Firsts in the recording of sight and sound

Firsts in the recording of sight and sound These pages were last revised on 2009-11-03 This series of pages was created in response to my own frustration at not being able to find this material in one place on the Internet. Most of this reflects work by others, though I have added my own research where relevant.

Still photos	Sound	Movies	Sound movies

First photo	First sound recording	First movie	First sound movie
			First stereo sound movie
First photo in 3D		First 3D movie	First colour sound movie
	First stereo sound recording		First colour stereo sound movie
First colour photo		First colour movie	First 3D sound movie
			First 3D stereo sound movie
First colour photo in 3D		First 3D colour movie	First 3D colour sound movie
			First 3D colour stereo sound movie

Invisible radiation photography		Other imaging and scanning

If you find factual errors, or know of useful information that would improve these pages, I really want to hear from you.

Explanatory note

My focus, in these pages, is on the sensory experience that's being recorded, rather than on the technology that provides the recording medium. Where a technological development marks a significant step forward in the representation of reality it will be included. But if it's no more than another way of achieving the same thing, it's unlikely to be noted. Hence, for example, I have nothing on the first recordings of sound on wire and tape.

Note the word 'recording': I am not concerned with first uses of technology for exclusively creative purposes. For this reason there is no reference, for example, to Flowers and Trees, the first three-colour Technicolor film, as it was an animation. Occasionally I have taken the decision not to include processes that I find interesting, but which for me involve too much human intervention in post-production. An outstanding example of this would be photosculpture.

There is very little on Virtual Reality. This may be reviewed, but at the moment I feel that VR is more to do with simulation than with verisimilitude, and is too distant from the purpose of these pages. For a similar reason I have made no serious attempt at including movies that employ special effects such as Aromarama or Sensurround.

Appendix – odour

The first apparently successful steps in the recording and playback of smells were announced in mid-2006, by a team from the Tokyo Institute of Technology led by Takamichi Nakamoto. In development from 1999, the technique involves 15 chemical-sensing electronic noses that can pick up a wide range of smells, the information being stored digitally. These in turn are reproduced from an ingredient list of 96 chemicals held in glass vials in the machine. The device had, by that date, successfully recorded and reproduced the smells of orange, lemon, apple, banana and melon. See Nakamoto Laboratory, Fildes, and Nakamoto 2005.