Technology Corner
Randy Hoffner is manager of technology and strategic planning at ABC, New York, N.Y. The views expressed in his column are his own, and not necessarily those of ABC.
Whither Television Broadcasting?
by Randy Hoffner, 04.29.2009
We interrupt the series that has been running in this column on "ultra resolution," to bring you a message about what's going on in television today. More...
The Quest for Ever-Higher Resolution
by Randy Hoffner, 04.03.2009
Currently, 1920x1080 is the HD video scanning format with the highest spatial resolution, but there are efforts underway to change this. More...
The High Speed World of 1080p Over 3 Gbps
by Randy Hoffner, 01.13.2009
Although there is little equipment supporting it available, the interest in 1080p/60 as a future scanning format has been high enough to result in a SMPTE standard for an interface to accommodate it. More...
What's All This About 1080p and 3 Gbps?
by Randy Hoffner, 12.12.2008
Several years ago, video mastering and archiving of film-based material for the various, and proliferating, video applications, migrated to 1080p/24 (well, really 1080p/23.98). This was a good thing, for several reasons. More...
The Evolution of Videotape Formats, Part 2
by Randy Hoffner, 11.03.2008
This wrapping pattern requires tape that is much thinner and more flexible than 2-inch tape. It is so thin and flexible that as it travels through the transport, it is subject to stretching and flexing which effectively changes More...
Videotape is Not Dead, Either
by Randy Hoffner, 10.01.2008
You have previously read in this column that despite several memorial services, film is not dead as a capture medium for television programming. In fact, after some flirtation with 24 fps video, we are back to the situation in More...
Is Broadcast Television Losing Its Mojo?
by Randy Hoffner, 06.11.2008
The broadcast station business suddenly seems to be less of a financial sure thing than it used to be. More...
When NTSC is Shut off, BTSC Will be, too
by Randy Hoffner, 04.09.2008
BTSC brought us television stereo and other sound services, and in the process, it spelled the end of the big TV set with the tiny little loudspeaker. More...
2007: The Year of New Media
by Randy Hoffner, 02.06.2008
Technological developments are materializing very quickly in recent years, and the pace of development is, in fact, increasing. It was not so many years ago, well into the age of digital audio and video recording, that the More...
Will the End of NTSC Be the End of 59.94?
by Randy Hoffner, 01.09.2008
Where did this strange parameter come from, anyway, and why do we need it? More...
White Space Devices: Threat to Broadcast TV?
by Randy Hoffner, 12.05.2007
We have recently heard many references to “white spaces,” but in this case, white spaces refer to the segments of the broadcast television spectrum in a given geographic area that are not occupied by television signals: the More...
SFN TV Broadcasting in The United States?
by Randy Hoffner, 10.03.2007
Many readers might remember the enthusiastic support of some for the adoption of coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, also known as COFDM, as the DTV transmission mechanism in the United States. More...
Successor to the Compact Disc?
by Randy Hoffner, 08.08.2007
The CD was revolutionary, of course, because it is a digital audio recording. Although digital audio recorders had previously been used professionally, the CD was the first digital medium available to the general public. More...
Free, Wireless Television Makes a Resurgence
by Randy Hoffner, 06.13.2007
We continue to see rapid changes in the way television may be delivered to viewers, and some of the research on what interests viewers in this respect is revealing—even surprising. More...