions and views would be appreciated.

All the best,

Ed Smith

P.S.
This follows on from the thread "35mm CCD" in the film look forum.

I believe that it has a good 10 years remaining, Ed.

I don't really see any practical replacement mainstream medium on the horizon. DVD/MPEG? Naw, poor form factor, etc. Flash? Naw, capacity's too low. MicroDrives? Maybe, but current reliability is problemmatic. Hard drives? Maybe, but with the same caveat for MicroDrives. Also, from a financial industry perspective, the hard disk storage industry on the whole is in quite a funk and barely produces enough cash to pay its long term debt service. So innovation beyond basic capacity increases will be hard to come by any time soon.

MiniDV is still a relative newcomer and has only become widely available within the past 3-5 yrs. The (few) manufacturers who tooled-up to make these tapes are still paying for their investments.

Yup, at least 10 yrs.

I'm sure it will be around for 10 years or so, however, whatever will replace will probably start making its inroads in 5 years.

There are several problems with changing formats. Probably the biggest is that none of the manufacturers know how much bandwidth and storage will be required. After that there is the question of what media can meet these specs economically.

The final question will be will the manufacturers make a consortium or proprietary? Proprietary will certainly slow down development.

I'll take 5 years. However I say in 5 years it will be in the same boat as Hi-8 and VHS-C are now. A low end format for those who can't afford or don't need the lastest technology.

A new format will be available in 2 to 3 years and mini DV will be in serious decline in 5 years. The only economical format will be tape. The next format will be higher resolution and will require in the range of 6MB to 10MB per second. At 10MB per second, a standard MPEG 2 DVD would last about 8 minutes. Even if they doubled or tripled the capacity, they'd be nowhere near 60 minute lengths. Video tape, you gotta love it.

Jeff

10 years, but they'll be new formats cropping up. Most will fail, however, like Sony's microMV.

10 years or more
 

5 to 10 years for the 25Mbits format, but an eventually 50Mbits HiDef format will extend the live (25mbit) for more then 10 years

Thought I'll add my 2 cents.

I'm guessing that the format has many years left init, and will be available for many years to come. As mentioned new formats will come in its place and MDV will probably take the place of a Hi8 cassette at the moment.

Since MiniDV is also used throughout the industry, it has a lot longer life left than Hi8 and also some of the professional broadcast tapes like U-Matic.

The analogue tapes will probably become discontinued in 5 years time. Since Sony has stopped production on all 8mm camcorders, I'm guessing other manufacturers will follow suit.