New York City in 1993 in HD – DTheater DVHS Demo Tape [video] | Hacker News Reader

New York City in 1993 in HD – DTheater DVHS Demo Tape [video]

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91 pointsdsego34 comments

Beyond the lack of smartphones/earbuds, the two big things that stick out to me:

1. The cars. Sometime in the 90s and 00s cars started becoming a lot less boxy (compare the Camry from 1990 to 2000 to 2010 to see this).

2. Way more formal dress wear. In today's NYC financial district you plenty of jeans, and even a lot of financial professionals have given up the suits and ties. The financial district today also has more tech workers, and I believe more tourists.

Another difference to me is the lack of cabs. When comparing this shot: https://youtu.be/fT4lDU-QLUY?t=127 and any number of Google Maps images of the same location (looking North towards St. Patrick's) https://www.google.com/maps/@40.756666,-73.9786279,3a,75y,27... it's striking how there are way more black cars and fewer taxis today.

The thing that stood out for me was all the cigarette advertising.

You really can't walk through Wall Street without getting hit in the face by a selfie stick in summer.

It's a residential area now. Most of the jobs moved out of the immediate area as exchanges became electronic (not to imply that there is not a huge finance presence down there still).

First thing that struck me - no earbuds.

Reminds me of this funky dance video my uncle made in the early 90s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0opXVKNgfM

And everybody looking straight ahead rather than down at a smartphone

youtube username 'youtube pedant' is actually techmoan, and hes done a great video all about DVHS and its context here: https://youtu.be/jiu0LPeLQPE

Is it a sign of age that it doesn’t look that dated to me?

I'd say it's a sign of the quality of the video.

Much of the reason we think the past seems so far away is that the media it was recorded on was either not so good to begin with, or has deteriorated over time.

One of the odder experiences in the last week has been seeing an early 90s style dance video at 60FPS in HD.

If you remember the early 90s, particularly In Living Color, check out https://youtu.be/LsoLEjrDogU

As others have said, the main thing is the lack of smartphones. The date is late enough that you're past obviously 80s hair styles etc. I'm guessing people are dressier than if you shot equivalent scenes today but it's Manhattan so people maybe being a bit more dressed up doesn't jump out at you.

I guess what I mean is that the presence of smartphones still stands out for me, and the absence looks normal.

Women's hair is getting shorter and straighter in this 1993 video, but there's still a lot of 80s big volume going on - it's an interesting mix between 80s dynasty and 90s flat part.

Reminds me of the Cowboy Bebop movie opening: https://youtu.be/ofSLCFxJ8Jo

It does. I believe both DVHS Demo reel and Cowboy Bebop film opening were influenced by opening sequence of Manhattan (1979). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrPedKkNsh4

If you want a really retro experience, look up terms on youtube like “high school video yearbook 1997”. My class didn’t do one of these, but apparently lots did. Shows you all the trendy trends for high school that year. Weird knowing what all these kids will likely go through later in their lives...

https://youtu.be/lsBLXMEjMNQ

Wow. Love the colors.

The track needs more cowbell.

It’s weird to see no cellphones.

The opposite of weird!

It's nice to see people aware of their surrounds paying attention to where they are and who and what is around them. I like it. Photography is now so much more boring when it has people in them because their focus is often on their phones.

Weird means unusual, strange.

Yes, as in - we are living in a weird time where humans all stare into plastic squares instead of looking where they're going as they've usually done for thousands of years.

I can't tell if it's supposed to be a strict instrumental take on Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City" or a clever mash-up of the bridge from Joe Zawinul's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and the former. Either way, I dig it.

It's "elevatorized" Stevie don't you think? I blame Seinfeld for making everyone so cracked out on the slap bass back then. I feel like people would re-record tunes just to throw slap bass in there. It felt like popular music had rubber bands in it all the time. Oh, and wall to wall alto sax solos (thanks 80s and George Michael!) Also: note the period-accurate very smooth jazz aiming for a glam jazz feel. This was everywhere back then too. But the cool thing was NYC was much more of a jazz city throughout- I'll never forget one of the first times I took the subway- a guitarist was playing and singing "Ribbon In The Sky" - he was incredible, and I thought... I guess I'm in the right place.

Hah! It's funny that you say that; I nearly mentioned Seinfeld in my original comment. I guess we were thinking along the same lines. It's true that it is a bit "elevatorized" but I guess I was enjoying it from my 2018 perspective as almost a knowing and satirical nod (i.e., half-parody, half-pastiche) to that era.

definitely

This is in contrast to a cartoon collection released semiannually (Soviet/Russian cartoon studio) until 2000 that looked exactly like the first 1960s release. All are available on their YouTube channel.

DVHS was great, it just came too late at too high of a price for much adoption.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiu0LPeLQPE

What technology was this filmed with? D-VHS wasn't commercially available until 1998. Was this made with a prototype?

The description on the YouTube page says the original footage came from a Japanese high definition demo (probably a HiVison MUSE system). HiVision MUSE has development going back to 1979 according to Wikipedia [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sub-Nyquist_sampling_...

Big glasses, bigger shoulder pads.

Why is this on Hacker News at all though?

Somebody probably submitted it, and other people probably enjoyed it.

> Why is this on Hacker News at all though?

Because it is technology-related, is my guess.

The only criterion is intellectual curiosity. This has that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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