I've had a Hitachi 8mm camcorder (not even Hi8) for 9 years now. It was a very generous gift from my parents shortly before our twins were born. I actually use it more often than most people I know. I probably average at least twice a month. My philosophy is to have frequent, short intervals of footage, rather than major life events--think performances, birthday parties--at long intervals, in their stultifying entirety..
But I hadn't felt compelled to upgrade. I know MiniDV is better quality, but what the heck, 8 mm seems okay, espeically if you are dubbing to VHS. Of course, that is now a thing of the past! Anyway, over a year ago, I vowed my next camcorder would be tapeless: either high-capacity compact flash, or direct-to-DVD.
Well, a few months ago, my 8mm gave up the ghost. And no way was I going to spring for the $900 Sony that does direct-to-DVD. So I reconciled myself to sticking with tape. I was complaining about this to my buddy Florencio, and he showed me the error of my analysis. Digital tape is fine: it is easily re-usable, so you only need a few tapes. The whole point is to move your content off the tape and onto CD/DVD as soon as possible. And then erase and re-use the tape.
I know, this is probably incredibly obvious, but I wrestled with dubbing 8mm-to-VHS for so many years (access the back of the VCR, lots of wires, slow), that I became falsely fixated by my dislike of tape. The key difference here is that the copy is digital, so there is no need to preserve the tape as the sole original, first-generation master: all further copies can be made, at high speed, from the first DVD.
9:49:40 PM 
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