Thursday, November 20, 2014

Thoughts on Video

So, I was taking a moment to watch this below video of the snow storm in Buffalo:



and when the pilot brings the drone back to take a selfie, I had a flashback to when we moved back to California, and I recorded a video tour of the new house for family and friends.  There were a few times in bathrooms and bedrooms where I caught myself in a mirror, and broke the description of the house with, "Cameraman."

It was on a compact camera that used magnetic tape.  We then transferred the video to VHS tapes for distribution.  This was in 1986 and most everyone's VHS players were standardized.

This had not been the case just a few years prior when we had lived in Kentucky and done another video of our redone backyard with new brick patio and flower mounds.  We recorded our tour at what we assumed was the normal speed because our VHS player could record up to 6 hours of material on a cassette.  Unfortunately, the friends we sent our tape to did not have that format on their player and could only record 4 hours of material on a cassette (maybe only even 2).

So what happened?  Apparently it was like watching a poorly cranked film on playback.  The dog and I were accused of extreme hyperactivity and it was recommended that I cut back on the sugar.  And we were asked if the scenic flower mounds were Indian burial mounds.

At the time of this writing, the snow drone video has been viewed over 300,000 times.  And yet 30 years ago, we couldn't even get our video to be properly watched once.

No comments: