Overcranking HD
I run a post company in South Africa, and we too have experimented with overcranking HD, as discussed in the Production Clips column of your June issue. If you combine this technique with some of the software slomo tools, you can get good results up to 120 fps with very few artifacts, even on the transfer back to film. Long live HD and independent films.
Graham Cooke
G-Vision Digital Post
No need for DTV
To the editor:
DTV/HDTV is a solution in search of a problem! The supposed “free” channel only requires the television broadcaster to spend millions on an unproven technology to continue serving its viewers, and in return for spending those millions on this equipment presently being developed, they will be required to give up their present profitable station. Even after six years, there is no profitable digital television broadcast business model. Where's the equity? Where's the need?
I'm of the opinion that DTV/HDTV for terrestrial service is a boondoggle serving only the financial interests of the equipment suppliers (who have had no new “toy” to sell in quite some time); the production houses (with the same story); and the FCC (anxious to auction off spectrum for bucks).
When it requires a set larger than 32 inches to be able to tell the difference between analog and digital, it appears a lot less money could have been spent improving analog, with the resultant product equal in stature.
This will ultimately be settled by the consumer who, frankly, I think is making his or her voice heard already. Since the inception of off-air DTV, just under 300,000 sets have been sold (through Dec. 31, 2001), and there were only 29 million color analog sets sold in the United States last year!
There may be a niche market for DTV. But I doubt seriously that I will live to see the last analog station turned off in the United States. Can you imagine the political howl that will be raised — just by the 29 million consumers who bought sets last year — if, as you suggest, immediate obsolescence is forced upon them? Get real!
Gerald R. Proctor
Freezeframe winners
March Freezeframe:
Name this famous broadcast landmark, photographed in 1967, and what important industry event took place in the city that year.
The photo shows the twin towers of Marina City, home of WBKB (Channel 7) and WFLD (Channel 32), in Chicago. The important industry event held in the city that year was the 1967 NAB convention.
Winners:
Jim Borgioli
Don Rhodes
Harvey Caplan
Henry Ruhwiedel
Murray Bevitz, MBA
April Freezeframe:
What camera company made the “Polychrome” color camera? What feature made it unique?
Several readers answered correctly that Sarkes Tarzian made the “Polychrome” color camera. Fewer correctly guessed that the feature that made it unique was that it offered users a choice of pickup tubes. Users could choose Plumbicon or Vidicon tubes.
Winners:
Murray Bevitz, MBA
Charlie Sears
Floyd H. Miltz
Gary W. Blievernicht, Michigan State University
Wilson Louis Brown
May Freezeframe:
Name this famous broadcast transmission site. The photo was taken in 1967.
The site was Mt. Wilson outside of Los Angeles.
Winners:
Sally Rich, Dielectric Communications
Stuart Jagoda
Todd R. Loney, Electron Dynamics
Karl Sargent, California Oregon Broadcasting
Stan Amster
Philip S. Angerhofer, ABC
Matt Brown
