ISSUE7 录像取代文字记录【求拍，有拍必回】

爱上千年的猫UID: 2476232

TOPIC: ISSUE7 - "The video camera provides such an accurate and convincing record of contemporary life that it has become a more important form of documentation than written records."
WORDS: 496
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2010-3-14 20:42:08

Modern technologies provide a useful tool to record contemporary life, that is, the video camera. Unlike written records, video camera enables an accurate replay of scenarios, including both sound and scenes. However, it does not necessarily mean that written records will gradually disappear in the history of documentation. Instead, written records have merits that video camera can not match.

The accurate and convincing replay of scenarios is one of the most remarkable advantages of video camera over written words. Consider a video of a baseball match. Even the most experienced journalists can not record every single action of the players and the audience. But video camera makes it. Whenever you replay the video, you will recall the impassioned atmosphere of that game. Meanwhile, unlike written records, which inevitably include the writer's attitude or opinion, video camera can record what happened objectively, which is the essential need for the certain areas, such as sports judges and police investigations. Since the invention of video camera, we step further to record life accurately and convincingly.

But video camera also has its shortcomings as a recording method. It relies on certain recording machines and playing machines. Whenever you want to record something, you must have the camera right on hand and fully charged, which is not likely to achieve when something happens suddenly. Besides, as a common foible of technological products, the update of those machines is frequent. Some latest players are incompatible with old-version video tapes, making it impossible to review the tapes if the old-version players break down. Such drawbacks of video camera determine that it is undesirable to use it as the only way to record.

In contrast, written records avoid many of those disadvantages of video camera. Writers do not rely on specific recording tools. Even if some events happen suddenly, the writers can remember the scene in their memory and write down on paper or computer as soon as they get it. Also, since the language will not change as frequently as technology, the written records can remain available to people several hundreds years later. In addition, written records can be stored by various means, such as paper files, digital discs, or online storage space, which apparently facilitate the process of searching. Whenever you want to refer the Gold Medal winners of 1988 Log Angeles Olympic Games, you can go to the library referring to the records of that year or simply Google online, rather than finding all the video tapes of that year and watch one by one.

To sum up, video camera and written records both have merits and drawbacks, which determine that each one can not be replaced by the other. A better form of documentation is to combine the two. In this way, not only we achieve accurate and convincing scenarios of certain event, but also we can find those records without too much effort. Perhaps, a database similar to the YouTube is a harbinger of the trend of modern documentation.