Adam's Camera! Dead?!?!?!?

In August of 2000 I bought a Sony Handycam DCR-PC100. My first DV cam. It replaced my Triassic-era camera, The Video 8 in all of it's 1993 Glory.



My life became a film when I got the lightweight and technologically viable PC-100. I took it everywhere, Scotland, New York, Los Angles, Alabama and shot everything. I shot probably 300-400 tapes with the PC-100. And in 2001 I bought a computer with Final Cut Pro 2 and Began to make movies using the PC-100 as my video deck.

I don't know if you know anything about the longevity of video cameras, but there's one cardinal rule. If you want to get the most life out of your video camera, DO NOT USE IT AS A FUCKING DECK!!! Why? Drumtime. I don't know the specifics, but any playhead (drum) on any video camera (or vcr for that matter) only has a certain number of spins to it's life, the more it spins the closer it gets to death. The reason you don't use your camera as a deck is because you use drumtime that could be used for recording by playing back, and inevitably when editing you double your playback time by viewing and then again when importing. Aside from spinning some 36,000 hours of drumtime just recording (it also spins when you're not recording if you have the camera on, so...maybe 72,000 hours?) I have used it as a deck on EVERY SINGLE FILM I'VE EVER MADE, Phudi Mart, Ed Bus, All 35 of the webshorts, not to mention countless attempts at making the fucking Schadenfreude documentary, and tens of other aborted projects. 5 years of shooting, playback, and editing. And last week it finally died...BUT it's a $200 electronic problem. IT LIVES IT STILL LIVES! I love it! The PC100 will never die.