“History of Scanimate” News Report from the 1980s

The Scanimate system was used to produce much of the video-based animation seen on television between most of the 1970s and early 1980s in commercials, promotions, and show openings. One of the advantages the Scanimate system had over film-based animation was the ability to create animations in real time. The speed with which animation could be produced on the system because of this, as well as its range of possible effects, helped it to supersede film-based animation techniques for television graphics. By the mid-1980s it was superseded by digital computer animation, which produced sharper images and more sophisticated 3D imagery.

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