Hey, I'll tell you that my favorite tape(s) include the Cantenary Video production of Art Alter's Sacramento Northern 16mm movies, the Pentrex PE Volume 1 (other volumes not yet released), and the 3-volume Milwaukee Road tapes.
Thing is, about all of these, they are historical and not designed to give some "magnificent new insight" to the viewing of the contemporary scene. The distinction, I believe, is important. Most tapes on the market today seem to be of the (nominally) contemporary railroad scene. As such, I think the percentage of good ones can be no greater than the percentage of good slides from among all those taken by all railfans. There are an awful lot of people who think they are the creative type. There are far fewer who really are. That's one reason that the videographers try to beef up their "work" with music, sound effects, etc. It can't stand on its own. In a time past, people like Art Alter and Ira Swett and Harper Charlton (and even Wil Whitaker) were the few who were experimenting with the idea of video capture, albeit via 8 and 16mm movies. They had something to do other than sell a product. They had something important and transitory to record for posterity. They were to the video medium what people like Parker Lamb and Wil Whitaker and Stan Kistler are to the field of photography. They were leaders, not hangers-on. They were original thinkers, not me-tooers. Frankly, their work is more important. It sure will (or, for me, would) be interesting to see in fifty years exactly what videos remain important to our overall understanding of the railroad's place in history, and who contributed more to its understanding and vicarious experience. I mean, how many Donner Pass tapes are really worth the cost? Better that there was a copy of each of these tapes in a public lending library, easily copied for those that just MUST own it. I choose to throw my lot with the historical. Art isn't making any royalties off his movies, and Don Olsen isn't making a great deal, but they surely tell us something about what we had and lost. Other videos just as interesting can be copied off the air via PBS (as long as the Republicans will allow us to have a PBS). Ken --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
