ScuzzBlog: Diaries July 2019
Entry 30th July 2019: Post 02: Amiga Vision.Or not?
Amiga Vision. Or not ?
This wont make a whole heap of sense ... Sorry.
I use Amiga Vision as a vehicle to discuss a subject only cus it
came to mind as I dragged this large folder out the way in my
search for the C64C Hollywood box. Although not specifically a
video authoring package it very much was part of the multimedia
revolution of the eighties and nineties that involved the growing
plethora of digital and recorded formats.
And to the point. The point is that I always feel that the industry
of multimedia really leaves itself a little short when it conjures
up words for the specific processes, formats and products involved
in the world of sound and vision. And it continues into today.
Started with the words like film and record. There is no new word
created, but simply the adaptation of another. The film became
the name used for cinema movies and record for the black Bakelite
discs that eventually became the plastic versions. And still the
name is used today as we often refer to record and film for modern
digital equivalents.
For me the worst is video. Given that I grew up in the video boom
I still see 'The Video' as the cassette that held the tape. Basically
cus 'The Video' could also be used as the player and recorder. As
with the line from the Young Ones ' Yes we have got a video '. And
yet the word has now been used to mean all video moving recordings
of any format. But what truly is a video ? I still know not. I do
appreciate that video in my day was the shortened word for recorder
or cassette, but the word took on a whole meaning of physical form
and so evolved into something quite distinct. In simple terms the
actual term video was the resultant physical black cassette and
not just a process of recording.
There is no characteristic distinguishing of a video recorded to
tape or uploaded to YouTube as a digital file. My point is that
there should be. Just so I can simply pull a word to describe the
actual process and or tape format involved. Its not enough simply
to call all of these processes a video.
And to make matters worse nobody ever like decided to give proper
names for MP3s or MP4s or worse 'downloads' as in the 'download charts'.
Are not these wonders of modern day technology worthy of more
exotic names like 'Gramophone' or 'Phonograph' or even 'Jukebox'
and better 'Boombox'. All singular words that mean a specific thing.
The same goes for recorded music and samples etc . The tendency is
to refer to the format and less on that wonderful word that is
missing from the language which best describes a recording of
sound in any format. We still revert to recording, which is
basically the process involved.
So if any scholar of languages feels brave enough to make a new
word that basically generalises the whole recorded moving image
format avoiding film and video and another that means a recording
of a sound, noise, music in any format, please feel free. Just so
when I have to make reference to either I can generalise without
having to be careful of what referenced format I am suggesting.
And to Amiga Vision, which uses yet another term that seems a
little out of place to me ' authoring'. Whilst perfectly
acceptable in the way used it is referencing the result of the
work of the author in stamping their mark on a process. The
work being authorised or the work of the author and less about
the magical process of creating multimedia ' insert word '.
I love the word animation and animated. Conjuring up images of
a moving process and yet it becomes an entity in its own right
simply because the process was not extended to include the final
work. And authorising or authoring does much the same. Probably
doesn't make any sense until I use again the word 'record', given
that to record, or recording, or a record are descriptions of
activity and not a black circular disc. And animation already had
its purposeful meaning in the dictionary and the users of it to
describe what Disney was so good at, was kinda a lazy way to
describe something, without actually just pulling a new word out
of the air.
As with the disc I go round in circles. Just that next time anyone
invents anything in respect a multimedia and file formats can you
please 'GIVE IT A PROPER NAME'.
And so for no specific reason .. I give you Amiga Vision, a very
heavy folder I can assure you. Have I used it ? Er no.
Amiga Vision. Or not ?
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