I still constantly hear this on major news outlets for things like cellphone video and digital audio recordings. How long do you think this expression can survive? I'm sure that my 10-year-old granddaughter has no idea what it means.

I hear so-called professionals call our work "filming" all the time, which is even more ridiculous. The younger you are the more likely you are to use the term "filming", yet the younger you are the less likely it is that you have ever touched a piece of film in your entire life.

I taught media production in a local high school up until a year ago. I always had a futile one man campaign going to try and stamp out the terms "film" and "filming" in reference to electronic images. At one point I actually carried a little coil of 16mm film in my pocket that I would whip out whenever a student used the words inappropriately, along with a canned speech about how it wasn't "film" unless you were using that stuff.

My crusade went down in total defeat. Finally, one of my respected co-teachers told me to drop it since I was annoying and turning off more students from getting involved with my class than I was enlightening about the technology and history. So I quit pushing it in people's faces although I was still careful to point out the distinctions in lectures and when we would view actual works shot in the different media.

I think this one is a lost cause.

I agree that it is not worth correcting people about because it just makes you look like a dick. Actually, it has become so mainstream, with so many people who I respect saying it, I've considered giving in and joining the crowd. My preferred term has always been "shooting", but that has some bad connotations all of its own. "Filming" might be in my future. Never say never.

I don't think the term "filmmaker" is going away anytime soon either....

I've substituted "recording," "shooting" or "photographing" in my vocabulary for the most part. Still can't bring myself to say "film" unless actual perforated cellulose is involved. Probably it's because I'm one of the few still around in my peer group whose career actually started out shooting real film, and I'm still slightly in awe of the process.

I still occasionally refer to a video clip as “footage”.

Did you google or yahoo or just a simple search for the right term for digital image cature?

I still occasionally refer to a video clip as “footage”.

I see nothing wrong with "footage".

I think it's because the 'film' refers to the process of recording moving images - so used as a verb, not a noun. So "I'm going to film this, and stick it on a memory card" is fine. The same as when we use the word 'Hoover' as a verb - I'm going hoover that room now - there's rubbish all over the carpet. The actual device might be made by Dyson, Shark, Panasonic or even Hoover.

I must admit, it doesn't so much annoy me using film, but I try to avoid using the term at all, just in case,

I see nothing wrong with "footage".

How many feet per gigabyte? Do people in countries that use the metric system say "footage"?

Yes, indeed we do. We actually use both systems. Worst being a sheet of plywood - 8' x 4' x 18mm

How many feet per gigabyte? Do people in countries that use the metric system say "footage"?

1 GB = exactly 10 meters. Everybody knows that.

I still say 'filming' because 'video-ing' just doesn't sound right and 'shooting or recording a video' is mouthful.

Likewise its easier to say 'footage' than some 'video clips' or 'video recordings'.

"Rolling" is just as meaningless in today's tapeless and filmless world. BTW, so is "dialing" a telephone.

Don't touch that dial - keep it set right here at DVInfo.net!

My favorite expression, which I still hear regularly at the local radio stations, is to "cut a tape." It's a pretty fine linguistic achievement to capture two generations of obsolete recording technologies in a single three word phrase.

"Rewind", "check tape", "shutter angle", "overcrank", and "undercrank" have no relevance anymore.
And why do we continue to use "Non-Linear Editor (NLE). The last linear editing system disappeared more than 30 years ago, so why should we make the distinction anymore? "VE" for "Video Editor" makes more sense.

I'm sure there are dozens of other outdated terms if someone spent a few minutes thinking about it.

hahah. this brings back memories. Back in the early 90s we had a saying "better get it on film" because my friends were always telling me stories of all the wild escapes and car stunts they were doing and usually not capturing the footage of it. I soon realized this was incorrect and started saying "get it on tape" because we were shooting videotape.
Now all these years later I still hear people say they are going to "cut" a spot and "roll" cameras. Sometimes someone would tell me they were filming a movie or making a film and I'd ask, are you shooting on 35mm? Answer was always no.
I often hear the term "video taping" used still today when they are recording on solid state media, haha.

Anyway today I say "recording" or "shooting" instead of filming. And call TV shows "shows" and motion pictures "movies" instead of films since hardly anything is shot on film anymore. It doesn't bother me that other people use the wrong terms. I just try not to

Quote of the day, from Senator Dick Durbin on CNN:

"We're living in a videotape world."

Reminds me of this one. Senators are not exactly our best and brightest . . .

