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Post by SharksFan99 on Jun 1, 2018 21:10:11 GMT 10
Before I go into more detail, I would like to clarify that I don't intend on this being a discussion of boundaries, or a decadeology thread. This purpose of this thread is to discuss when and how the world transitioned from the old, "analogue age", to the current, digital age.
I remember reading a post by a member on another forum site whom categorised 1991-2008 as being one coherant era which marked the transition from the analogue age to the digital age. Of course, '90s and the 2000s had their own respective identities and pop culture did progress substantially over the course of those years. However, if you focus solely on the bigger picture, I actually think the idea has some merit.
The "transition era" would start with the last true rock movement (Grunge) and the world wide web becoming available to the general public, while concluding with electropop breaking through into the mainstream, 16:9 widescreen and High-Definition TV's become commonplace and Facebook's rise in popularity. Rock music's cultural influence gradually declined over that period of time as well. Generally speaking, we went from cassettes and VHS tapes at the start of the "era", to MP3's and Blu-Rays by the end of it.
What are your thoughts on it? Do you believe the Early '90s-Late 2000s could be perceived as being a transitional era between the "analogue age" and the digital age?
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Post by longaotian on Jun 2, 2018 0:19:38 GMT 10
Yup, I would agree that 1991-2008 would be the transition. Also, I consider these years to be the 20th/21st century crossover years. I would say the 20th century was coming to an end around 1991 when the Cold War ended, home PCs and mobile phones we're becoming more popular. Then I would say we were really entering the 21st century around 2008 at the time of the recession, smartphones and hdtv gaining popularity and pop culture changing rapidly.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2018 0:27:09 GMT 10
People may disagree with me here, but I think that 1989 to 2001 is the transition between the analog age and the digital age. It is probably also the transition between the 20th and 21st centuries.
1989 was when Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web (though not public until 1991). The Revolutions of 1989 commences in Poland. The Berlin Wall falls and marks the collapse of communism. Nicolae Ceausescu gets assassinated on Christmas.
1995 is the turning point between the analog age and the digital age. This was when Windows 95 and Internet Explorer was released. The Oklahoma City Bombing ushers in the fear of domestic and far right terrorism in the West. The Richland school shooting ushers in the fear of schoolyard violence (this will not really become a major concern until the time of the Columbine shooting though).
2001 was when the iPod came out, around the time Internet had more than 500 million users worldwide, and the time when Internet usage hit more than 50% in the US. 9/11 and the War on Terror occurred and changes America forever.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Jun 2, 2018 22:15:09 GMT 10
Yup, I would agree that 1991-2008 would be the transition. Also, I consider these years to be the 20th/21st century crossover years. I would say the 20th century was coming to an end around 1991 when the Cold War ended, home PCs and mobile phones we're becoming more popular. Then I would say we were really entering the 21st century around 2008 at the time of the recession, smartphones and hdtv gaining popularity and pop culture changing rapidly. I generally agree with that. In a way, it also explains why 1990s and 2000s pop culture have a lot of similarities. People may disagree with me here, but I think that 1989 to 2001 is the transition between the analog age and the digital age. It is probably also the transition between the 20th and 21st centuries. 1989 was when Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web (though not public until 1991). The Revolutions of 1989 commences in Poland. The Berlin Wall falls and marks the collapse of communism. Nicolae Ceausescu gets assassinated on Christmas. 1995 is the turning point between the analog age and the digital age. This was when Windows 95 and Internet Explorer was released. The Oklahoma City Bombing ushers in the fear of domestic and far right terrorism in the West. The Richland school shooting ushers in the fear of schoolyard violence (this will not really become a major concern until the time of the Columbine shooting though). 2001 was when the iPod came out, around the time Internet had more than 500 million users worldwide, and the time when Internet usage hit more than 50% in the US. 9/11 and the War on Terror occurred and changes America forever. Yeah, I can definitely see how 1989-2001 could be described as being the transitional age as well.
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Post by SharksFan99 on Jun 25, 2018 16:40:43 GMT 10
I was thinking about this topic earlier and on second thought, you could probably end the transition between the analogue and digital age anytime between 2008-2011, depending on the examples given. Although HDTV and electropop became commonplace around the turn of 2009, entertainment was still largely consumed through physical means (e.g buying CD's, renting movies) and rock music was still a cultural movement at the time as well.
