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Technology Corner: Randy Hoffner
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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. Write to him c/o TV Technology.
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One-Chip Sensors -- The Bayer Pattern
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by Randy Hoffner, 4.06.2005
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Single-chip video cameras have traditionally been largely lower-cost consumer devices, but some professional video cameras, notably some video cameras designed to replace motion-film cameras, now use single-chip sensors.
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MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding Emerges
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by Randy Hoffner, 3.09.2005
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As might be expected, there are some differences between U.S. HDTV and European HDTV.
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Twenty Years in TV Technology
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by Randy Hoffner, 2.02.2005
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A lot of television technology has come and gone since 1985, and we will take a quick look at some of the high points in those two decades.
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HDTV and the Resolving Power of the Eye
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by Randy Hoffner, 1.05.2005
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What is the relationship between resolving power, screen resolution and viewing distance from the screen?
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Achieving Full-Res HD with the 2K Projector
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by Randy Hoffner, 12.08.2004
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The 2K chip, as its name implies, has 2,048 horizontal mirrors and 1,080 vertical rows or lines, which permits mapping 1920 x 1080 HD images directly onto the pixel array
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LCD Displays: Fixing the Problems
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by Randy Hoffner, 11.10.2004
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Principal shortcomings, we will recall, include narrow viewing angles and slow response times. Let's look at how one shortcoming is being addressed.
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Added Video Effects Aggravate Lip-Sync
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by Randy Hoffner, 10.06.2004
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Going digital has solved a number of the technical problems we had in the analog television era, but it has generated a few of its own.
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Audio On Videotape
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by Randy Hoffner, 9.08.2004
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Back in 1987, TV Technology published an article that briefly traced the historical evolution of audio recording on videotape formats, and held that audio was clearly subordinate to video in early VTR designs.
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HDTV: From 1925 to 1994
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by Randy Hoffner, 8.04.2004
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Inevitably, shortly after it became feasible to transmit intelligence through the air using electromagnetic waves, people began thinking about and experimenting with using the wireless to transmit visual images.
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Lamps for Microdisplay Projection
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by Randy Hoffner, 7.07.2004
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We have recently taken a look at some of the older and the newer ways television pictures are shown, considering both direct-view displays and projection displays. It is fair to say that one of the strong trends in the television display business is the increasing proportion of projection displays being purchased.
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Display Resolution
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by Randy Hoffner, 4.07.2004
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We have recently examined television display technologies old and new; now we'll look at the spatial resolution capabilities of the display technologies that are commonly used in television and video today.
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Advanced Displays, Pt. II
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by Randy Hoffner, 3.10.2004
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Last month, we looked at television and video displays, old and new, examining the venerable cathode ray tube in both its direct view and its projector roles, and the newest projection technology commonly found, micromirror semiconductors. Two other display technologies are finding increasingly frequent use today: liquid crystal and plasma.
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Displays, Old and New
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by Randy Hoffner, 2.04.2004
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The emergence of HDTV and the consequent demand for larger screens, along with the rapid development of alternative technologies, has resulted in the venerable CRT television display being strongly challenged by other types of display devices. What are the most prevalent TV display devices available, and how do they work?
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ATSC Recommends AV Sync Rules
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by Randy Hoffner, 1.07.2004
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Audio-video synchronization has been one of the major casualities of the DTV era. The industry has become well-aware of this problem.
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Aspect Ratio: It Used to Be Easy
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by Randy Hoffner, 11.12.2003
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Although aspect ratio has always been a factor in television, for many decades only one aspect ratio was available: 4:3. With apologies to accomplished punsters, that picture has changed.
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Two Decades of TV Technology
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by Randy Hoffner, 9.17.2003
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As we celebrate TV Technology's 20th anniversary, it seems the perfect time to take a look back over our collective shoulders and see just how far television technology has come in the past 20 years.
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Audio for HDTV: Then and Now
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by Randy Hoffner, 8.06.2003
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Way back in 1990, the International Telecommu-nications Union's CCIR, or International Radio Consultative Committee, got a jump on audio for HDTV.
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Digital Audio Sample Rates: The 48 kHz Question
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by Randy Hoffner, 7.09.2003
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"How did 48 kHz emerge as the professional digital audio sample rate?" As we will see, television had a great influence on this number.
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A/V Synchronization: How Bad Is Bad?
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by Randy Hoffner, 5.14.2003
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There have recently been a number of complaints registered in this publication and others about bad audio/video synchronization, also known as bad lip-sync. These artifacts of the digital age have been with us for some time now, but the potential for them to become more severe is growing apace, as we subject television audio and video to increasingly long chains of digital processing.
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The Elusive Film Look
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by Randy Hoffner, 4.07.2003
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A recent BBC Research White Paper entitled "The Film Look: It's Not Just Jerky Motion....," written by Alan Roberts (BBC R&D White Paper WHP 053), examines the numerous attempts to make video look more like film.
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