"The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material" -- Senator Ted Stevens

Hey you kids, get off my lawn

Just wait till the USA changes to the metric system, then the fun’ll start. When we did in Aust., the Govt. was understandably very concerned that our new Dollars and Cents money system was completely understood, so we could all buy stuff to live.

One of our clients had the Govt. metric adv. contract and for 6 months we were driven nuts recording jingles, radio spots and soundtracks for their ads. I can still hear the theme, ‘On the 14th February 1966’ to the 0z folk tune, Click go the Shears.

The only other new important metric changeover was MPH to KPH. 0z did it at midnight July 1st 1974 after all the major road signs had been changed over.

Inches, feet, yards, miles, ounces, pounds, tons etc. came last. Even now older folk have trouble and use that Imperial system, kids can’t understand them.

Cheers.

A while ago Ch 9 in Australia once promoted an event as being on "direct delay". I think that meant they had it on tape for replay at its late night timeslot.

Only ever saw them use "direct delay" in a promo once.

Andrew

USA made a weak attempt to switch to metric some time ago, 60s or 70s. Didn’t go well.

Just wait till the USA changes to the metric system, then the fun’ll start.

I have been waiting for over 70 years and really doubt that it will ever happen in my lifetime. Spent a career working with people from other countries and mentally convert between systems, I would be very happy to make the switch.

When I was a kid in school, we kept hearing that the US would switch but it obviously never happened. Norman Blake, a bluegrass musician that I like, mentioned this in a song back in the 70's

Inches, feet, miles and yards
Is changin' all around,
A meter's what you put your money in
When you park downtown.

We've been a metric nation officially since about 1980 and by intent since 1962. Despite that there are still many adults who were born well after 1980 who claim that they don't understand metric measurement, and they don't like buying goods in 454gm packets or fluids in 568ml bottles.
I quite happily flip between metric and imperial measurements (obviously not with precision except at cardinal points) despite having learnt imperial measure for most of my school years, consequently having my brain hard-wired into visualising in feet and inches (i.e.100mm still looks like four inches to me).
Something that is a problem with metric is the misleading (and not strictly legal) use of the centimetre and it's derivatives. The SI system stated that we use millmetres and metres (plus microns and kilometres) yet many retailers and hence their lay customers insist on centimetres because they have difficulty in multiplying by10.
Strangely though, they don't talk about 3 1/2 cm film!

My present peeve is going to Lowe's (a big box store) and buying a box of 8-32 screws and nuts, all made in the third world somewhere. Yes, the screws are really #8 diameter and 32 threads per inch, and they mate properly with the nuts. But the outside measure of the hex nuts is *not* any US fractional size. So they will *not* fit any standard US nutdriver or socket wrench. Someone please tell those folks in East Slobenia that you do *not* use metric size nuts with US size screws.

I can remember (back in the '60s?) when some US equipment came out with 1/8" connectors, which are 3.175mm diameter. They do *not* mate properly with 3.5mm connectors. Yet a lot of people still call the mini size 1/8 inch, even though they really are 3.5mm now. Try convincing someone that the difference is significant.

In the US, land surveyors use feet and hundredths of feet. Of course 1/8" = 1/96 foot, not quite the same as 1/100. I don't know whether surveyors still use "rods," "chains," and furlongs as units of length. (In physics class, I sometimes turned in my homework answers in "furlongs per fortnight" just to annoy the prof.) US military surveyors divide a circle into 400 grads and centigrads, rather than 360 degrees, minutes, and seconds. Go figure ...

I always think the classic is, when Airbus was building the first A380, the French built the fuselage and the Germans built the tail.

When they delivered the tail, it wouldn’t fit because the French used one computer program and the Germans used another. Company officials said the head of the A380 program, Charles Champion, sought to persuade the managers of the Hamburg design shops of Airbus to adopt the French software for use with the A380 as early as 2001.

He met a wall.

German engineers preferred to work with an older design software made by a U.S. company, Computervision. The program had been the gold standard of industrial design tools in the 1980s but was only capable of producing two-dimensional blueprints.

"It was partly a question of national pride," said Williams. "The German engineers sort of felt that there was a French solution being imposed on them. But the fact was, there was a tool being used in Hamburg that was behind the times."

Bet Boeing got a laugh out of that one.

Cheers.

Back in 1999 NASA lost a $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched. Oops.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-oct-01-mn-17288-story.html

I always think the classic is, when Airbus was building the first A380, the French built the fuselage and the Germans built the tail.

