Recent News

Transformers’ Outstanding Special Effects Created By Digital Domain

Transformers: Dark of the Moon came out on DVD and Blu-Ray this month, and if you’ve gotten around to picking it up you’re probably still in awe of the special effects and robot creations this third time around. As much as we love making movies, it’s always great to sit back and enjoy some real eye candy. All three Transformers movies are known for their spectacular special effects and computer-generated creatures, robots and action scenes. These creations, which included unique characters and objects, were created by Academy Award-winning special effects company Digital Domain – not insignificant when you consider that […]

Video Editing

Basics of photo scanning

Scanners typically read red-green-blue color (RGB) data from the array. This data is then processed with some proprietary algorithm to correct for different exposure conditions, and sent to the computer via the device’s input/output interface (usually USB, previous to which was SCSI or bidirectional parallel port in older units). Color depth varies depending on the scanning array characteristics, but is usually at least 24 bits. High quality models have 36-48 bits of color depth. Another qualifying parameter for a scanner is its resolution, measured in pixels per inch (ppi), sometimes more accurately referred to as Samples per inch (spi). Instead […]

Video Editing

Audio Cassette Tape

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. Although designed originally for dictation, improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel tape recording in most non-professional applications.[1] Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers. Between the early 1970s and the late 1990s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP record and later the Compact Disc.[2] Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature […]

Video Conversion, Video Production

Broadcast Tapes & formats (from http://en.wikipedia.org)

Betacam The original Betacam format was launched on August 7, 1982. It is an analog component video format, storing the luminance, “Y”, in one track and the chrominance, on another as alternating segments of the R-Y and B-Y components performing Compressed Time Division Multiplex, or CTDM.[1] This splitting of channels allows true broadcast quality recording with 300 lines of horizontal luminance resolution and 120 lines chrominance resolution (versus ≈30 for Betamax/VHS), on a relatively inexpensive cassette based format. The original Betacam format records on cassettes loaded with oxide-formulated tape, which are theoretically the same as used by its consumer market-oriented […]