CriticalPast Introduces One of the World’s Largest Online Archives of Historic Film Footage and Photo Images

DOVER, Del.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CriticalPast today launched one of the world’s largest online resources for royalty-free, historic footage and photos. Available now at http://www.CriticalPast.com, the collection spans thousands of hours of video and millions of still images, all of which are available for free viewing online, or for immediate download. CriticalPast includes some of history’s most iconic moments from over 4,000 locations worldwide and dating as far back as the 1890s to modern times. Key themes in the collection include Early Motion Pictures, World War I, World War II – including scores of clips related specifically to D-Day and Pearl Harbor – Korean War, Vietnam War, American Presidents, The Great Depression, Civil Rights, and the Cold War.

“To further engage users, we’ve also integrated features such as a ‘Your Birthday in History’ search tool on the homepage, along with a ‘This Week In History’ MediaRSS subscription feed.”

CriticalPast’s library of more than 57,000 video clips is drawn from government sources and digitized, making it easy for users to search CriticalPast’s extensive collection, then stream or download a video. Videos in a customer’s requested format are available for download in minutes, rather than in days or weeks. CriticalPast is unmatched in offering immediate downloads and a choice of more than 10 image formats for every clip on its website.

Also, as a result of its unique technology, CriticalPast has generated a never-before-seen collection of over seven million historic still images, which are created from moving video images at a cadence of one per second.

“The market is ready for a fresh approach that addresses the numerous hurdles, inconsistent pricing schemes and waiting times that professionals and consumers currently endure when trying to secure video footage and images," said Andy Erickson, Co-Founder of CriticalPast. “No other provider delivers the kind of service we’re offering at CriticalPast and we’re challenging the status quo in the archival stock footage and stock photo business.”

For professional TV and film producers, CriticalPast offers a variety of standard and high definition, broadcast ready formats. Professional clips are priced between USD$30 to USD$180, depending on duration and format, which represents a significant savings compared to most stock footage providers. Clips average about three minutes in length, allowing professionals to buy only the scenes they need and not pay for an entire reel of footage. Professional "screeners,” with time code burned in, are offered for USD$5, providing producers with convenient, low-cost preview images for the edit suite.

“We’ve made it easy for users to find clips on CriticalPast by including a description for each video and making the collection browsable as well as searchable by keywords, dates, locations, and more,” said Jim Erickson, Co-Founder of CriticalPast. “To further engage users, we’ve also integrated features such as a ‘Your Birthday in History’ search tool on the homepage, along with a ‘This Week In History’ MediaRSS subscription feed.”

Each video clip on CriticalPast is featured on its own page with related still photo images. Each page features "Related Clips" and "Related Links" tools to assist users in finding related footage on CriticalPast, or in further researching a clip's subject matter through direct links to third-party resources such as Wikipedia and Google Maps. Crowd-sourcing features allow users to provide improvements and additional details for any clip’s description, and discuss any clip with other users in the CriticalPast forum.

Worldwide Availability

In addition to online streaming and downloads, CriticalPast can ship orders worldwide, including professionally printed photos in rigid mailers and video files on USB flash drives. All video clips and still images purchased through CriticalPast are royalty free.

About CriticalPast LLC

A team of archival research, film, and Internet professionals formed CriticalPast LLC, working together to create one of the largest privately held, online archival footage sources in the world. Its royalty-free collection spans thousands of hours of video, millions of still photos, and continues to grow. The company’s world-class storage and hosting environment and unique image processing algorithms allow it to instantly transcode full-resolution images into various formats on demand, filling customer orders in minutes for download or shipping worldwide. Drawn largely from U.S. government agency sources, the clips and images in the CriticalPast collection are available for license without the clearance concerns encountered when ordering from typical stock footage providers. Visit us at http://www.criticalpast.com, friend us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter, @CriticalPast.

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