The Art of Retro Technology: A Nostalgic Trip Through Time

As I sat in front of my old camera, a Canon DV, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. The device, with its 40 optical zoom and 2,000 digital zoom capabilities, was a marvel of technology in the early 2000s. But it wasn't just the camera itself that brought back memories; it was the entire process of recording and editing footage. I had spent countless hours in front of this machine, experimenting with different techniques and trying to master its quirks.

One of my favorite memories associated with this camera was roasting a marshmallow over its lens. Yes, you read that right – I actually did that. The resulting mess was... let's just say it wasn't the most pleasant experience for anyone involved. But hey, at least it made for a great story to tell later on.

As I began to set up my camera for a shot of the Space Needle in Seattle, I couldn't help but think about the many adventures I had with this device. From hiking up the Willis Tower in Chicago to capturing stunning views from the top of the Space Needle, this camera was always by my side. And even though its picture quality may not be as impressive today, it still holds a special place in my heart.

I decided to conduct an experiment to test the camera's capabilities. I recorded a few minutes of footage and then imported it into Final Cut Pro. But when I tried to import the tape, something strange happened – the software seemed to be having trouble separating the clips based on the cuts on the tape. It was as if the old technology had somehow managed to outsmart the new one.

Undeterred, I decided to try again. This time, I used the camera's built-in DV settings and imported it directly into Final Cut Pro. To my delight, the software successfully separated the clips based on the cuts, and the footage began to play in all its standard definition glory. It was like a trip back to the early days of digital video recording.

But just as things were going smoothly, my camera suddenly stopped connecting to the computer. I tried jiggling it around, hoping that would fix the issue, but nothing seemed to work. The screen flickered and went dark, leaving me wondering what had gone wrong. It was like the camera was trying to tell me something – that it was time to move on from its old ways.

Determined to test the picture quality of my camera, I decided to relaunch Final Cut Pro and import a new clip. To my surprise, the footage looked... not great. The colors were muted, and the overall image was somewhat lacking. But despite its imperfections, there was something charming about it – a certain nostalgic quality that reminded me of a bygone era.

As I watched the footage play on my Retina display, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. It was like looking back at old home videos from when I was younger. The image may not have been perfect, but it was certainly... memorable. And that's exactly what I had wanted to capture – a glimpse into the past, a reminder of where technology has come from.