When they delivered the tail, it wouldn’t fit because the French used one computer program and the Germans used another. Company officials said the head of the A380 program, Charles Champion, sought to persuade the managers of the Hamburg design shops of Airbus to adopt the French software for use with the A380 as early as 2001.

He met a wall.

German engineers preferred to work with an older design software made by a U.S. company, Computervision. The program had been the gold standard of industrial design tools in the 1980s but was only capable of producing two-dimensional blueprints.

"It was partly a question of national pride," said Williams. "The German engineers sort of felt that there was a French solution being imposed on them. But the fact was, there was a tool being used in Hamburg that was behind the times."

Bet Boeing got a laugh out of that one.

Cheers.

I remember that well. Being a Boeing employee, I thought we'd get a chance to pull ahead of our competition. Of course, I'm not laughing now. Seeing my 1000 shares of stock go from $440 to $97 last year. So much for getting that Phantom Flex. The Airbus consortium is supposed to be ISO 9000 compliant, which would mean that all parties keep up to date software. As I recall, the Germans did not update their CATIA CAD software because the newer version that the French were using introduced lots of efficiency and it would mean lots of job cuts on the production line. When the German-built portion of the plane arrived in France, the wiring didn't mate up and it was a huge, expensive ordeal. They had to set up tables along the aircraft with rolls of paper where they'd manually document the wiring changes as they made them. If they completely shut down the line, they would incur penalties, so day shift would install wiring and night shift would remove it, just so they could say they was no work stoppage. Airbus also had an issue with their carbon-fiber fuselage, I believe on the A350XWB. They ran the electricals like they would in an aluminum fuselage and nothing would power up. Turns out the ground return circuits were attached to the non-conductive fuselage and they had to install long copper strips throughout the length of the plane.

Mark

I'm sure there are ways of making this stuff still fit together.

"Vee have vays of makin' you torque."

Okay. My bad. Best I could do. I'll just be going now.

Andrew

There's also this famous incident

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/jet-s-fuel-ran-out-after-metric-conversion-errors.html

"Air Canada said yesterday that its Boeing 767 jet ran out of fuel in midflight last week because of two mistakes in figuring the fuel supply of the airline's first aircraft to use metric measurements."

Back on topic.... last night, a senator described the video evidence in the impeachment trial as "a huge pile of videotapes". I actually think he believed there was a big pile of tapes somewhere.

So, my question for the group is, what brand of videotapes do you use on your phone? :-)

Boyd: an Apple a day in my case. 👌

Mark: Boeings strategy of not following Airbus in building a giant competitor to their A380 paid off, by waiting for more powerful motors to power their 787 Dreamliner. Orders for the A380 disappeared and the line closed.

But then came the 737 MAX disasters and now the virus. But I saw Boeing is advertising for more staff. They sent me this last June ....

*We have various open positions in engineering, manufacturing, trades and quality that require active U.S. security clearance or the ability to obtain one. We have opportunities across the United States in:
Southern Calif.
Kent, Wash.
St. Louis, Mo.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
San Antonio, Texas
D.C. Metro Area.

Cheers.

I vaguely recall some years ago trying to make the argument that DV tape was better than cards. I think it was because the wedding videographers would tell of how they had some data wrangling mishap and lost all their footage. I figured with my stuff on tape, even if my computer crashed I could always just re-capture the video and disaster would be averted.

SInce nobody has come up with a likable term for recording moving pictures onto solid state media, it looks like we'll have to wait until the next big change comes along. Maybe they'll make cameras with SIM cards in them so we can record directly to the "cloud". (or do we already have that?)

As for metric or imperial, I don't think most Americans are losing any sleep over it. If your job deals with metrics then you just learn to be fluent in both. I remember when they put the speed limit signs up in both KPH and MPH, and that was pretty much the extent of the campaign. They just never made a very strong case to change over. No perceived benefit to most people.

Alan: Always great to get offers.

Mark

Mark, I should clarify my offer from Boeing last June. It came in their newsletter which many others would have received as well. I thought it was strange because Boeing laid off 7000 workers a month earlier, due to the pandemic cancelling orders.

Cheers.

It might have been smarter to divide the meter by 360 than by 1000. You can divide 360 evenly by 23 numbers. You can divide 1000 by only 16 numbers.

I don't buy that. Look at the difficulty people have calculating times, using base 6 math to carry seconds to minutes and minutes to hours. And some people seem to have trouble even with 1/8, as in adding or subtracting eighths of an inch. I can't imagine talking about 9th of a meter, 45th of a meter, 72nd of a meter, etc. Much easier to move the decimal point.