# Why is there no video footage of Philippe Petit's WTC tightrope walk? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 28, 2016, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617 "2016-06-28T12:09:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/21 "2016-06-29T00:42:46Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I don’t think footage shot from the street would show anything. I think you wouldn’t be able to see the wire at all and the man would be just a speck in the image. I could see people from the top of the Sears Tower. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/22 "2016-06-29T01:02:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Odd that nobody has linked up to the many [YouTube videos,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwbil5puqng) some of which show cell phone pics from curious onlookers. Is this a whoosh? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/23 "2016-06-29T01:13:09Z")
Hey, people will believe anything. But yes, basically this time and place was not the “recording all the time” type of society we now know, and the average tourist may have a snapshot camera or an 8mm \*without \*any sort of fancy zoom lens that would help litle. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It was absolutely illegal; Petit worked covertly with a team to figure out how to string the cable, and then to actually do so. > > In the end, all charges against him were dropped. In exchange for doing a free public performance for children. And he got a free lifetime pass to the observation deck. They probably figured they’d have to release a couple dozen muggers and pushers to make room for those _couilles_ of his at the Tombs. And that any copycats would be a very quickly self-correcting problem 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/24 "2016-06-29T02:23:55Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > A question that comes up about _Monty Python’s Flying Circus_ (and other shows) is why they used videotape indoors and film outdoors. A lot of BBC shows from the 60s/70s did that. I think I first experienced it with old Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes on PBS. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/25 "2016-06-29T02:50:01Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > In 1974, they would be whipping out one of [these.](http://www.oaktreevintage.com/web_photos/Telephones/Motorola_Cellular-One_Cell-Phone_collage.jpg)😃 In 1974, it would have been more like one of [these](http://www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Pulsar101.jpg). My dad had one in his car. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/26 "2016-06-29T12:45:06Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Nothing was really “lost”. The original data tapes of the TV broadcast were wiped, but the equipment to read that format doesn’t exist any more. Equipment to read the tape format is quite easy to create as a lab prototype… rig up a machine to do reel to reel… sit on the tape a magnetic head (still used in hard drives… just grab one of them hey ?) and connect that into a little circuit that biases the head, amplifies/adjusts the signal resulting, demodulate if you like, to be just right for an analog to digital convertor … which easily samples it far faster than required. Thereafter the computer program demodulates (if needed), converts it into lines, frames… having saved it as so many millions’s of frames (bitmaps of each frame) the job is done, thats a form of video… conversion to a format you know, such as mp4, is trivial ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/27 "2016-06-29T15:56:50Z")
No intact full recording of the first Super Bowl exists despite the fact that it was simulcast by two different networks (NBC and CBS). It was the first NFL game to be broadcast on two different networks and the only Super Bowl (so far). Both networks wiped their tapes afterward. NFL Films had a camera crew there to film plays and eventually stitched together a video showing each play, but even that isn’t the same as having a contiguous recording of the game with commentary. And for years (up until this year in fact) all we had available for posterity were highlights of the game. [http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000620927/article/nfl-network-to-reair-super-bowl-i-for-first-time](http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000620927/article/nfl-network-to-reair-super-bowl-i-for-first-time) ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/28 "2016-07-01T05:15:46Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > A question that comes up about _Monty Python’s Flying Circus_ (and other shows) is why they used videotape indoors and film outdoors. British shows of the time (_Fawlty Towers_ did it too) did this not only because, as I said video cameras & recording decks were cumbersome and power hungry, but also because it rains in Britain. A lot. And bad weather & early electronic video equipment don’t mix. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2016, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617/29 "2016-07-01T12:55:00Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Equipment to read the tape format is quite easy to create as a lab prototype… I assure you that whatever format was used to record the Apollo XI mission still exists… it’s just not in anyone’s studio rack any more. Collectors, old-school archivists, even museums… there’s a 2-inch tape player (or whatever) ready to take the reels right now. For one thing, that would be commercial gear, built like a Mercedes tank. I had a friend who made lots of beer money by keeping a PC, ca. 1995, with every drive that far known to man and geek attached. He could move data off everything from magstripe cards to 8-inch floppy onto either a provided hard drive or 1.4 floppies. He got at least occasional commercial jobs from companies that discovered, for example, all their corporate minutes were stored on IBM DisplayWriter discs long after the last DW system went to the scrap heap. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-video-footage-of-philippe-petits-wtc-tightrope-walk/758617.md?page=1)