Blog post #6 EOTO1 Reax

Reaction: Video

The blog post I chose to review was Maggie’s post on the evolution of video. I thought it would be interesting because video is such a huge part of our lives, with YouTube and TikTok, not to mention television and movies. I was surprised to learn how the technology originally developed. In 1839 photo negatives were invented by William Henry and these allowed people to capture images that eventually led to Jules Marey developing the chronophotographic gun which would allow people to take twelve photos per second, almost like when people photograph models or action shots. They could then place these photos back to back at high speed giving a video effect. This concept reminds me of stop motion animation or silent films, which is exactly what people started using them for. 

In 1891 Thomas Edison further improved on this technology by inventing the motion picture camera and color and sound were added in the early 1900s. People started using this new technology to produce movies and TV shows, which revolutionized the film industry. I was also surprised to learn that the VCR was invented in 1954. It wasn’t until the 1980s that people had this technology in their homes, so it was hard to believe it had been around all that time before it was available to everyone. I was also surprised to learn that digitization was only perfected in 2008. That was just over 15 years ago! When digitization took over, it increased the quality of videos and enabled people to better edit and alter videos, especially animation. Now videos are everywhere. Video technology is a huge part of everyday life, whether we are using it for social media, entertainment, or even our jobs. It is amazing to think that just about 10 years ago, we were still creating videos much as they did in the 1950s with only some technological advancement. With the advent of AI, it will be interesting to see where video goes from here.