The early years of the annual ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) SIGGRAPH (Special Interests Group in Graphics) conference saw strides in the development and refinement of computer graphics techniques. As a way to share these developments, content creators assembled to informally screen their work over one or two evenings during the conference. This tradition grew into what is now the juried SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival.

In an effort to archive advancements in computer graphics occurring at the time, EVL director Tom DeFanti became the editor of the SIGGRAPH Video Review (SVR) - a video publication consisting of the best computer graphics created within a specific year across all disciplines from entertainment to scientific visualizaiton. To date, the SVR collection consists of over 180 issues of the world's most notable computer graphics. Originally distributed on video tape, then DVD, the SVR content is accessed as streaming media via SIGGRAPH Encore.

Over the years, EVL has provided its editing facilities to compile issues of the SVR, and currently houses the complete SVR repository. Since 1983, DeFanti has worked with the current SVR Editor/Administrator Dana Plepys to maintain and grow the SVR archive.