Televising The Revolution

Article Updated January 2, 2008

Happy New Year. Your federal government has a late holiday gift for you. If you follow Televising The Revolution you already know the FCC has set February 19, 2009 as the date when analog television will end its broadcast day and begin to broadcast in digital.

GET YOUR COUPONS HERE

Beginning January 1st, 2008, American consumers will be able to log in to http://www.dtv2009.gov/ and request up to two coupons worth $40 each to assist in purchasing new digital-to-analog converter boxes. Alternately you can call 1-888-DTV2009 to apply over the telephone. Printed applications will also be available at post offices and at public libraries, in English, Spanish, and other languages.

THE CHECK COUPON IS IN THE MAIL

Once you apply be patient because the coupons won’t be sent out until mid-February of this year. Starting February 18, 2008, the government will send coupons via The US Postal Service in the form of a gift card consumers can use at electronics retailers that sell the set-top converter boxes . Currently the selection of converter boxes on the market is slim but that should improve as more manufacturers jump on the bandwagon over the next several months. As of this writing the converter boxes are retailing for $60. to $70.

BACKED BY UNCLE SAM

The coupon program itself is administered by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). It is backed by $1.5 billion appropriated by Congress and established in Title III of the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 (PDF)

TELL THEM WHAT THEY’VE WON

What will this “converter box” do for you? Not much more than the basics. According the NTIA proposal the converter box shall:

THERE’S MORE 

For more information, or to sign up for coupons, you can call 1-888-DTV-2009 or visit http://www.dtv2009.gov/. -33-

If you are one of the many air travelers who carry spare lithium laptop, cell phone, camera and other electronic equipment batteries with you when traveling by air, take note: The government has some new rules which go into effect on New Year’s Day, 2008.

There are new regulations going into effect on January 1, 2008 if you travel by air with lithium batteries. Everyone would be well served by checking with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) website BEFORE they travel. 

The SafeTravel.Dot.Gov website has additional information that may be helpful.

This information is subject to changes by the Federal Government. Check back with the above links often for the most up to date information. -33-

EDITOR’S NOTE - 12-30-07 at 2100H - Minor revisions to clarify article.

A READER ASKS 

What can I do to obsolete proof my video archives? Most of them are on Beta SP®. Do I need to go to a Duplication House to have copies made?

  Just a few quick thoughts:

• There is no real “obsolete proof” archival format.

• Beta SP® is still a very active format used by broadcasters, industry, education, media professionals and some hobbyists around the world.
• You do not need to go to a duplication house to have your Beta SP® materials dubbed (copied). Will the format be here 20-, 40- or 60-years from now is anyone’s guess.
• Most any television station, cable company, corporate facility, editing house or even your local event (wedding/party) videographers have the equipment to do this for you. The format is rather ubiquitous.

FORMAT HOP

If you are looking for long-term storage of your program materials your best bet is to format hop as new formats develop. Beta SP® (A Trademark of Sony) is an analog format. An important issue with analog is that it does not copy into multiple generations well, although Beta SP® is one of the better formats for multi-generation duplication because signal quality holds up through several copies.

GO DIGITAL

You should consider converting your program materials to a digital format (this is called “Digitizing”). To do this you would have your Beta SP® original digitized and placed on a DVD as a MPEG file. This is not a complicated process. You can simply go to your favorite electronics store, purchase a DVD player/recorder and connect it to a Betacam® VTR and you are on your way. 

Once it is in a digital format it can maintain the visual and audio quality of the original software. This means that you can make copies of copies with little to no loss in quality.

BE READY TO JUMP SHIP 

Format hopping comes in when you begin to see DVDs and MPEG formats slipping in popularity. Always go with the latest stable format to duplicate your materials. It is a lot of follow-up but well worth the effort to protect today’s program materials for generations to come. This is a big problem for still photographers. Many question if archived images taken today will be able to be opened for viewing 50, 75, 100… years from now. -33-

Where would our modern world be without the ubiquitous transistor? Many of the “things” that we take for granted on a daily basis would not work or even exist without this little switch. Televising The Revolution celebrates the Sixtieth birthday of the Transistor, born on December 16, 1947. 

GLORY DAYS OF MA BELL

 With a tip of the Televising The Revolution hat we thank the three physicists from Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., who built the world’s first transistor. William Shockley, John Bardeen and William Brattain. This triumvirate of inventors had been looking for a semiconductor amplifier to take the place of the vacuum tubes that made radios and other electronics so impossibly bulky, hot and power hungry. They were so instantly certain they’d found their answer that they didn’t speak a word of it to anyone for six months, until they could experiment further and apply for patents. 

