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"Videos"
Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Maybe this doesn't quite belong on this forum, but I thought it important enough to be aware of to post it where it's likely to be seen. Am I correct in assuming that the word "video" when used in the UK means a VHS by definition? Over here in The States (at least in New England), a "DVD" is a "DVD" and a "VHS" is a "VHS", but both are commonly called "videos".
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Robert John


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 205
Location: The Netherlands
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Sawubona,

Yes, you are quite right---a video is V.H.S. and a D.V.D. is a D.V.D.

All the best ,

Robert

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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Thanks, I thought that the case. Pretty much all new DVD players over here can play both PAL and NSTC format disks, but that's not the case with VCRs which can only play NSTC. Therefore we don't know whether a "video" is watchable or not here without knowing if it's on disk or tape. I'll be sure not to acquire any European "videos" from now on unless I explore further!
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Robert John


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 205
Location: The Netherlands
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In Europe the D.V.D.s are marked "Region 1" or "Region 2"---the first one being destined for the U.S.A. and the second for Europe.

I did aquire a region 1 dvd on E-Bay a while ago---I accidentally bid on it and no one else did---it did show the opening titles but that's about all.
It was called "Yesterday", about a young mother in rural KwaZulu-Natal and I'm sure It would have been interesting.


Robert

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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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Thanks Robert! I wasn't aware of the Region 1 and Region 2 distinction. It seems as though "Region 1" is synonymous with "NSTC" and "Region 2" with "PAL". I'll have to keep that in mind also.

Funny you should mention "Yesterday" as it's one of my all time favorites. It was filmed outside Bergville (and a bit in Jo'berg), the "Gateway to the Northern Drakensberg", which was pretty much the location for the filming of "ZULU";so the dramatic sweeping backgrounds in many of the scenes should be familiar. And it's completely in Zulu with English subtitles! It's a simple story without a lot of flash, yet so deftly handled by the director Roodt (who also directed Sarifina and "Cry the Beloved Country") that it stays with most viewers long after the final credits have rolled. It's just a beautifully crafted movie and deserved all the awards it earned (and more), including an Academy Award nomination for best foreign picture. IMHO, it's a better movie than Tsotsi, which did win an Oscar the following year. By all means, fair or foul, try to see it if not outright own it. Two thumbs up from Saw and Ebert!
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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At the risk of muddying the terminological and technological waters further, the word "video" was first used to describe television. In the early years of the medium (1930s onwards), it was a term akin to "radio" (some of you may recall the costumed superhero Captain Video). Only when cassettes were introduced in the 1970s was video used as an abbreviation of "videotape" (or "video recorder"). To add further confusion, I now record all my off-air films and programmes on DVD, but my girlfriend still refers to this as "taping"!
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Rich
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Sheldon.....interesting take on words 'video' and 'radio'...

What do you think? What are we going to do when 'film' goes 'digital'?
Now we still say I'm going to watch a 'film' or go to the 'pictures'.
If film goes bye-bye because of the digital revolution, maybe we'll say."I'm going to the 'digits' tonite!!!......Wink..Other words might stay...i.e. 'cinema', 'movies' but you wonder if it'll be the same if film goes.
Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 377
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Quite right, it's going to be an etymological minefield! The phrase "to film" will no doubt be retained long after film itself has ceased to be used (though there's no prospect of that happening in the immediate future). People already use it when "photographing" weddings, etc, on digital videocams.

PS My parents still refer to CDs as "tapes" or "records" (I suppose the latter is strictly correct).
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
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PPS Perhaps in the digital future we should refer to a visit to the cinema as a "night at the pixels"!
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Rich
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I like that..."night at the pixels"....sounds very English Shel.....

And you know perhaps that old technology "film" just might stay around for aficionados. The LP record looks like it hasn't been killed. Some say there is a difference in the cd vs lp.
Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Posts: 1797
Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England.
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And I (a technology-free zone) am reliably informed that my archaic habit of continuing to refer to the radio as the wireless has, apparently, triumphantly come into its own again, albeit in a different medium.

My sons are stunned - dad is actually up to date.