In the end, my experiment with the Canon DV was a success. Not just because it worked, but because it allowed me to relive some of my favorite memories and experiences. It may not be the most high-tech device in the world, but it holds a special place in my heart – a reminder of the power of nostalgia and the beauty of retro technology.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right well something is spazzing out down here all right take two what do you want from me holy hey guys how you doing really that's great well I'll tell you what this is now part dose of our little tape conversion chaos if you have not seen part oh no check that out during the downtime while I scavenged the bowels and depths and abysus of this world to find a freaking working DV camera I spent time cataloging these tapes with the other camera which again supported playback so I was able to watch fast-forward and label but I wasn't able to import none of the other three cameras I had access to worked but now we found a fourth one finally let's see if it works also if you're curious this is what a tape looks like outside of the cassette container yeah they're longer than I thought you can make like a pompom out of this or something yeah just for grins and giggles so here's the plan of attack we are going back to the MacBook Pro because I have ruled out through the process of elimination that the newer hardware was not an issue but it was something wrong with the camera so we're going back to our convenient conversion technology and a new camera this Panasonic all right so we're switching brands all the other ones were Sony's now we have a Panasonic to come save the day I have a Final Cut library open that is just for DV tape archives and again we are going from two pin firewire to 6-pin firewire to firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 or regular thunderbolts a lot of conversion steps a lot of room for failure I am excited let's plug her in helps if you do it the right way move over night now you can come back there you go that's a good camera that's that doesn't look too unprofessional does it that looks like crap actually I'm gonna throw it over the back we are good to go so let's boot it up oh that's a problem okay so now pants are being shat I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure the d-pad shouldn't look that jacked-up this thing looks like it's been abused it's been loved it's been used yeah it won't even with the battery and I just charged the battery to like I just took it off the cradle and the light turned on so the battery was working but this must not and I don't have any other batteries or any other power cords oh man four cameras you think by now my luck would shap no who would think that honestly with my track record on this show no all right I'm going full speed ahead tonight I'm gonna contact every person on the planet that has ever bought a DV camera in their lives and I will find one that freakin works so we could finally get this project working because four cameras later and we are now on part two of this tech video log and we haven't had a single byte of footage captured holy can you talk you like the odds of all four cameras failing like do you have a 5 on your AP test for statistics cuz if you do you qualify for this challenge take it and if you win you get nothing you just maybe get some praise in the comments but seriously what are the odds this is insane so I'm gonna find one and we're finally gonna get this working because wow it's been this much already these like one and a half parts and four cameras not a bite of footage that doesn't add up man that does not add up okay I will be back stick around just just as chill come on stay with me stay with me on this come on well we are now on what camera number five so I contacted someone who was nice enough to dig around the scrap heaps of their old workplace and bone Appetit it is a mini DV tape based device but it's actually got some like pretty nice looking glass on here this must have been a pretty high-end model for back in the day so let's plug it in we're gonna go to the laptop Final Cut Pro plug it in make sure this frickin thing works fifth time's the charm right come on let's let's just do it okay cameras booted up that's a step further than last time and I have this really old tape with some oh my gosh some super super old computer Klan videos on it let's just get ready to vomit at this experience and let's see if it works you know it might help it might help if I actually hook up the conversion technology so let's do stop whining at me let's hook up the Thunderbolt first run it around the back into the DVD port DV in good start close the bay and pray Heavenly Father please let this work in port media oh my gosh Canon DM gl - oh my gosh it's actually looking at the table oh oh happy day happy day okay I have not captured inside a Final Cut Pro 10 in a long-ass time because when Final Cut Pro 10 came out I didn't actually use DV tape but the fact that this feature is still here that is mucho bueno or is it muy bueno muy bueno sorry Spanish people I suck at Spanish all right let's see can we rewind oh wait is that play rewind all right let's try it rewind okay well it's communicating with the device that's good and okay here we go timecode is synced that's a good start let's a randomly hit play and see what we find what horrors lie on this tape find out now oh just as I thought it's the old I touch OS tape that that's embarrassing it was a concept where we had this giant touchscreen operating system but it's really just like an Epson projector with timed out animations but hey it was pretty cool for you know 13 year olds come on yeah oh man this goes way back oh man this this this is a time machine Wow our old voices oh dear well okay good we finally have a camera that works this is freakin amazing let's look at some more tape computer showdown huh yeah back when that series was shot on DV tape because well screen recorders were really limited and I didn't even really know what a screen recorder was at the time so I couldn't capture animations too well on my old computer but I was able to film the screen with a camera very MacGyver but it kind of worked it looked like crap but it kind of worked let's throw that in here okay just beeped at me and it said remove the cassette okay it it didn't like that we're gonna do that again all right take two ah what do you want from me okay this tape doesn't want to work all right how about this you would have to be a real longtime viewer to recognize this stuff my life in Reverse cat versus laser pointer the boot race epic spy like did anyone see that stuff when it first came out that was probably from the day of this tech video log that stuff was probably released