First Ever Video Recording (Great Britain, 1888)

The Roundhay Garden Scene,
a short film shot by French
inventor Louis Le Prince,
is considered the earliest surviving motion
picture by the Guiness Book of Records.
Le Prince made the film using a
single lens camera
and Eastman's paper film at
12 frames per second,
and runs for 2.11 seconds.
According to Le Prince's son,
Adolphe, it was filmed at Oakwood Grange,
the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley,
in Roundhay, Leeds,
West Riding of Yorkshire,
England on October 14, 1888.
The film "features Adolphe Le Prince,
Sarah Whitley, Joseph Whitley
and Harriet Hartley
in the garden, walking around.
Note that Sarah is walking backwards
as she turns around,
and that Joseph's coat tails are flying
as he also is turning.
Sarah Whitley was Le Prince's mother-in-law
being the mother of John Whitley
and Le Prince's wife Elizabeth Whitley LePrince.
Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was taken"Show more

"He [Le Prince] was never able to perform
a planned public demonstration
in the United States
because he mysteriously
vanished from a train
on 16 September 1890.
His body and luggage were never found, but,
over a century later,
a police archive was found to contain
a photograph of a drowned man
who could have been him.
Not long after this, Thomas Edison
tried to take credit for the invention.
But Le Prince’s widow and son,
Adolphe, were keen to advance his cause
as the inventor of cinematography.
In 1898 Adolphe appeared as a witness for the defence
in a court case brought by Edison against
the American Mutoscope Company,
claiming that Edison was the first and
sole inventor of cinematography
(and thus entitled to royalties
for the use of the process).
He was not allowed to present the
two cameras as evidence
(and so establish Le Prince’s
prior claim as inventor)
and eventually the court ruled
in favour of Edison;
a year later that ruling was overturned"

Source: historyofinformation.com