Why Video Has Fundamentally Changed

Why has video fundamentally changed? Beyond Internet sharing and distribution — a la YouTube — it’s the ease of creating it.

This is me shooting with the latest in consumer video-cam technology — in 1987. The Sony 8 weighed one-third as much as me with all the necessary gear, was three times as big as my head, and had an hour of battery life per charge. It was such a production to use that it always passed for a pro rig. It was so expensive and so delicate that it never was used, precisely for those reasons.

And then there’s the Flip cam I use today. It’s smaller than my iPod and Blackberry, so I carry it everywhere I go. At 30 frames per second, the quality is not brilliant, but pretty good, especially for $99. Importantly, it makes video easy to manage, edit, upload and share without even thinking twice. That’s precisely why it’s used…all the time.