Tuesday, August 31, 2010

1970 Flashback: The Videocassette as the Third Wave of Electronic-Appliance Age



...RCA officials contend that their SelectaVision system 
will eventually dominate the consumer market...

Link to August 10, 1970, Time magazine article, "Video Cartridges: A Promise of Future Shock".

Excerpt: Quickened Change. Seldom has the arrival of new hardware stirred such excitement in the entertainment and communications industry, or aroused such anxiety among the potential victims of change. Enthusiasts insist that video cartridges in time will radically alter the status quo in television, motion pictures, theater, music, journalism, book publishing and many other fields. Some futurists, notably Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock (TIME, Aug. 3), argue that TV cassettes will quicken the already bewildering pace of change in American life, carrying the U.S. farther away from standardization in the arts, education and cultural tastes. Many young TV makers feel that the new equipment will lead to an era in which video cameras may outstrip typewriters as instruments for creative expression. Marshall McLuhan prophesies that cartridges will affect "every aspect of our lives—will give us new needs, goals and desires, and will upset all political, educational and commercial establishments.

Other predictions:

Yet Guber insists that when "the cartridge revolution" strikes, the Hollywood work force, now 40% unemployed, will not only expand but scramble to make films in three shifts around the clock.

...network TV will be reduced to producing little more than sports and news.

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