this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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Showerthoughts

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There is a trove of flash animation that is completely lost to history (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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From Homestar Runner to Salad fingers to badgers, stick figure battles, and the End of Ze World, this — dare I call it an artform? — was a cultural touchstone for a generation.

Flash made vector animation available to the masses, and internet distribution of the relatively small video files was a piece of cake. With the filetype now essentially deprecated, the creators gone on to bigger and better things, the distribution sites shut down, it is a dead form. Most of it will be lost forever, although there may be someone archiving some of it for posterity.

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[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Flash still got it good.

Consider the entire generation of 1970s and 1980s Betamax footage that is basically lost today.

When format wars snap to one side: VHS vs Betamax, HD-DVD vs BluRay, Flash vs HTML5, QuickTime vs DivX... The losing side basically loses a ton of footage.

For the most part, we know how to play Flash right now and mostly how to upconvert it or otherwise archive it. That's not true of all formats.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What content was released on beta that wasn't released on vhs or later on DVD or something else?

I don't think it's comparable at all.

[–] dragontamer@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

First hit on Google was this list made by some Redditor: https://www.reddit.com/r/Betamax/comments/z8cun4/films_that_only_exist_on_betamax_or_alt_editions/

In any case: the big advantage of Betamax (and VHS) was how easy it was to get home-recordings done. An entire generation of family photos / family events (birthday parties, etc. etc.) are on Betamax and likely lost.