Scratch Video a mutant hybrid of scratch DJ music and guerrilla TV

scratchvideo/evolution/personalcomputer/video_editing

The PC technology evolved quickly, eventually giving users the ability to perform advanced functions impossible when the Altair was released. By 1991, the first multimedia personal computers were available (Straubhaar and LaRose 308). Attaching a video card and installing video editing software, the PC could now combine with a VCR or video camera.

Traditionally, video had to be "digitized", moving the information from analog video tape to digital video files stored on a computer hard drive. With the release of mini-DV (digital video), consumer-level cameras capture images in a digital format. "Firewire" equipped computers can import the digital information through a small port, using one wire, without any need for a video card. The idea of desktop video editing is just breaking into the main stream consciousness, thanks in part to an aggressive marketing campaign by Apple computers.

Expensive editing suites and higher quality cameras are still needed to make broadcast TV quality images; but the notion of "broadcast" is also changing. Firewire equipped PCs can export full screen images, which means they look good on a TV and can be recorded onto a regular VHS tape. And to "broadcast" a video by putting it on a web site server, images have to be compressed and can therefore be assembled on less powerful PCs.

Mirroring the evolution of electronic music, PC technology is now giving people access to the equivalent of television editing studios in their home. Desktop video editing is facilitating the emergence a new kind of video editor, the equivalent of an electronic music "bedroom producer", who works from home on their own time and use sites on the Web to distribute their finished projects.

Copyright 2000© Hart Snider