# The Oldest video footage in existence?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 17, 2000, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836 "2000-07-17T13:37:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836/21 "2000-07-21T19:47:51Z")
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> \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \*
> **VideoYesteryear…sells a tape purporting to be transfers from the first commercial film program – exciting stuff like a train coming almost at the camera.**
That film, IIRC, is another Lumière Bros. production from ca. 1890s. I remember it being featured in a series of short films from Russia celebrating a century of Russian film.
Obviously it wasn’t filmed by Russians or in Russia (though I may be mistaken on the second part), but I believe it was important to them because its run in Moscow marked the first film showing in Russia, sometime during the summer of 1896. Apparently the audience was so impressed with the technology that they demanded it shown again as soon as it was finished. Buncha yokels. 😉
I just gotta say that the Phonovision site was cool as all get out. I’d heard some about Baird and his early efforts at television but I never knew he’d recorded the signal. Will check out the RealAudio stuff tonight when I get home.
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2000, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836/22 "2000-07-21T19:49:18Z")
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> \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \*
> **Thank you for enlightening me, stuyguy and Cartooniverse. Next time I’m in Washington I’ll go to the library, get me a library card and try to check out some of those films on paper!**
Yeah right, like you’d even get close to the door with those things. They got tighter security than the NYPL. Nice try, though.
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### Author:  [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2000, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836/23 "2000-07-21T22:48:26Z")
Seriously? Not even behind display cases? That sounds like the kind of thing that might attract people away from the “touristy” attractions. Bummer.
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2000, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836/24 "2000-07-22T00:29:07Z")
Well, for one thing, just imagine the paper cuts ! 😃
For another thing, I’d WAG here that since ONE of every published or registered document created is usually sent to the Library of Congress ( I do not pretend to know the proceedures here ), that those paper transfer prints are not available at all to the general public. They’ve been copied back, creating an I.N. ( Inter-Negative ), and allowing prints to be struck from that. However, I would honestly be surprised if any normal person who wasn’t interested in preservation/ printing the paper images would be allowed to touch them at all. They’d be pretty darned fragile by now, I’d guess.
To be blunt,I find it all to be incredibly romantic. The idea that as fragile as those initial prints on nitrate were, they were just as fragile as paper transfers. 90 years later ( or more ), and yet one can photograph those paper prints, and re-create a film that was otherwise lost. I love it…digital storage media? Fuck that. This is REAL photography 🙂
Cartooniverse
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2000, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836/25 "2000-07-22T09:04:52Z")
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> \*Originally posted by manhattan \*
> \*\*Seriously? Not even behind display cases? That sounds like the kind of thing that might attract people away from the “touristy” attractions. Bummer. \*\*
I’m sure they’ve displayed them at one time or another as part of a rotating exhibit or something; my point was that the Library of Congress doesn’t let you check anything out. You get to examine/read it on the property and that’s it.
I had a reader’s card for a year back in Georgetown; I don’t know if it gets you access to _everything_ or just most of the books. Seems to me, however, that a lot of the items in the LoC are pretty unique so they wouldn’t let just anyone have a gander at 'em. Just a WAG, worth no more than the usual 2¢ I throw in.
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### Author:  [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2000, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oldest-video-footage-in-existence/25836/26 "2000-07-23T09:18:08Z")
**Cartooniverse** wrote:
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> Nitrite never would have made it this long. Hell, standard emulsion base film gets gummy after enough decades.
This is ridiculous. Only two months ago, I saw an original 1911 nitrate film projected, with all its hand-tinting still intact (and absolutely stunning, btw). This was **not** a “restoration”, but the original McCoy.
The fact is that, though both nitrate and triacetate (aka “safety” film) are both notoriously unstable, nitrate in particular can have a remarkably long life if stored under the right conditions. Though every effort is being made to transfer all remaining nitrate footage to “safety” stock, archives still hold onto their nitrate collections (especially negs) because nitrate still remains the best master source for all pre-1950s film material.
**Cartooniverse** also wrote:
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> The Gummint, even then, knew the film was wildly dangerous and (in)flammable. SO- they refused to Copywright Film Prints. Tough going, if you wanted to protect your Intellectual Property. So, they made paper prints.
Also incorrect. Stuyguy was right about how the government had no provision to register film under copyright laws. It was not until 1912 that the Townsend Act recognized movies as separate enteties eligible for copyright protection. This still did not mean the LoC collected the nitrate film; they would process the copyright registrations for each motion picture and then return the film. This is why, even though there is a remarkable amount of material (relatively speaking) before 1912 still existing, much of the silent material after 1912 is gone forever because the procedure of making paper prints for copyright purposes was discontinued.
Though it is true that the LoC had no storage facility for nitrate at that time, the fact that film was not taken seriously as a medium of communication or artistic endeavor played a more critical role in their decision not to keep film. It was not until the late 1940s that there was a concerted effort by the LoC to begin building its film collection in earnest.
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> Thank god- can you imagine shooting ONE frame at a TIME?
Not too hard to believe, since that’s what they had to do to transfer all the paper print material back to film…
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> …digital storage media? Fuck that.
Don’t knock it. Although digital technology isn’t even close to being able to effectively render a full 35mm frame with the level of detail necessary to consider it an authentic identical duplicate, it is commonly understood among the international film archive community (of which I’m a member) that digital technology is ultimately the medium that will allow filmlovers 100 years from now to enjoy many of the great artifacts of our film heritage. A **lot** of things have to improve first, but the existing film won’t last forever, and I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think Kodak will continue to manufacture motion picture stock once the production, distribution, and exhibition powers of the film industry eventually convert to digital (which, though maybe not just-around-the-corner, is going to happen sometime pretty soon).
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