Generally speaking, the world of 2009 has much more in common with the years which immediately proceeded it than it does with the present time, at least in my opinion. I still regularly used VHS tapes to record TV content back in 2009 and so did a lot of other people, even though VHS was essentially obsolete by that point. Digital cameras were the main way to capture photos/videos, smartphones had not yet been widely adapted by the public and streaming services were basically non-existent.
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Post by AussieTV on Jun 27, 2018 10:25:58 GMT 10
I agree that the Analogue/Digital switch over would have occurred mostly between 1991-2008, however, it differs from country to country. At least in Australia, the iPhone did not arrive until Mid-July, 2008. Like SharksFan99 , many people were still using VHS tapes in that period too.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2018 21:48:56 GMT 10
If I was just to talk about how Digital TV evolved in Australia...
*2001-04: The start of Digital TV in Australia, although a vast majority of the population was still watching analogue at this time. The ABC & SBS experiment with the idea of multichannels, albeit with content restrictions.
*2004-07: The datacasting/interactive era with Video Program Guide channels and complimentary services during sport/other special events.
*2007-09: The HD multichanneling era, with the commercial networks running alternative programming in off-peak timeslots and main channel simulcasts for primetime and news/sport content. It's also around this time that the VPG channels cease broadcasting in favour of the full 7 Day EPG services (rather than just the "Now & Next" service that was there previously) we have on Digital TV now.
*2009-11: The rise of fulltime SD & HD digital multichannels. One HD, SBS TWO, GO!, 7TWO, ABC3, ABC News 24, 7mate, GEM & Eleven all launched during this time period.
*2011-13: The transition years. Analogue TV is switched off in the major markets, On-Air Presentation was realigned to become 14.9/16.9 safe and multichannels had their first major brand relaunches. Also, the commercial TV networks launched their "datacast" infomercial channels during this period.
*2014-15: Relatively stable with the digital retune/restack, but not much else to say.
*Late 2015-now: Australian TV broadcasting has a major realignment. Networks finally launch MPEG4 HD channels and online streaming services while paid programming "datacast" services are slowly phased out. The ABC and SBS moves away from "channel number" branding (eg, ABC1/2/3/News 24 and SBS ONE/2) to brands that are friendlier for a possible transition to online-only services in the future (ABC KIDS, ABC ME, ABC NEWS, ABC COMEDY, SBS VICELAND with main channels "dropping the 1" to become ABC/SBS-TV again). In regional TV there are affiliation/ownership/branding changes, while major sporting events change networks (ie, cricket moving to Seven & tennis moving to Nine) after 4 decades+.
As for the transition between the analogue & digital eras in the world as a whole, things are a lot more complex so it'd probably be hard to pinpoint an exact timeframe.
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Post by astropoug on Jul 8, 2021 8:44:35 GMT 10
OPINION:
The first sightings of digital technology were spotted in the late 1970s and 1980s. This is when home computers and video games were taking off. There was an obsession with this in the media, leading to films like TRON and WarGames. However, most tech, like cassettes and VHS tapes, were analog. The CD, a digital form of physical storage, was introduced in 1983, the Discman was released in 1984, and that's when they really began taking off. The video game industry temporarily died in 1983, but came back in 1986 after the NES became huge. By the late 1980s, CDs were becoming popular, and PCs began to replace home computers.
In the 90s, we all know what happened: the internet came out, and it became huge. By the end of the 90s, DVDs were introduced, the internet was exploding in popularity, and video games were now being taken seriously as a form of art alongside movies and TV. IMO, I'd say the year 1999, with the release of The Matrix, Tivo, and Amazon shifted from being an online bookstore to selling everything, was the point of no return, the first TRUE digital year. Analog technology gradually died down afterwards, but was completely dead by the mid-2000s, with VHS being discontinued in 2006, as well as social media platforms like MySpace and YouTube exploding in popularity.
So overall, the transition began MUCH earlier, dating back to 1977 with the home computer and video game explosion. 80s overall were more analog than digital with cassettes and VHSes being popular, and the internet still being a niche thing. First half of the 90s were 50/50, computers became common in households, CDs were popular, and you saw the beginning of the internet, second half begins to lean more digital with the internet going mainstream, DVDs, and video games being a mainstream form of art (Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time as good examples), and 1999 is when digital technology is the norm. Analog technology is completely dead by 2006.
So, 1977-2005 was the transistion, with 1977-1994 leaning more analog, and 1995-2005 leaning more digital.
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Post by astropoug on Jul 8, 2021 8:48:18 GMT 10
Actually, I forgot about digital television.
