Wetlook World Forum

By the end of the 90s, I had started watching wetlook clips on a computer, albeit not mine. That was the days of of MPEG (the original), and due to the ineffective compression techniques, the low bitrates led to very poor video quality, and still a fairly small frame size. Back then, there was no single video standard (I mean, there isn’t now, but we’re a lot closer) so each video needed a separate codec, often variants of Intel Indeo.

It’s strange to look back at some of those 90s clips and marvel at how I could possibly put up with footage where the details are barely visible! It’s a lot like how, earlier today, I was looking at some recent screenshots I took (a kind of “visual bookmark” of things I need to do) from my old PC (that I replaced in November last year) — my 12-year-old 1600×1200 20″ monitor that always felt like I had tons of space (which is why I bought it in the first place) but now on a 2560×1440 27″ display, that 1600×1200 workspace looks painfully cramped. How did I survive for so long like that? Or, back in’t 90s, on a mere 1024×768 (256 colours) or 800×600 (“thousands” of colours)?

Still, all of this would pale in comparison with getting an opportunity to live it out in reality. That is unlikely to come to pass, so for now, modern high definition video will have to suffice!