Sports, News, Porno, and… Opera?
RCA Hawkeye
Ampex HS-100
Electronic slow motion was invented for sports video. Tapeless camcorders were created for TV news. Pornography made streaming video successful. But something else that seems to drive media-technology innovation is opera. Really. Opera.
The European Digital Cinema Forum’s 2008 EDCF Guide to Alternative Content for Digital Cinema begins with a chapter on opera because opera happens to be the number-one form of alternative (non-movie) content worldwide, beating out rock concerts, sports, and political events. In many countries, a single opera showing is enough to out-earn a weekend’s worth of continuous movie showings to finish in the top-10 box-office grosses. More »
Tags: Berlin, Bernard Herrmann, Camille Saint-Saens, Carmen, Cinema, EDCF, Erich Korngold, Hamburg, history, media, Metropolitan Opera, opera, Stereo
