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Movie Making Manual/Post-production/Telecine

Telecine (otherwise known as "TK") is the process of transferring motion picture film to a video format, such as television, or a machine used to complete this process. Telecine enables a motion picture, captured originally on film, to be viewed with standard video equipment, such as televisions and video cassette decks. This has allowed producers and distributors working in film to release their products on video and allowed producers to use video production equipment to complete their film projects.

Basic principle
In a simple telecine, white light is shone through exposed and developed motion picture negative (positives can also be used.) As in a projector, the film filters the white light into different colors, according to the image on the film, except in a telecine this image is projected not onto a screen, but onto a charge-coupled device (CCD) or vidicon tube. The CCD converts the light into electrical impulses which the telecine electronics modulate into a video signal which can then be recorded onto video tape, or broadcast.

The most complex part of telecine is the synchronization of the mechanical film motion and the electronic video signal. Every time the video part of the telecine samples the light electronically, the film part of the telecine must have a frame in perfect registration and ready to photograph. This is relatively easy when the film is photographed at the same frame rate as the video camera will sample, but when this is not true, a sophisticated procedure is required to change frame rate.

Frame rate differences
In countries that use the PAL or SECAM video standards, film destined for television is photographed at 25 frames per second. The PAL video standard broadcasts at 25 frames per second, so the transfer from film to video is simple; for every film frame, one video frame is captured. Theatrical features originally photographed at 24 frames per second are simply sped up by 4% to 25 frames per second. This can cause a noticeable increase in audio pitch, which is sometimes corrected using a pitch shifter. (Note: frames per second is sometimes referred to as frame/s or fps.)

In the United States and other countries that use the NTSC television standard, film is generally photographed at 24 frames per second. (Only programs aimed directly for television in the USA are shot at 23.976 fps.) Color NTSC video is broadcast at 29.97 frame/s. For the film's motion to be accurately rendered on the video signal, an NTSC telecine must use a technique called the 3:2 pulldown to convert from 24 to 29.97 frame/s.

Similar techniques must be used for films shot at "silent speeds" of less than 24 frame/s, which include most silent movies themselves as well as many home movies.

Some High Definition video recorders can record directly to 24fps (23.976fps) or 25fps so no interlacing is required. You can find out more at High-Definition Telecine.

3:2 Pulldown
The 3:2 pulldown is accomplished in two steps. The first step is to slow down, or "pulldown" the film motion by 0.1%. This speed change is unnoticeable to the viewer, and makes the film travel at 23.976 frame/s. (This is done simply by slowing the projector.)

The second step of the 3:2 pulldown is the 3:2 step (which adds the extra frames needed for the conversion.) At 23.976 frame/s, there are 4 frames of film for every 5 frames of NTSC video:

 * $$ \frac{23.976}{29.97} = \frac{4}{5}$$

These four frames are "stretched" into five by exploiting the interlaced nature of NTSC video. For every NTSC frame, there are actually two complete images or "fields," one for the odd-numbered lines of the image, and one for the even-numbered lines. There are, therefore, ten fields for every 4 film frames, and the telecine alternately places one film frame across two fields, the next across three, the next across two, and so on. The cycle repeats itself completely after four film frames have been exposed, and in the telecine cycle these are called the "A," "B," "C," and "D" frames, thus:

 * [[image:Three-two_pulldown_diagram_%28telecine%29.png|Three-two pulldown diagram telecine.png]]

Note that the pattern in this example is actually 2-3, 2-3. The name "3:2 pulldown" is an archaic reference to the pattern that was used by older telecine equipment. The modern telecine uses a 2-3 technique.

"3:2 pulldown" creates error in the video signal that can be clearly seen in the above image. This is one reason why NTSC films viewed at home rarely appear as smooth as when viewed in a cinema. Some line doublers and most software DVD players are designed to detect and reverse 3:2 pulldown, thereby recreating the original frames.

One light, best light and scene to scene
The color of the frame can be controlled during the telecine process. This section needs to be expanded to explain one light, best light, and other terms used in the telecine process which effect the coloring of the frames and the consistency of the color from scene to scene.

Briefly, a one light transfer means that footage is transferred with no regard to variations in exposure on the original negative i.e, the telecine is set at one value to transfer all of the footage. This is the standard first step when transferring rushes to tape, it's quicker, since it requires no intervention on behalf of the telecine operator, and is therefore cheaper. Best light means that footage is graded to look it's best in every take and scene, matching original lighting conditions and the desires of the Director and DOP. Finally, scene-by-scene tries to match the light and coloring of each scene, usually after picture editing is complete. All of the above can be done with either traditional methods (photochemically etc) or digitally.

