Kinda of a neat and tight analogy - until you realize a "DVD burner" or a "Betamax" - isn't a truck required to haul 80K lbs of freight uphill and down at acceptable traffic speeds. Nor are trucks "low material input" devices very responsive to the "economy of scale" in manufacture. Nor are they anywhere as cheap as a couple of grands' worth of electronic goobers intended to amuse some hobbyist/snob either.
Scuse me a moment...who is being the snob?
Take another look at that camera. I mean, ACTUALLY TAKE A REAL LOOK. We're not talking about just the DVD burners Mech, that was just one example of many.
Low material input? Couple grands worth of electronic goobers?
Amuse some hobbyist?
I really wonder if we have anything to talk about, because I've been in your world and I have both a respect and an appreciation for it.
The moment you toss me off, an Emmy nominated and Telly Award winnning cinematographer, as a hobbyist and a snob lollygagging around with a "couple grands worth of electronic goobers" I lose all respect not for the truck but for the goober wielding the wrench. Dude, seriously...you need to read more carefully.
It's not just the DVD burners that have gone down in price.
Technology as a whole goes down in price, even in the automotive world because if it didn't we wouldn't be seeing Corvettes that do zero to sixty in 3.8 seconds while getting 25 miles per gallon on the freeway in 2011.
I happen to know what it used to cost to coax a 3.8 second 0-60 launch from a Vette in the old days, because a stock Vette did not DO zero to sixty in 3.8 seconds in the old days unless you applied fifty thousand dollars worth of parts and labor to an already expensive car.
And so you not only wound up spending way more than the cost of a 2011 Vette, you also only got a FRACTION of the lifespan, because engines weren't as durable back then either.
And you sure as HELL couldn't squeeze 25 mpg out of your creation either.
Today's stock automobiles deliver many times more performance and fuel efficiency, AND durability than their predecessors.
Even the damn ODOMETERS have an extra digit now because it's no longer a miracle when you get over a hundred thou on the clock like it used to be.
I also know that, contrary to popular belief, a 2009 Chevy Malibu will utterly destroy a 1959 Bel-Air in a head on collision, because I've seen it on video in a crash test.
One would naturally assume the opposite because we're conditioned to believe the old cars were tanks and would make mincemeat out of anything that they hit. Not true.
My point is, we get a LOT MORE bang for the buck these days.
Trucking industry not providing the same payout?
I dunno Mech, they oughta be. There is NO SCIENTIFIC or economic reason they shouldn't be.
Trucks are serious six digit/unit capital investments with a finite life-span and a (increasingly) steep depreciation curve.
Yeah listen here Bub, so is professional broadcast grade video kit, either you can read English or you can't. I happen to think I made a pretty good case for that.
Here's what I am getting from the above statement:
Trucks are serious pieces of equipment, your business is just crap and it's not serious...like trucks, that is. We really are seriously serious...seriously.
Yeah okayfinewhatever Mechie, do people take you seriously?
I find it difficult but I am willing to perservere.
(The proposed legislation cited makes that curve a cliff - at least to the Owner-Operator Community !) All current generation OTR/heavy haul trucks are "custom-built" in that the purchaser specifies their desired combinations of engine/transmission/rears/suspension, cab and interior appointments from a menu offered by the manufacturer.
So are digital cinematography rigs.
I tried to illustrate that but maybe I was too long winded so here's a short short list to match your attention span:
1) Camera body
2) Lens
3) Lens
4) Lens
5) Lens
6) Support rails
7) Electronic viewfinder
8) Director's viewfinder
9) Hard disk recorder
10)Battery
11)Battery
12)Battery
13)Battery charger
14)Matte box
15)Follow Focus
16)Onboard lighting
17)Onboard wireless audio RCVR
18)Fluid head
19)Tripod plate
20)Tripod
![[Linked Image from deepfreezevideo.com]](http://deepfreezevideo.com/images/DSC_2473.jpg)
Did you get that? That's just the basic starter kit.
I didn't include the dollies, lights, wireless audio XMTR, mics
(shotgun, lavalier and handheld) and I didn't include the other countless odds and ends because I'd be repeating myself.
The above picture is a low end package compared to what's out there now. If you go to the Red Digital Cinema website and price out the pieces for a RED Epic package you will pass a hundred thousand dollars before you leave Page One.
Unfortunaltely, unlike the "electronic explosion", they're ain't no "free lunch" in the trucking business ! The amount of energy it takes to drive a given GVW up a specified grade is known. Likewise the "end to end efficiency" of the various engine/transmission/rear drives. Even the diameter/width of the tires figures into these equations. And, most importantly, weight. Every pound of "tare weight" not only detracts from the truck/trailer payload but increases fuel burn.
All of these are Newtonian absolutes. Can't be by-passed, ignored, or legislated out of existence. It takes one horsepower to lift 660 lbs (reckoned in a 1-G field) 1 ft in one second. Discovering a way to "bypass" Newtonian physics we all live with daily would make the discoverer extremely rich - or dead - in short order. >Mech
I think you're still missing the point. Truckers are going to have to embrace new and more efficient ways to GENERATE that horsepower (AND TORQUE) because the legislation isn't the only factor here. Realities of petroleum geopolitics will force their hand a lot more cruelly than legislation my friend, and we've pretty much spent our wad trying to maintain the false illusion of cheap and readily available petroleum which supported the seven mile per gallon world.
Are you attempting to flatly say that there is NO way to squeeze more fuel efficiency out of a truck?
If you are, you really ARE a buggy whip maker.
You gotta be kidding me.
And you still need to read more carefully.
