Why do airlines rely on the blackbox in planecrash cases?

Question

Can't they use computers, CCTV, Digicams for monitoring flights in realtime instead? The longest flights last no more than 15-18hrs and most flights significantly take less time than that to complete. Why stick to blackboxes when digicams and computers can very well replace it?

Answer 1

the black box is a computer

Answer 2

because it's expensive and the cba

Answer 3

It is really hard to distroy (or even dammage) the data stored on a black box recorder.

You just can't beat good old fassioned technology!

BUT...

According to L3 Communications, there are improvements on the horizon for black box technology!

Some form of cockpit video recorder will be developed.

Such a recorder would be able to store video images in solid-state memory.