eight or nine years ago let's enjoy oh it's my kitty again when he was so weird oh oh he's so tiny he's a big cat now but oh he was so tiny back then and there's my cat again chasing a laser pointer you know fun fact it wasn't this video but it was a similar video starring my kitty which was the first video I ever made money with on the internet I actually sold it to the cheeseburger Network you know the guys that own failblog and all that stuff that was basically how I started making money on the internet yeah cliche yeah it's a cap but guess what it worked I just happened to have a camera and I filmed them I'm not gonna show the actual video because I sold the rights to it but alright well something is spazzing out down here the time codes weren't showing up for a while and now it's just doing this doing this wonderful banding crap the tape must be damaged or something but yeah marble blast this was like one of the oh that's loud anyway yeah that was one of the earliest things we ever did in the computer clan we were really involved in that community back then it was a fun game and yeah again we filmed screens with cameras and DV tape because yeah what's a screen recorder something Lux walked on I don't know man people were not funny in the nineties yeah we just filmed them with cameras oh good times yeah laughs a few months but this was one of the things that put us on the map actually this was one of the earliest things we got into it was a community we really got into okay uh-huh I am currently rewinding this tape because according to my cataloging label very technical high-end system here my pcs on fire is on this tape oh my gosh that goes way back that is like some of the earlier days of the computer clan for sure and that's as you can probably imagine that's when we set a computer on fire yeah that was a good video it is refusing to rewind though okay all of my all of my controls are stuck on that makes no sense let's try that again and now we got beach ball of death all right come on we're back let's do it and nothing all right unplug it and plug it back in right that always works oh the horror this is when we beat the crap out of a power book duo that was a big mistake I really regret doing that because I remembered I have a duo doc that would have been the perfect computer to use with the duo doc accessory but I broke it yeah bored bored teenagers yeah that was not a good idea that was a beautiful vintage computer I'm so sorry I had two of them I think I gave the other one to a friend and I never saw it again but crap look at that poor screen Wow what did I do all right let's forget about that here it is ladies and gentlemen and yes roasting a marshmallow over that that was a smart idea yeah if anyone remembers the guy that did that I was like I'm gonna eat the marshmallow and I'm like no you just burned it over some toxins and they're gonna put it in your mouth long story short he put it in his he put it in his mouth I mean he didn't really like it but yeah that that was disgusting that was fun to do that was a real safe experiment to do indoors in a closed environment with limited ventilation smart idea smart idea well this is my trip to Seattle and Alaska yeah that's the Space Needle view right there very out-of-focus view Oh beautiful cinematography can you're a genius there we go going up the elevator yeah I was really up high filming up there and just recently I was actually in Chicago at the top of the Willis Tower that was a lot of fun to photograph beautiful view yeah lots of old goodies on these tapes wow that was shot on this bad boy I think so I just wanted to reiterate on the zooming capabilities of this bad boy which has 40 optical zoom and 2,000 digital zooms so this is me at the top of the Space Needle like in 2009 I think right check this out this is pretty cray cray so I'm zooming in zooming in zooming in I think that's the optical limit now I'm going digital and I'm like way in to this freaking window this building like Oh zoom I'll pull up like a pull-up and let's zoom out now just check that out what Wow that thing we had one hell of a zoom feature holy balls all right so now let's do a little capture test we're gonna hit import and as you can see we have our time counting up right there now the interesting thing is there is a cut there in there that's actually what I want to test so in Final Cut Express for back in the day when I use that when you imported a tape I don't know if I missed a certain button or something but the whole tape would import is one clip but yep here we go Final Cut Pro 10 actually separates clips based on cuts on the tape very smart I do like that all right so that little test worked look at that beautiful standard definition DV type footage now I think it would be cool to see how this camera works nowadays so I'm going to record part of this tech video log with this Canon all right well new development I guess now the camera isn't connecting to the computer again that's not good I know there's a lot of conversion technology taking place here but it should still work it's reading as DV in on the screen there should it be blinking did it normally blink like is that an animation thing or is it like intermittently cutting out I am so uncertain because like here's our footage from before it was clearly functioning oh that's not good oh come on okay I just jiggled everything and now it should be fine okay let's close this up sit right there and import our lovely creation well okay give it more than two seconds okay all right let's see what's up this is gonna look pretty meta soon you know if this actually works okay well we have a picture here it's not showing up here though okay let's try let's just relaunch final slip Pro there we go now we got picture alright let's seek back okay obviously don't know how to do that I'll just do a normal rewind close that up and import alright this is almost like computer clan history in history it's like meta history import here we go yeah it still doesn't want to capture this I don't know why it was playing does this does this thing like need to be open it shouldn't need to be open okay this makes no sense it was literally just working it's like when I pause it for like a second it stops okay it's going import there we go it's got to work now alright we got past the five-second mark whew boy well for some reason I don't have levels even though I saw levels on the camera while I was recording we're not getting levels on playback but I'll still call that a win I really just wanted to test the picture quality wow that looks really bad on a Retina display it's not too terrible though especially since it's in a decently lit environment but yeah old standard definition beautiful quality well what a nostalgic time-travel