Introduction
In June 2005 I had the opportunity to conduct a five-day residency at the
Experimental Television Center in
Owego, New York. This time in the ETC studio gave me the opportunity to
think about techniques, work with their unique equipment, steal some good ideas,
and create some inspiring video work. (At least, it's inspiring to me.
I love these images. Now I know what kind of hardware I want to
build in the short term.)
I arrived with a car trunk full of video equipment, video tapes, and DVDs.
I spent several days just twisting knobs and learning the ropes (and by
"ropes", I mean "wires").
This web page is my trip report, listing some of the things that I learned,
along with some screen captures of the videos that I made.
Video Sources
Before we get to the screen caps, I must cite my sources.
The video sources that I settled on using, which can be seen
in the screen caps below, were
My soundtrack, while I was working, was provided by Robot Peepshow
cranked up to eleven. I also listened to He Said Omala's
Catch Supposes a lot.
Of course, with "Evil Dead II" playing in the background, all electronic
music sounds vaguely like Skinny Puppy. "Who's laughing now?"
"We are the things that were and shall be again."
Of course, all video sources were genlocked to the master studio reference.
Three time-base correctors were used, one for each prerecorded program.
(Wouldn't it be nice if DVD players came with an external black-burst input
for less than $700? I mean, really, how expensive would it really be to
add a sync-input option to most commercial DVD players? $10?)
Sandin Image Processor (IP) Day 1
I love this machine. So many knobs!
Here's a 25-second video clip from my experiments with the Sandin IP.
Video from "Robot Peepshow" (magenta), "Evil Dead II" (dark blue),
"Plan 9" (light blue), and, if you look closely, me in the
background (yellow). Music by Severed Heads.
This clip is a 3.8M WMV file. You've been warned.
Jones Colorizer
I never really got the "hang" of the Jones Colorizer. I did play around
with it a little, but I got the impression that I was only scratching the
surface. It also seemed a little temperamental (and it did need to be
repaired while I was there).
Here's the description from the ETC documentation:
Each channel can mix electronically-generated
color of a determined hue and saturation with the incoming video signal and has
a built-in luminance keyer, a positive/negative switch and individual gain and
pedestal controls. The six channels combine at the output in a non-additive mix.
All of the parameters are voltage-controllable.
Note that last sentence; everything is VC.
This device has some powerful capabilities that I never tapped into.
(I never really tapped into all of the power of the VC stuff because the
oscillators that sync'ed to the horizontal sweep rate and the vertical
field rate were kind of dodgy. I couldn't get them to work reliably.
Note to self: Build a bank of robust synchronized oscillators.)
Video History Project links:
Jones
Colorizer System Manual and
Design
History.
Jones Sequencer
The sequencer is a fun, conceptually simple tool that can produce
complex images. The eight channels can be switched manually, automatically
(by an external clock), or pseudo-randomly (from binary inputs). If you drive
it with oscillators sync'ed to the horizontal or vertical rates,
you get these great video-mosaic patterns. Then, if you FM the
oscillators, the mosaic patters sweep in and out. It's a cool effect.
Note to self: A sequencer seems like a good first project.
Sandin IP Day 2
I spent a full day coaxing images out of this machine. I just love the
vibrant colors that it produces. Unfortunately, much of the color
behavior of this machine is a product of the characteristics of the
color encoders that it uses (which were salvaged from a
Sony Trinicon Camera from 1971, the DXC-5000B).
I hope that a color encoder with similar behavior can still be built
with modern parts, but without too much fuss
(and by "fuss" I mean "gruesome hacking").
The "channel bug" in the corner is a wipe-in of an NTSC waveform monitor.
It shows two horizontal lines of the NTSC signal.
Note to self: I got to build me one of these machines.
I actually have a copy of the vintage-1970 plans from Dan Sandin.
Updating these schematics with modern parts will be quite
the hack-a-thon.
Video History Project link:
Sandin
Image Processor manual
Output Amplifier
One final idea worthy of theft was the Jones Output Amplifier. The main idea is
that the last stage of the video chain re-inserts the sync pulses and the
(studio) color burst. Everything still needs to be genlocked to the
primary reference, but no matter how distorted the video signal gets from
all of the studio processing, the output waveform is always NTSC compliant.
The amplifier includes knobs for setting the final contrast, brightness, and hue
of the output signal, and has a large fan-out that can drive several devices
(monitors, tape recorders, etc.) from its output.
Clever.
Conclusion
I need to get to work and build some of my own stuff.
Links
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