History of Telecine
Before the invention of video tape, telecine was used only to convert motion pictures for immediate broadcast via television.

After the invention of video tape which can be used to store motion pictures, the telecine process was also used to convert motion pictures to video tapes or LaserDiscs for distribution.

By 1987, computer editing systems such as the CMX6000 became available to edit motion pictures. Somehow, the film dailies from a motion picture (or a television drama that was shot on film) had to be converted to a format that can be used by computer editing systems. In the case of the CMX6000, this computer editing systems controlled the playback of LaserDiscs containing the film dailies. To get the film dailies onto Laser Disc, the film dailies had to be telecined. The CMX6000, EditDroid, Ediflex or Montage did not actual store the images in the computer.

A few years later, after digital video formats for computers (such as QuickTime) were invented, there needed to be a way to transfer all the frames of the film dailies onto hard disk drives of computer editing systems so the images and sound for a motion picture or television drama can be edited inside the computer, not externally as with the CMX6000, EditDroid, Ediflex or Montage. The only practical option was to telecine the film dailies to video tape (which is a cheap storage media) before digitizing each of the frames of the video into data files for the computer editing systems.

Only in the last few years, can you telecine dailies directly to computer disks (rather than video tape.) Be aware that most post-production houses today still cannot telecine to hard disk drives so ask before you decide which film lab you will use to develop and telecine your dailies.

 * Telecine Dailies - For Theatrical Release
 * When movies are edited in a computer editing systems, the film negative for the motion picture must still be cut so the movie can be projected on film in theaters. Therefore, the computer editing systems must work at exactly 24.00 frames per second, not 29.97 (in the case of NTSC video) or 25 frames per second (in the case of PAL video).  Unfortunately, there is no video format which works at exactly 24.00 frames per second.  This causes no end of problems. (Note: Cutting the negative is called "Conforming the Negative" so that it conforms to the edit done on the computer editing systems.)

 * Telecine Dailies - Direct to Video Tape
 * Even if a motion picture will be edited on video and release on DVD-Video disk, it must edited at approximately 24 frames per second, not 29.97 frames per second. All motion picture shot on film and released on NTSC DVD-Video disk in Hollywood are stored on the DVD-Video disk at 23.976 frames per second.  Motion pictures on NTSC DVD-Video disk are never stored 29.97 frames per second.  This is probably the most common misconception of beginning filmmakers.  The reason is motion pictures stored at 24 frames per second can be much higher resolution than motion pictures shot on video at 29.97 frames per second since a motion picture at 24 frames per second contains fewer frames that must be compressed into the very limited bandwidth of a DVD-Video disk.  (Actually, this is not a great problem until you add multiple audio track which also have to fit in the limited bandwidth of a DVD data stream.)

Telecine for Dailies
Today, video tape remains the cheapest and (ugh!) the most convenient method of storing dailies which have been telecined. Therefore, film editors have two choices when working with film dailies:

 * 1. Do an Inverse Telecine
 * One option is to telecine to video, then digitize all the frames, but finally do an inverse telecine to throw away the unwanted fields and frames so that your disk drive only holds actual film frames. In this case, there is a one-to-one relationship with the original film negative.  This is a very clean solution... but most computer editing systems do not work this way.

 * 2. Software Solution (such as CineTools)
 * The other option is to telecine to video and then digitize all the frames (even the duplicate frames created during the telecine process) for storage on a hard drive. Then use a computer program to keep track of bad frames while you edit the motion picture so you only see the good frames and you never edit on a bad frame. This is wasteful and confusing but because video tapes are so cheap and disk drives are so expensive, most everyone uses this method.

NTSC Inverse Telecine
The inverse telecine process is the opposite of the telecine process (at least in theory). Inverse telecine is the process of taking video at 29.97 frames per second (59.94 fields per second) and converting them back to exactly 24.00 frames per second. In practice, most computer software will inverse telecine NTSC video back to 23.976 frames per second Computer programs such as Media Cleaner and Adobe AfterEffects have an inverse telecine feature. Actually, these programs only do half the job (remove the 3/2 pull down) and ignore the rest (specifically correcting the audio speed)... which most of the time is acceptable.

To repeat what is said above, telecine is really a two step process:

 * 1. Slow down the projection of the film from 24.00 to 23.976 (24.00*1000/1001) frames per second.

