In late summer of 2010 Grendel Films made the leap to 100% high definition video acquisition.

Not only is it HiDef, but tapeless as well. I, as a photographer, always hated film. You poured your life into your work

for a client then handed it over to someone running a processor, or worse, hand processing your film. I have had too many

shoots ruined by lab rats who didn't know or didn't care enough to produce good work, leaving me and other photographers

holding the bag, explaining to their clients that the lab screwed it up...sort of like "the dog ate my homework". Tape is like

that as well. Just because you don't need it handled by a processor doesn't mean it's free from mishaps. In the days of

3/4 inch most of us fought with the dreaded "slack tape warning" displayed in the viewfinder as your portable deck shut

down hard. Camcorders were not much better. Camcorders have a drive mechanism and drum assembly. All it takes is

one or both of those to get a millimeter out of adjustment and, once again, you are down. this time, however, you are

somewhat closer to the "dog ate it" explanation as what ate your tape is the very thing you trusted to record it in the first

place. The last straw for me was a $900 bill at a repair center for a new transport. I sold the unit soon after.

          So, Grendel Films is, ironically, "filmless" as we only use digital still imaging and tapeless because we use the relatively

new h.264 mpg4 high def format and store everything on SDHC cards. My expensive playback deck, $2500, is now

a $30 card reader. Life is once again good!

The Panasonic AG-HMC 70. We have two. Best tools since the hammer!