Humanity’s curiosity and ever-gnawing need to find out why and how things work are trademarks of our species. The drive to make things easier, quicker and more convenient catapulted us from mere cave dwellers struggling against the elements to the progressive society we are today.
Nothing defines human progress more than the advances made in the fields of engineering and technology. Our want for entertainment didn’t escape these advancements. This article explores the birth of visual viewing and how it progressed to online streaming and having the best casinos at our fingertips.
Humble beginnings
Auguste and Louis Lumière, French brothers and inventors, initiated and introduced the world to ‘moving pictures’ in 1895. These two visionaries invented the Cinématographe, a camera projector that opened the doors to visual movies – or moving pictures. The world’s first-ever movie was a short film depicting workers leaving the Lumière factory at the end of a working day.
The Cinématographe gave birth to the name cinema, which we still use to this day to describe drive-in and sit-down film establishments. Others grabbed the ball from the Lumière brothers and ran with it. Their early initiatives led to the invention of television sets, which appeared first on history’s rich tapestry just over three decades later.
The father of the first television set was Philo Farnsworth. Ironically, this inventor lived in a home without electricity until the age of 14. He conceived the idea for a television set in high school when he pondered how radio waves could be used to capture and transform moving images.
Several attempts preceded Farnsworth’s effort, but these were mainly mechanical versions. Farnsworth’s system was the first to scan images with beams of electrons and is globally recognized as the direct predecessor of modern-day televisions.
This young inventor’s brainchild brought visual entertainment right into people’s homes. The demand for home entertainment systems grew exponentially. The 1950s earmarked an explosion in television markets, and by the 1970s, most households had a television set.
These evolved from heavy and bulky tube-backed dinosaurs to the sleek flatscreens that we have today. Television developments had to keep up with the later introduction of video cassette recorders (VCRs), digital versatile disc (DVD) players and, last but definitely not least, gaming consoles.
Today, most Western homes have complete home entertainment systems. These include between two and three television sets per household, with people watching up to five hours of TV every day. The arrival of the internet once again changed our viewing pleasures.
When the internet went live
The internet, much like any other technological advancement, went through some initial teething stages. Globally, 1983 marks the birth of the internet. Our world changed forever when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee established the World Wide Web in 1990. The now-familiar ‘www’ affects how we discover, view, and socially interact.
Exactly how did the internet change the face of television though? Television journeyed from cable to satellite to internet streaming. The latter transformed the way that the television industry makes decisions. In the past, networks decided what content to screen or not. The internet stripped TV bosses of this power.
These days, viewers can watch whatever they want by simply accessing the content on the internet. Sports, news, films, television shows – these are all at our fingertips when and where we want them. You can even access your favourite online casino games through the internet without having to travel to a brick-and-mortar casino.
Streaming and internet TV
Streaming and internet TV require little introduction. It simply denotes the streaming and watching of digital content. This can be anything from live streams of sports games and news coverage to movies and reality TV shows.
Websites, in the early days of the internet, contained some text and maybe one or two images. Rapid developments defined this industry. Today, it hosts almost anything we can think of, and streaming plays a huge part in what and how we see things.
Simply stated, streaming technology is uninterrupted relays of audio and video content. Over the decades, streaming services transformed and progressed to address problems such as lagging and buffering. When you access a streaming service, you’re viewing a remotely stored file that’s being transmitted every few seconds over the internet. Fast internet connections make it possible to view content or play the best online casino games without technical glitches such as lagging and buffering.
How the COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in the use of streaming services
Studies show that the use of streaming services was on the rise before COVID-19 struck. Statistics in 2020 indicate that there was a huge surge in using the internet for entertainment purposes since the onset of the pandemic. Some of these studies recorded usage spikes of between 50% and 70% during the first lockdowns, with streaming services rising by more than 12%.
Many events were canceled, but several celebrities took it upon themselves to stream home concerts or motivational bits and pieces to boost global morale. These streamings introduced more and more people to internet viewing.
Streaming today
Streaming dominates the contemporary viewing industry. Disney+ alone sports more than 10 million subscribers, which is quite a feat when you consider that it only launched at the end of 2019. This company’s entry onto the digital entertainment scene also strengthened the global platforms of other streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max.
Viewers prefer streaming services because they can watch what they want on their terms. Streaming puts the consumer in the driver’s seat and the subscription fees are cheaper. All you need is a steady internet connection.
Netflix started the streaming boom that snowballed and hailed in a new era of viewing with limitless content. You can literally stream anything you want – from your favourite music to the latest global happenings. This includes live-streamed broadcasts of sports events when sports betting at the best online casinos. It opened a world of choice and broke down the time and viewing material barriers.
