SPORTS fans can see legendary cricketers K.S. Ranjitsinhji and C.B. Fry in action thanks to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
The archive built a custom-made device to digitise and publish a rare Kinora reel featuring 1901 footage of the cricketers playing in Hove, England, after the reel was donated by cricket historian Glenn Gibson.
As Kinora players are very rare, the archive had to create a way to view and preserve the footage.
"In absence of a Kinora player, and with such a significant donation, we had to find a way to capture the moving image," archive curator Jeff Wray said.
"Our conservation team suggested adapting a film winder to replicate the original Kinora mechanism, and a metal ruler to hold the images so they could flick through the reel without damaging them.
"Our custom-made machine allowed the reel to be viewed, and held the images in place to be photographed, one by one."
All 465 frames were photographed and used to create a 19 second film showing the famous cricketers batting.
The original Kinora was the first home movie entertainment system, invented in 1897 by Lumiere in France.
It followed the same principle as a flip book, and photographic images were attached to a reel that was rotated by a crank handle to bring the images to life.
The archive's device will be used to digitise the six remaining Kinora reels in the archive's collection, featuring a woman dancing, the launching of a life boat and a man reading a letter.
