A Blast from the Worldcon Past

[kevin_standlee]

Lisa has unearthed videotapes from the 1994 Worldcon in addition to the 1994 Hugo Awards ceremony that she previously converted to digital format and that I posted. With the permission of ConAdian's parent non-profit (via the current Chair, Linda Ross-Mansfield), Lisa is converting them and I'm posting them to the Worldcon Events YouTube channel. I'm sure glad that we paid for improved internet connectivity, because these files are quite large. Here is the ConAdian 1994 Worldcon Convention Highlights. I am on here near the very end, during the Closing Ceremony, looking more or less like the user icon on this post, including having a lot more hair, and none of it grey.

Watch on YouTube

Please don't complain about the video quality. This what the VHS tape looks like when you play it, so you're getting everything we had. Things weren't quite the same way (almost) thirty years ago as they are today. We did the best with the material that we had.

There is one more tape that is pending conversion, and we'll post it once Lisa has it digitized.

Comments

[delosharriman]

From what Lisa said to me, these are not first-generation videotapes. Hence whatever was wrong with the originals is "baked in" during the dubbing-off process, & cannot be corrected. If she had the original tapes, it might be different — assuming they were made on good stock, et cetera, which is far from assured. In fact it's not clear to me that the original taping was done on VHS. It might as easily have been 8 mm.

[lindadee]

You're also in the section with the business meeting, unless you have an evil twin.

[kevin_standlee]

Oh, that's right! I overlooked that part. Right after the final meeting adjourned, Paul Dormer, who was WSFS manager for 1995, came up to the head table and offered me the job of chairing the 1995 meeting, based on my performance on the head table there in Winnipeg.