P.
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Alan
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Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 1530
Location: Wales
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One thing (one of many) that annoys me is the word 'movie'. It seems childlike because the images are moving to call them movies. Simon Bates on Classic FM is particularly irritating in his constant use of the word (and in everything else he says).
What's wrong with film and cinema?

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Sawubona


Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 1179
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As though the water isn't muddy enough, I think I'll jump in with a few random thoughts. Rich, I don't think we can call it "a night at the pixels" as that refers only to the visual representation. What about the audio? That strikes me as being as anachronistic as saying "We're going to the picture show" to see moving images on a screen while someone plays a piano with no felt on the hammers. And I don't think we need address the fact that the images aren't truly moving, they just appear to be. "Talkies", however, is right out to my way of thinking!

I play with computer programs like Studio Eight and Video Explosion enough so that the word "video" to me only refers to half the picture (a good enough unintentional pun to leave alone)--that is, the visual component. The "audio" is an entirely different recording format that's merely synced to the action on the screen. Happily, "screen" can refer to a computer screen, a TV screen, or a movie screen, so that word's safe for a while.

A couple of questions for Sheldon: Aren't many if not most movies now actually "filmed" in digital format now or are they just distributed that way? And what is the etymology of the word "television" anyway? Is it short for something like telegraphed vision? It almost sounds like a trade name.

And as we all know, DVD is an abbreviation for Digital Versatile Device, not Digital Video Device for which it is so often mistaken among the hoi polloi.
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Sheldon Hall


Joined: 01 Sep 2005
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Alan,
The word "movie" (like the verb "to film") was coined in the first decade of the twentieth century, when the distinguishing features of pictures shown by the cinematograph (or kinematograph) were that they did indeed move, unlike the slides shown by the older "magic lantern" device (hence also the phrase "motion pictures") and that they were recorded on cellulose nitrate film (i.e., transparent plastic or celluloid) rather than on glass or metal (as the earliest still photographs had been). Of course, "movies" is also an Americanism! We in Britain have usually preferred "the pictures" and in earlier days the "kinema" rather than the "cinema" (which only posh folks used to use).

Saw (if I may),
You're right to say that the yoking together of different technologies for reproducing pre-recorded sound and making pictures move is inherently artificial - there's no necessary reason why movies should talk, and for over thirty years after their invention they didn't! That explains why most colloquial terms referring to films take the visual component as the most important - because sound was added later (though of course audio recording on cylinders and discs preceded the cinema).

Conceivably "silent" pictures (i.e., those with live rather than pre-recorded musical or other audio accompaniment) could have survived the invention of talkies, just as radio survived the invention of television/video, but economic imperatives (the cost of equipping the film industry for sound plus the proven popularity of talking pictures) determined otherwise. On the other hand, I've seen two silent pictures in the last fortnight (and several more earlier in the year): the 1925 version of BEN-HUR at London's Royal Festival Hall, accompanied by a 75-piece orchestra conducted by composer Carl Davis; and THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) in Sheffield Cathedral, shown via a laptop computer with a synthesised score played "live". So there's life in the old "flickers" yet!

As for digital "filming" (I accidentally typed "filing" there, which is actually more appropriate given that digital footage is indeed saved as computer files!), it still applies to only a minority of professionally produced films (most cinematographers and directors still prefer to shoot on film and edit digitally) and comparatively few cinemas are all-digital (those multiplex cinemas which have digital projectors installed usually only have them in one or two screens). Until production, distribution and exhibition all convert fully to digital we can still legitimately talk about "films". Incidentally, storage and preservation in digital format is both more expensive and less reliable than good old-fashioned, 19th-century film (digital files have to be migrated to new media every few years because the info decays and the technology is always in danger of being rendered obsolete by the next new invention).

Finally, "television" shares the same etymological root as telegraph, telephone, telegram, telekinesis, etc - the prefix tele indicating distance. While we're about it, "photography" literally means "writing in light" and "c(k)inematography" means "writing in movement". All these are derived from the Greek, methinks, though I'm no linguistic expert.

So there. I think we can congratulate ourselves on a productive afternoon's work!
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Alan
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Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 1530
Location: Wales
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Sheldon,
Kinema was the name of a cinema where I grew up.

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