Cinema and television have seen a vast change throughout the years due to technological changes. From the production, showcase, and consumption switching from analogue to digital. 

What is analogue and digital?

Analogues can be seen as responsive to outside sources such as film tape cameras which were known for their quality of details. Digital is less responsive to outside sources like digital cameras which capture videos and photos onto a memory card.

Massive changes like this are mainly implicated because of the benefits the corporations see from them. 

The technical benefits of digitalisation are :

1. Greater control of channel performance. 

2. Higher quality and sound with a smaller data bandwidth. 

3. Digital signals are less likely to be distorted.

The start of this change was first seen in the ’70s and ’80s’ with the advancements of inventions leading to digital media

• 1979: Lucasfilm LTD creates a computer animation division for SFX for motion pictures   

• 1980s: successful trials of digital cameras 

• 1989: James Cameron’s The Abyss produces the first convincing digitally animated character in a live-action film: the ‘Pseudopod’.

(Rodowick, D. N. 2007, ‘What was cinema’ The Virtual Life of Film pp 25-88)

 This change then further catapulted in the 1990s

• 1993: Jurassic Park makes photographically believable synthesised images

• 1995: Toy Story released as the first fully synthetic feature film

• June-July 1999: Successful test screenings of Star Wars 1 using fully electronic and digital projection

(Rodowick, D. N. 2007, ‘What was cinema’ The Virtual Life of Film pp 25-88)

This saw a rapid change in technology in the media industry causing massive changes in practices that were seen in the last 150 years (Rodowick, 2007, 9). Some researchers debate that this has caused a lack of qualities that come from being analogue like the trace of being real reducing its emotional impact whereas digital has provided a more secure and easier way to make media. This even saw a new technology which has caused an average person to be able to carry a digital camera around through their smartphones making it more accessible to film and less expensive to do introducing a new wave media that rivals cinema and television.

by Mirza Zafar Tariq

References

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-digital-and-analog-signals-definition-lesson-quiz.html#:~:text=Analog%20signals%20are%20a%20type,signal%20can%20be%20converted%20into.

https://www.itu.int/itunews/manager/display.asp?lang=en&year=2006&issue=03&ipage=transition&ext=html#:~:text=The%20transition%20from%20analogue%20to%20digital%20television&text=One%20of%20the%20most%20important,the%20benefits%20that%20digitization%20offers.

Rodowick, D.N. (2007) The virtual life of film. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674042834.