I remember watching a video by Techmoan or Technology Connections or LGR about a system that stored images as video frames on a video disc.

There seems to be no motion blur on that image (from shooting with portable video camera from a moving car), so maybe part of this archive was shot with said technology.

> Does this mean somebody has taken the photos and transferred them to tape, and that is what we're seeing here?

More accurately: Photograph -> Videotape -> Edited Videotape -> Laserdisc

> If this _was_ done for archival purposes, what is the likelihood of the original negatives still surviving?

I'm not sure. I hope they do! 35mm resolves to much greater than HD even on cheap/common film stock.

> At which stage was the text box added in?

Definitely once the footage was on videotape and before being stored on a second "edited" videotape since the box is partially distorted in the image I linked to above.

Actually from the site it looks like the digitized copies were saved as - get this - LaserDisc! Kudos to NYC, they decided to go full-on 80's mode for sure.

Oh yeah, plenty of cameras had a "photo" button, that recorded a single frame to like 2 seconds of VHS tape. You could put the tape into a reader, and project or print the photos later.

I'm not 100% sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they hacked a telecine.

Yes, probably -- before digital cameras, there were still video cameras. They used a CCD to record still video images onto magnetic media such as a video floppy disk. So a lot like a digital camera, but fully analog.

These were pretty cutting-edge tech in the mid 80's and would have made a lot of sense for a project like this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_video_camera

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_floppy

A fun video to learn more about the tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G_1uy_7B5w

How do you think video works?

Agreed!