experience that was it took some doing but we finally got it to work Thank You canon for saving the day I'm calling this a win guys thanks for taking along catch the crazy and pass it on youall right well something is spazzing out down here all right take two what do you want from me holy hey guys how you doing really that's great well I'll tell you what this is now part dose of our little tape conversion chaos if you have not seen part oh no check that out during the downtime while I scavenged the bowels and depths and abysus of this world to find a freaking working DV camera I spent time cataloging these tapes with the other camera which again supported playback so I was able to watch fast-forward and label but I wasn't able to import none of the other three cameras I had access to worked but now we found a fourth one finally let's see if it works also if you're curious this is what a tape looks like outside of the cassette container yeah they're longer than I thought you can make like a pompom out of this or something yeah just for grins and giggles so here's the plan of attack we are going back to the MacBook Pro because I have ruled out through the process of elimination that the newer hardware was not an issue but it was something wrong with the camera so we're going back to our convenient conversion technology and a new camera this Panasonic all right so we're switching brands all the other ones were Sony's now we have a Panasonic to come save the day I have a Final Cut library open that is just for DV tape archives and again we are going from two pin firewire to 6-pin firewire to firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 or regular thunderbolts a lot of conversion steps a lot of room for failure I am excited let's plug her in helps if you do it the right way move over night now you can come back there you go that's a good camera that's that doesn't look too unprofessional does it that looks like crap actually I'm gonna throw it over the back we are good to go so let's boot it up oh that's a problem okay so now pants are being shat I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure the d-pad shouldn't look that jacked-up this thing looks like it's been abused it's been loved it's been used yeah it won't even with the battery and I just charged the battery to like I just took it off the cradle and the light turned on so the battery was working but this must not and I don't have any other batteries or any other power cords oh man four cameras you think by now my luck would shap no who would think that honestly with my track record on this show no all right I'm going full speed ahead tonight I'm gonna contact every person on the planet that has ever bought a DV camera in their lives and I will find one that freakin works so we could finally get this project working because four cameras later and we are now on part two of this tech video log and we haven't had a single byte of footage captured holy can you talk you like the odds of all four cameras failing like do you have a 5 on your AP test for statistics cuz if you do you qualify for this challenge take it and if you win you get nothing you just maybe get some praise in the comments but seriously what are the odds this is insane so I'm gonna find one and we're finally gonna get this working because wow it's been this much already these like one and a half parts and four cameras not a bite of footage that doesn't add up man that does not add up okay I will be back stick around just just as chill come on stay with me stay with me on this come on well we are now on what camera number five so I contacted someone who was nice enough to dig around the scrap heaps of their old workplace and bone Appetit it is a mini DV tape based device but it's actually got some like pretty nice looking glass on here this must have been a pretty high-end model for back in the day so let's plug it in we're gonna go to the laptop Final Cut Pro plug it in make sure this frickin thing works fifth time's the charm right come on let's let's just do it okay cameras booted up that's a step further than last time and I have this really old tape with some oh my gosh some super super old computer Klan videos on it let's just get ready to vomit at this experience and let's see if it works you know it might help it might help if I actually hook up the conversion technology so let's do stop whining at me let's hook up the Thunderbolt first run it around the back into the DVD port DV in good start close the bay and pray Heavenly Father please let this work in port media oh my gosh Canon DM gl - oh my gosh it's actually looking at the table oh oh happy day happy day okay I have not captured inside a Final Cut Pro 10 in a long-ass time because when Final Cut Pro 10 came out I didn't actually use DV tape but the fact that this feature is still here that is mucho bueno or is it muy bueno muy bueno sorry Spanish people I suck at Spanish all right let's see can we rewind oh wait is that play rewind all right let's try it rewind okay well it's communicating with the device that's good and okay here we go timecode is synced that's a good start let's a randomly hit play and see what we find what horrors lie on this tape find out now oh just as I thought it's the old I touch OS tape that that's embarrassing it was a concept where we had this giant touchscreen operating system but it's really just like an Epson projector with timed out animations but hey it was pretty cool for you know 13 year olds come on yeah oh man this goes way back oh man this this this is a time machine Wow our old voices oh dear well okay good we finally have a camera that works this is freakin amazing let's look at some more tape computer showdown huh yeah back when that series was shot on DV tape because well screen recorders were really limited and I didn't even really know what a screen recorder was at the time so I couldn't capture animations too well on my old computer but I was able to film the screen with a camera very MacGyver but it kind of worked it looked like crap but it kind of worked let's throw that in here okay just beeped at me and it said remove the cassette okay it it didn't like that we're gonna do that again all right take two ah what do you want from me okay this tape doesn't want to work all right how about this you would have to be a real longtime viewer to recognize this stuff my life in Reverse cat versus laser pointer the boot race epic spy like did anyone see that stuff when it first came out that was probably from the day of this tech video log that stuff was probably released eight or nine years ago let's enjoy oh it's my kitty again when he was so weird oh oh he's so tiny he's a big cat now but oh he was so tiny back then and there's my cat again chasing a laser