 * 2. Add extra fields and frames to convert 23.976 frames per second to 29.97 (30.00*1000/1001) frames per second for NTSC video.

Practical Example
Computer programs such as Media Cleaner and Adobe AfterEffects only reverse step 2, not step 1. In some cases, this does not matter. Here is an example:

 * Wrong but Easy
 * The Star Movie Shop creates editing workshops from dramatic scenes shot on 35mm film for film students to edit with Final Cut Pro at 24 frames per second on a Macintosh computer.  After the dailies have been telecined, the dailies are delivered on either NTSC video tape or NTSC DVD-Video disks.  First, Adobe AfterEffects is used to inverse telecine the footage from 29.97 frames per second (interlaced) to 23.976 frames per second (progressive). Then QuickTime Movie Player is used to compress the movie clips at 24.00 frames per second which means that occasionally (every 1000 frames), the program duplicates one frame to keep the audio in sync with the picture.

 * Hopefully, you notice that this is not the correct way to do an inverse telecine. Using this method, any edit created using these dailies can never be matched back to the original negative.  Because of the occasional duplicate frame, the frame numbers will be wrong.  But for training film students, this is good enough.

 * To do this correctly, the Star Movie Shop should change the speed of the audio from 23.976 frames per second to 24.000 frames per second as well as change the projection speed of the QuickTime movie clips from 23.976 to 24.000. Correcting the audio is not easy... so they don't.  They just add duplicate frames instead.  (Note:  No one has ever complained!!!)

Amateur telecine of Super 8mm footage:
Here is a free way to telecine your Super 8mm footage for personal use. The method can also applied to other film gauges with the relevant equipment. It is based on the initial telecine method of shooting the projection screen. However, attention must be given to obtain good results. If you think that you just point and shoot, forget it! The result will be very disappointing. You have to do exactly as described, mainly calibrate the video camera correctly and eliminate flicker.

History:

My father has a moderate collection of Super 8mm movies, either bought (mostly cartoons and B&W comedies) or shot back in the 80's with an amateur Canon Super 8mm sound camera. In the late 70's, early 80's when me and my sister were little, video was rare and expensive, at least in Greece, so our only source of entertainment was a black and white TV or cartoons on Super 8mm films. My father had bought quite a lot of these and made a good collection of Disney and Warner Bros classics. He had even spliced some of these in longer reels to keep us busy for more time. Of course he shot amateur films in every occasion (mostly at 18fps, which was similar to the LP mode in video-cameras), much like we shoot video today. Back in 1993, I decided to transfer all these memories to video for easier watching and sharing with friends. When I asked at our local photo lab I was astonished to hear a rather high price per 50ft reel (about 30€ which back in 1993 was much more valuable than today in 2006), and this was simply transferring the movies to a humble VHS tape, not any correction included, (and of course DV tapes and DVD didn't exist back in 1993)! Meanwhile, I had bought my Sony Handycam TR-805E Hi-8 camera that year which was the best (EISA Award for best camcorder 1992-1993), according to a popular Greek magazine called Hitech. Yes it had many features first seen in this particular model like optical steady shot, 400 lines resolution, manual controls etc. So I quickly decided to telecine the films myself, for free, using that camera. Of course I hadn't done it before, so first results were not satisfactory. But a tape can be re-recorded, so I tried again and again until I mastered the technique. So fellow amateurs don't worry! If you do EXACTLY what I describe below you will get good results, even with the first time!

Equipment:

1) Super 8mm (or whatever) film projector with variable projection speed.

2) Video-camera with manual exposure, focus, color balance and external mic in socket. Preferably a PAL version at 25fps which makes eliminating flicker easier (see below).

3) A good quality matte A4 white sheet of paper used as screen. Thick paper is better as it is easier to stretch it to keep it smooth.

4) Tripod to mount the camera.

5) A color monitor, preferably without overscan (so avoid a TV, use PC monitor if possible).

6) Headphones and other appropriate connection cables and adapters.

You could clean and lubricate your film if desired, and then you are ready to proceed...