First became a thing in 1998, and was completely the norm by 2009 when analog television shut down.
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Post by John Titor on Jul 8, 2021 8:48:50 GMT 10
OPINION: The first sightings of digital technology were spotted in the late 1970s and 1980s. This is when home computers and video games were taking off. There was an obsession with this in the media, leading to films like TRON and WarGames. However, most tech, like cassettes and VHS tapes, were analog. The CD, a digital form of physical storage, was introduced in 1983, the Discman was released in 1984, and that's when they really began taking off. The video game industry temporarily died in 1983, but came back in 1986 after the NES became huge. By the late 1980s, CDs were becoming popular, and PCs began to replace home computers. In the 90s, we all know what happened: the internet came out, and it became huge. By the end of the 90s, DVDs were introduced, the internet was exploding in popularity, and video games were now being taken seriously as a form of art alongside movies and TV. IMO, I'd say the year 1999, with the release of The Matrix, Tivo, and Amazon shifted from being an online bookstore to selling everything, was the point of no return, the first TRUE digital year. Analog technology gradually died down afterwards, but was completely dead by the mid-2000s, with VHS being discontinued in 2006, as well as social media platforms like MySpace and YouTube exploding in popularity. So overall, the transition began MUCH earlier, dating back to 1977 with the home computer and video game explosion. 80s overall were more analog than digital with cassettes and VHSes being popular, and the internet still being a niche thing. First half of the 90s were 50/50, computers became common in households, CDs were popular, and you saw the beginning of the internet, second half begins to lean more digital with the internet going mainstream, DVDs, and video games being a mainstream form of art (Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time as good examples), and 1999 is when digital technology is the norm. Analog technology is completely dead by 2006. So, 1977-2005 was the transistion, with 1977-1994 leaning more analog, and 1995-2005 leaning more digital. VHS was discontinued by 2006, but other than recording shows on blank tapes no one used VHS for movies after 2003, we were in 100% DVD world by then. In fact back in 2004 those Silver DVD/VHS combo units were a way to be able to still record shows on VHS moreso than playing your already existing vhs collection.
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Post by astropoug on Jul 8, 2021 8:49:44 GMT 10
Actually, you can say the same about animation too. Animation was done traditionally through much of the 20th century, digital animation grew rapidly in the late 90s, and traditional animation was pretty much dead by 2002.
I think really, the 80s were an analog decade, the 00s a digital decade, and the 90s somewhere in between.
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Post by astropoug on Jul 8, 2021 8:51:07 GMT 10
OPINION: The first sightings of digital technology were spotted in the late 1970s and 1980s. This is when home computers and video games were taking off. There was an obsession with this in the media, leading to films like TRON and WarGames. However, most tech, like cassettes and VHS tapes, were analog. The CD, a digital form of physical storage, was introduced in 1983, the Discman was released in 1984, and that's when they really began taking off. The video game industry temporarily died in 1983, but came back in 1986 after the NES became huge. By the late 1980s, CDs were becoming popular, and PCs began to replace home computers. In the 90s, we all know what happened: the internet came out, and it became huge. By the end of the 90s, DVDs were introduced, the internet was exploding in popularity, and video games were now being taken seriously as a form of art alongside movies and TV. IMO, I'd say the year 1999, with the release of The Matrix, Tivo, and Amazon shifted from being an online bookstore to selling everything, was the point of no return, the first TRUE digital year. Analog technology gradually died down afterwards, but was completely dead by the mid-2000s, with VHS being discontinued in 2006, as well as social media platforms like MySpace and YouTube exploding in popularity. So overall, the transition began MUCH earlier, dating back to 1977 with the home computer and video game explosion. 80s overall were more analog than digital with cassettes and VHSes being popular, and the internet still being a niche thing. First half of the 90s were 50/50, computers became common in households, CDs were popular, and you saw the beginning of the internet, second half begins to lean more digital with the internet going mainstream, DVDs, and video games being a mainstream form of art (Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time as good examples), and 1999 is when digital technology is the norm. Analog technology is completely dead by 2006. So, 1977-2005 was the transistion, with 1977-1994 leaning more analog, and 1995-2005 leaning more digital. VHS was discontinued by 2006, but other than recording shows on blank tapes no one used VHS for movies after 2003 Hence the mid-2000s being more digital. It helped MySpace came out in 2003. I said this earlier, but IMO the transition was already complete to a digital world by the mid 2000s. Tape-based media was dead, social media was taking off, and iPods were all the rage.
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