Today at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in the Entertainment Quarter (the old Fox Studios), I do believe I saw history being made – or ending depending on if you are a half glass full or empty sort of person.

For you see Dear Reader, this probably marked the end of tape as a medium in camcorders as we know them, as Canon unveiled their XF305 and XF300 professional camcorders to replace the old XHA1 and XHG1 units.

Instead of tape, in a world first, these new camcorders run high capacity CF cards, up to 64GB which we were told could store up to 4 hours of hi def video. And with two card slots each, with seamless switching from one to the other, the amount you can shoot is officially endless, as long as you can keep feeding cards in anyway. There is also an SD slot to grab stills that can be shot in hi-def resolution while the camera is still rolling.

By David Hague

David Hague is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He now lives back in WA (Mandurah) on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety (he is on the Roadwise committee for Mandurah City Council), fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com, vbthedog@gmail.com via Twitter via @vbthedog. or

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