At last year's NAB show, Panasonic debuted its P2 camera system that uses arrays of secure digital memory cards to record video not to a hard drive - but to solid-state digital memory (no moving parts). This technology evolution promises not only "direct to clip" efficiency, but also the end to all the motors, belts, pulleys and other mechanical paraphernalia that goes with moving tape across spinning recording heads in today's camcorders. And that will almost surely increase reliability and have a huge positive impact on service and maintenance issues.

Yep, the times are changing, and fast. Something I was reminded about when I recently went shopping with my son. He wanted music from a band not on iTunes, so I took him to the local mall in search of Music CDs. When we got home, I watched him struggle to dig through all the plastic packaging, the security box, the plastic wrap, the jewel case -- then finally import the contents of the disc to his laptop and iPod. Then I watched him throw away the whole plastic mess, including the CD!

His comment: "What's the point of all this stupid plastic?"

I glanced at my rack of plastic boxes filled with plastic DV tapes and wondered if he wasn't on to something. For right now, I like the security of knowing my footage is backed up on tape even if I also capture direct-to-edit. But I can clearly see a future where sending plastic tape shuffling through a camera will seem as "old school" as playing music by spinning 45-rpm vinyl records is today.

It's progress. And it's inevitable.

Contributing Editor Bill Davis writes, shoots, edits, and does voiceover work for a variety of corporate and industrial clients.

One of the earliest pro direct-to-edit units was the Sony DSR-DU1 -- a slickly designed hard drive for Sony pro cameras.

The design and most of the implementation was superb. But there was a flaw. Sony used a proprietary codec in their implementation of DV recording so that instead of being able to "drag and drop" the files directly into the timeline, non-Sony software users had to render every clip! Today, the typical direct-to-edit unit allows the user to set file compression (.avi, .mov, uncompressed, etc.) prior to shooting to maintain drag and drop compatibility with modern video editing applications.