pointer you know fun fact it wasn't this video but it was a similar video starring my kitty which was the first video I ever made money with on the internet I actually sold it to the cheeseburger Network you know the guys that own failblog and all that stuff that was basically how I started making money on the internet yeah cliche yeah it's a cap but guess what it worked I just happened to have a camera and I filmed them I'm not gonna show the actual video because I sold the rights to it but alright well something is spazzing out down here the time codes weren't showing up for a while and now it's just doing this doing this wonderful banding crap the tape must be damaged or something but yeah marble blast this was like one of the oh that's loud anyway yeah that was one of the earliest things we ever did in the computer clan we were really involved in that community back then it was a fun game and yeah again we filmed screens with cameras and DV tape because yeah what's a screen recorder something Lux walked on I don't know man people were not funny in the nineties yeah we just filmed them with cameras oh good times yeah laughs a few months but this was one of the things that put us on the map actually this was one of the earliest things we got into it was a community we really got into okay uh-huh I am currently rewinding this tape because according to my cataloging label very technical high-end system here my pcs on fire is on this tape oh my gosh that goes way back that is like some of the earlier days of the computer clan for sure and that's as you can probably imagine that's when we set a computer on fire yeah that was a good video it is refusing to rewind though okay all of my all of my controls are stuck on that makes no sense let's try that again and now we got beach ball of death all right come on we're back let's do it and nothing all right unplug it and plug it back in right that always works oh the horror this is when we beat the crap out of a power book duo that was a big mistake I really regret doing that because I remembered I have a duo doc that would have been the perfect computer to use with the duo doc accessory but I broke it yeah bored bored teenagers yeah that was not a good idea that was a beautiful vintage computer I'm so sorry I had two of them I think I gave the other one to a friend and I never saw it again but crap look at that poor screen Wow what did I do all right let's forget about that here it is ladies and gentlemen and yes roasting a marshmallow over that that was a smart idea yeah if anyone remembers the guy that did that I was like I'm gonna eat the marshmallow and I'm like no you just burned it over some toxins and they're gonna put it in your mouth long story short he put it in his he put it in his mouth I mean he didn't really like it but yeah that that was disgusting that was fun to do that was a real safe experiment to do indoors in a closed environment with limited ventilation smart idea smart idea well this is my trip to Seattle and Alaska yeah that's the Space Needle view right there very out-of-focus view Oh beautiful cinematography can you're a genius there we go going up the elevator yeah I was really up high filming up there and just recently I was actually in Chicago at the top of the Willis Tower that was a lot of fun to photograph beautiful view yeah lots of old goodies on these tapes wow that was shot on this bad boy I think so I just wanted to reiterate on the zooming capabilities of this bad boy which has 40 optical zoom and 2,000 digital zooms so this is me at the top of the Space Needle like in 2009 I think right check this out this is pretty cray cray so I'm zooming in zooming in zooming in I think that's the optical limit now I'm going digital and I'm like way in to this freaking window this building like Oh zoom I'll pull up like a pull-up and let's zoom out now just check that out what Wow that thing we had one hell of a zoom feature holy balls all right so now let's do a little capture test we're gonna hit import and as you can see we have our time counting up right there now the interesting thing is there is a cut there in there that's actually what I want to test so in Final Cut Express for back in the day when I use that when you imported a tape I don't know if I missed a certain button or something but the whole tape would import is one clip but yep here we go Final Cut Pro 10 actually separates clips based on cuts on the tape very smart I do like that all right so that little test worked look at that beautiful standard definition DV type footage now I think it would be cool to see how this camera works nowadays so I'm going to record part of this tech video log with this Canon all right well new development I guess now the camera isn't connecting to the computer again that's not good I know there's a lot of conversion technology taking place here but it should still work it's reading as DV in on the screen there should it be blinking did it normally blink like is that an animation thing or is it like intermittently cutting out I am so uncertain because like here's our footage from before it was clearly functioning oh that's not good oh come on okay I just jiggled everything and now it should be fine okay let's close this up sit right there and import our lovely creation well okay give it more than two seconds okay all right let's see what's up this is gonna look pretty meta soon you know if this actually works okay well we have a picture here it's not showing up here though okay let's try let's just relaunch final slip Pro there we go now we got picture alright let's seek back okay obviously don't know how to do that I'll just do a normal rewind close that up and import alright this is almost like computer clan history in history it's like meta history import here we go yeah it still doesn't want to capture this I don't know why it was playing does this does this thing like need to be open it shouldn't need to be open okay this makes no sense it was literally just working it's like when I pause it for like a second it stops okay it's going import there we go it's got to work now alright we got past the five-second mark whew boy well for some reason I don't have levels even though I saw levels on the camera while I was recording we're not getting levels on playback but I'll still call that a win I really just wanted to test the picture quality wow that looks really bad on a Retina display it's not too terrible though especially since it's in a decently lit environment but yeah old standard definition beautiful quality well what a nostalgic time-travel experience that was it took some doing but we finally got it to work Thank You canon for saving the day I'm calling this a win guys thanks for taking along catch the crazy and pass it on you\n"