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

 June 30, 1948, Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain held a press conference in New York City. They showed the world not only a big model of a transistor but also a TV and a radio with transistors in place of the tubes. Nobody was talking about anything like computers yet, but it was a first look at the future we all live in. The world’s response? The New York Times ran an item at the bottom of its “News of Radio” column on page 46.  

Just another world rocking invention that began with a whimper but certainly commands a roaring presence today. -33-

The amount of time spent on pre-production setup is directly related to the quality of images sent to Master Control or put to tape during a production. The following are some tips on pre-production workflow to make for a smooth day in the field.

No Tolerance For Error

Variance in color consistency between cameras and monitors is something to be avoided at all costs. Some issues must be addressed long before shoot day and others can be addressed in the field. 

Paint Cameras

 Have all cameras benched, calibrated and aligned so they all make the same picture, especially if they are stored outdoors and travel in a support truck. Ideally and in very critical network broadcast production this is done before every job. In smaller production units it may be more practical that this be done once a month and at the very least, once a quarter. 

Adjust Monitors

 Have all monitors used in the Quality Control Rack for critical color work benched, calibrated and aligned so they all match SMPTE standards for color consistency. This should follow the same schedule as mentioned above for cameras. For more information about adjusting monitors check out Ten Easy Steps To Color Display Setup elsewhere in Televising The Revolution. 

Let There Be Light

For night productions outside or inside venues where artificial lighting is being used have the house lighting powered-up and burning without interruption for at least 30 minutes prior to white balancing. As the lamps in these luminaries come up to operating temperature the color temperature shifts. Waiting 30-minutes allows everything to stabilize (including electronic imaging circuits), giving a more consistent output and a better white balance.

 Some clients/venues will shutdown the lighting for dramatic effect just before the opening of the event. Try to discourage such practice with the event managers. HID, HMI, Mercury Vapor, Sodium Vapor and other types of lamps will shift in color temperature and intensity if powered-off then back on again. Some venues have the ability to shutter the lamps to kill the light output. This is acceptable. Powering them off and back on again is not. If this cannot be avoided, expect a color shift for about 10 minutes until the luminaries re-stabilize. The Video Shader should be able to ride the levels if needed to keep lighting consistently within camera temperature parameters. When at outside fields on cloudy days, use the stadium lighting along with natural ambient light. It will add punch to your images and help even-out the overall color balance. 

 What Color Is White?

 When performing white balance, all cameras should ALWAYS use the SAME white target and it should be kept free of soil and scuff marks. It should also be consistent in color across its entire surface.  A white target can be any matte surface like a large white sheet or even better, a large white tarp, which is much easier to keep clean. You could also use a very large white reflector. What ever you use should be kept specifically for white balancing and used consistently from show to show to help achieve a signature look for your productions. The white target you use should be placed in an area where the majority of production lighting will fall upon its surface. It also should be large enough to cover at least 40% of the frame. Before attempting any camera painting or white balancing operations assure that:

1. Cameras are ALL on the SAME filter setting
2. Cameras are ALL on the SAME gain setting
3. Cameras ALL have shutters turned OFF

Avoid the temptation to white balance on articles of clothing. This will give remarkable inconsistencies in your white. If this must be done on the fly, the Video Shader should “paint” the white instead of auto balancing and have a good eye for color to match with the rest of the cameras.  

Shutter The Shutter

 Use the Shutter function judiciously when shooting. Avoid Gaining-Up as much as possible. 

Perform A Balancing Act

Balance indoor lighting against outside natural light with CTO and CTB filters on either the windows or the lighting setup to achieve a better front to back balance. 

Stan’s The Man

 Stanley McCandless was a Yale Professor and a legendary lighting designer who taught the use of a warm/cool lighting system to bring out the best in lighting quality. Use three-point lighting in a “warm/cool array”  

• 45 Front Left with Light Amber gel
• 45 Front Right with Light Blue gel
• 180 back and 45 up hair light with no gel 
• (Note: a fourth light could also be used here for a background light when a background is present. It could be in several locations from on the floor to a high slash angle. Use colored gels creatively on this light).  

This is a much-preferred method of lighting instead of flat, single source lighting for remote and setup interviews.  

Adding Interest With Lighting

 Ratio your multi-point lighting setups for a more dramatic look with either dimmers or Neutral Density gels. Neutral Density gels are preferred because dimmed incandescence lights can actually shift the color temperature. If you have the space you could also move the lighting closer to or further from your subject. 

Contrast is your friend. A high contrast subject to background ratio will always give better “perceived” sharpness than a low contrast subject to background ratio. 

Consistency and a signature “Look” will distinguish your production in a sea of mundane television. It is not difficult to achieve. All it takes is a bit of attention to the details and care in setting up. -33-