VIDEO HISTORY TIMELINE

The table below highlights some of the main events in video history leading upto and including the digital video revolution as it has impacted education. I have selected video media that are (and were) primarily used in the K-12 and higer ed classrooms. The trends signify what resulted from the type of video and the cost is an approximation of what a school might have had to invest in order to use the technology. Overall, the digital video revolution has opened up more opportunities for everday consumers to be creators of multimedia productions. The emphasis is on performance and quality at a price that is suitable for people like you and me. The cost is also not prohibitive for school districts. Consider these trends,

To author and produce digital video technology when it first appeared on the scene averaged ~$20,000. Today, a school district can utilize digital video at a very low cost and can produce digital video technologies for as little as $2,000.
In 1992, working with digital video technology required at leasat $6,000 at start up. Today, you can increase the price of a G3 by $130 for it to have AV capabilities. This is a 97% decrease in 5 years time.
In 1994, you could spend between $2,000-$4,000 for a Radius Capture Card (top of the line). Today, you can purchase a Firewire card for $399. That is a 90% decrease in cost in the past four years.
When Quicktime developed it played 5 frames per second. Today, you can achieve broadcasat quality frame rate & speed with some digital video & streaming technologies.

What these trends suggest is that within the next two years, digital video technologies will find a mainstay in the classroom as instructional & learning resources for teachers and students made by teachers and students.

Year	Video History	Equipment	Trend	Cost
Late 19070's / Early 1980's	VCR: permitted time delayed broadcasts; full motion/full screen	T.V. , Cables, VCR	Low budget, Everyday consumer could be tape record. Teachers were taping shows off the television and replaying them in their class. Preproduced video, including documentaries, replaced traditional film strips.	~$1,000 for all equipment, tapes are additional costs, but may be reused
Late 1980's	LaserDisc: permitted limited interaction between user and product (big remote)	LaserDisc Player cabled to television set	High budget, Development by "experts." Teachers began using laserdiscs because they offered limited student interaction. Laserdisc were a less passive intstructional tool than videos.	Glass master ~$20-30,000; each additional disc ~$100
	LaserDisc within a few months were then able to interact with computer systems: permitted more user interaction software control	LaserDisc player cabled to a computer	User participation, Development by experts programming primarily done in Tencore	Very high cost because very few software developers so high price paid to program developers.
	VCR controlled by a computer	VCR cabled to a computer	Limited user participation not as interactive as the laserdiscs BUT a cheaper alternative; primarily used by early digital video editors	Price of VCR & computers
Early 1990's`	Digital video introduced onto the technology front, no compression	Video capture equipment (video card & VCR), computer with AV capabilities.	Hardware dependent; Development by experts	AVS (audio video synchronized) card $2-4,000
1992	QuickTime 1.0 arrives on the scene as primary compression/decompression program	Video capture equipment (video card & VCR),computer with AV capabilities.	Hardware independent; Utilized by novice & expert users. However, video editing tools were poor. Usually video edited by traditional means and then digitized.	Comes bundles with new Macs
	Only a few months after QuickTimeÕs release, Video for Windows wasreleased as an AVI format	Video capture equipment (video card & VCR),computer with AV capabilities.	Hardware independent; Utilized by novice & expert users. However, video editing tools were poor. Usually video edited by traditional means and then digitized.	Free add-on to Win 3.1
1993	CD-ROMs arrive on the scene as the latest storage medium for multimedia productions	Computers with CD-ROM drives; CD-ROM burner if writing your own	Utilized by novice & expert users, Development by experts present day, development is also done by everyday consumers as authoring packages are tailored to everyday consumers	If sending to a company to burn: ~$200 for master CD, ~$1 for each additional CD. If you burn your own: Price dependent on the kind of burner you buy. Early burners ~$22,000 - then dropped to $5,000 then to $2,000. Today you can purchase a decent one for around $400.
1995	MPEG1/Motion JPEG arrive on the scene as the lastest codecs	AV computer with MPEG card	On-line editing finally possible with high-end video card. Hardware dependent, but could convertedto independent format.	Cost of computer plus ~$5,000 for video card.
1996	Digital vide begins to be played over the Internet	Computer with AV capabilities & Internet access	Platform dependent	Cost dependent on the type of equipment purchased
	Early trials in elementary streaming	Computer with AV capabilities & Internet access	Digital video does not have to be downloaded completely before playback	Need special playback software for each sytem type. MPEG2 captured cards expensive ($5-10,000) - initially there was no way to convert to another format.
	MPEG2 arrives on the scene	Specific cards and software needed.	Offers software and/or broadcast quality video
1997	Streaming algorithms developed by several companies (VOSAIC, VDOLive, RealVIdeo)	Computer with AV capabilities & Internet access	Digital video does not have to be downloaded completely before playback; Permits hyperlinking to other files	Dependent on which streaming technology you choose to use
1998	QuickTime 3.0:permits quick editing, supports JAVA, higher quality compression, etc.. Attempts to become industry proprietary standard	Computer with AV capabilities	Home user as producer	$29.99 for professional version downloadable from the Web
	DVD	VCR, Capture Card, CD-Burner, Computer	Hollywood embraced DVD-CD-ROM - technolog now "cheap." MPEG2 d so theoretically will work -encoding for DVD is more complicated programmers, but it ce consider as a "BIG" CD-ROM.	$200 for DVD Player, $200 more for price of DVD -Roms.
	DV (this is the video produced from digital camcorders)	Camcorder, Firewire capture board, Computer with AV capabilities	Allows high quality onne editing and playback. Also, new codec ~ now is new tandard on dgital video camcorders.	Camcorder: ~$1,000 Firewire Card: ~$399 plus the cost of your AV machine

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esp, 05/19/98

produced for HECA-FSI at the College of Education