television technology demystified a non-technical guide

[...]... From the technical point of view, it is always preferable to use one single channel instead of a number of parallel ones since all parallel channels should behave identically under all circumstances, and, practically speaking, that is almost impossible to achieve The only viable alternative to a simultaneous capturing and transmission system is to analyze, or scan, the picture to be transmitted by dissecting... origin He made a special perforated disk designed for a point-by-point analysis, that is, for scanning of optical pictures This mechanical scanning device disassembled simultaneous optical pictures into a number of discrete partial elements It consisted of a flat circular plate that rotated around an axis located at its center It was perforated with a number of holes following a spiral path from the... primaries (R,G,B) and that a given mixture of these three colors will produce the standard white It is possible, by using appropriate mathematical transformations, to represent all visible colors on one two-dimensional (2D) diagram known as a chromaticity diagram, or Plank diagram (see Figure 2.4), of a quasi-triangular shape The extreme ends of that diagram, or “corners of the triangle,” are the locations... system was unequivocally superior and was therefore officially selected as a standard for the planned television service And so the beginning of the first public television service in 1936 was, paradoxically, a victory for Baird, who had toiled for 15 years advocating the cause of television, but also a defeat of the system that he had developed 9 This Page Intentionally Left Blank Light and the Human Eye... approach, which says that light is both an electromagnetic wave and a stream of particles and that it behaves sometimes like a wave and sometimes like a stream of particles Fortunately for our purposes in discussing television, we can consider light only as an electromagnetic wave As mentioned, we perceive electromagnetic radiation at wavelengths between 380 and 700 nm That part of the electromagnetic spectrum... Telefunken, along with a gradually developing general awareness of the importance and the potential of that new medium Both Jenkins and Baird based their television systems on mechanical scanning of optical images with Nipkow disks Presumably they were aware of the limitations of mechanical systems and even knew the theoretical arguments of Boris Rosing from Russia and Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton from... film, and television is a mixture of creativity and technology Good lighting requires a lot of imagination and creativity but also an excellent knowledge of the technology used as well as precise planning and an understanding of the features and limitations of the whole video chain 11 12 Light and the Human Eye Lighting in television has to fulfill a certain number of functions, which, according to Alan... the action takes place 6 To enhance the overall aesthetic impact of the picture The camera work, staging, and light are three inseparable factors defining the aesthetic quality of any shot It is clear that all television productions do not require all the aforementioned functions, although three duties will always have to be fulfilled: ensure normal operating conditions for television cameras, achieve the... contrast range 21 This Page Intentionally Left Blank Generating a Television Picture 3 We have seen that the only effective way to transmit an optical image at a distance is to “dissect” or scan it, thereby transforming a simultaneous phenomenon into a sequential succession of individual pieces of optical information On the receiving end, these individual pieces of optical information are transformed back... blue-white, and our entire environment has a different appearance than it had several hours earlier By sunset, the second “golden hour” of the day, we experience again a sort of yellow-red light, and all the colors have much warmer tones Although our visual adaptation makes us accept different lightings as “white,” we know well that, for example, some fabrics or paint colors look different in daylight than . Standards 103 8 Exchanging Program Material as Bitstreams 111 8.1. File Transfer 112 8.2. Metadata 116 8.3. Material Exchange Format—MXF 122 8.4. AAF and Other File Formats 125 9 Television Cameras. single channel instead of a number of parallel ones since all parallel channels should behave identically under all circumstances, and, practically speaking, that is almost impossible to achieve. The. nontechnical members of a production team become familiar with the technical fundamentals of analog and digital television, the operation of essential elements of a television pro- duction chain, and