Setup of the system:

The white A4 sheet of paper should be stuck on a wall. To avoid adhesive tape showing on the video you should use tape that sticks on both sides and put it at the back side of the paper. I use regular tape but create a little loop so it sticks both sides, and I place it at the back of each corner of the A4 paper. Thick paper is better. When you stick the paper make sure it is stretched and looks straight. If you have a smooth matte white wall you could use that instead. Avoid projection screens as they are not white and they are not smooth. Place the projector directly in front of the A4 paper or white wall. Make sure it is as centered to the screen as possible and doesn't project from an angle, either horizontal or vertical as this will give a distorted trapezoidal image! Mount your video-camera on the tripod and make sure it frames the A4 paper as centered as possible, again avoid any large angles which will distort the image. If your projector has sound editing capabilities, it should have a audio monitor output or external speakers output. Connect that with the camera's external microphone socket, using appropriate adapters if required. Don't load tape or disc to the camera yet. Most consumer cameras will switch off if not recording for several seconds. To avoid that simply don't load the tape/disc so it will stay on as long as it takes for you to calibrate your setup (see below). Connect the TV or computer monitor (via video or TV card) to assist framing etc. Connect headphones to the camera to assist sound setup (see below). Needless to say that the video-camera should be mains-powered to avoid switching off during the process! Don't load the projector with film yet...

Finding and locking the white balance:

Without film in the projector, project to the A4 paper. Use the zoom function (if applicable) to make the projected image as small as possible. This will help enhancing the video dynamic range (since the image will be as bright as it gets, we will set the exposure so as not to washout highlights and leave the camera cover darker tones as good as it can, see below). Adjust the projector if necessary so the white rectangle is projected at the center of the A4 paper. Frame the white rectangle with the camera, and zoom in enough to make sure that all the camera's sensor is filled with white. You may also deliberately blur the image a little (using the camera's focus control) to make white appear more uniform. Leave the camera to obtain the white balance automatically. After several seconds which ensure the camera has made up its mind on the white point, HOLD it using the appropriate control. This will ensure it is not affected by the scene lighting or color variations during recording. For cameras that allow manual white balance in small steps you could fine-tune it but rely on a good calibrated monitor for this, avoid the viewfinder or the camera monitor! I would suggest not to touch the white balance once locked. At this point bear in mind that some films (e.g., Disney cartoons) are color balanced for a Super 8mm projector's yellow light so they might appear a bit blue if balanced as above, but I personally don't mind as this can be fixed digitally later. If you are using a PC monitor, make sure it is well calibrated so your movie color and brightness appears correctly. Most monitors allow a "user color" setting. If you use that and set all three primary colors to the same value (e.g., 80% or 100%) you will almost always have correct white balance. The application used to watch the video image should have its color settings reset to default. Any errors can be corrected during editing later. I once had changed the color settings in the video application for another capture and I forgot to reset these to default, so the film image appeared bluer. When I tried to "correct" this altering the white balance from the camera, I resulted with yellowish video! So don't touch ANY controls once adjusted, especially from the camera! For B&W films you could enable the B&W or sepia effect (for cameras that support it), but I would rather record it as "color" to have a more realistic look (B&W effect would make it look more like B&W TV broadcast, rather than B&W film). So we have white balance fixed, let's proceed with...

Adjusting the focus:

At this point you have to load a short film in the projector. If you are quick enough you can do all of the rest calibrations before it runs out. While projecting on the A4 sheet, focus the projector as sharp as possible. Then zoom out and frame roughly the camera so it sees all the image and manually focus it. Leave focus to manual so it is not affected with scene changes. Using the monitor frame the camera as good as possible so you don't crop the projected image, but not let any annoying black areas either. If the aspect ratio doesn't match, then make sure you don't crop the horizontal dimension while centering the vertical dimension. Focus again if necessary. Bear in mind that if you change reels you may have to fine-tune focus of the projector. Also focus may be lost between spliced sections, if the splicing is not very good. If you use a computer monitor to avoid overscan, I suggest watching the video in a window so to assist perfect framing. If you only have a TV monitor you could zoom in by one or two steps to make sure there are no black areas around the projected image.

Adjusting the exposure:

While watching the image, manually adjust the camera exposure so it doesn't wash out light areas (highlights) and let camera cover darker areas as best as it can. This is because it is preferable to lose some information of the dark areas (which might not be that obvious) than wash out light areas which will be very annoying. Hopefully newer digital cameras will have greater dynamic range than my old analog Hi-8 had and should give better results. Let exposure to manual so it is not affected with lighting and scene changes. Hopefully the lighting will be the same for most of the movie, but in some amateur films there are differences notably between outdoor and indoor scenes. Don't worry some of it can be corrected digitally. Don't touch the exposure! Again, if you are using a PC monitor make sure is well calibrated for our dark working environment (brightness and contrast) and that the video application's color/brightness/contrast settings are reset to default. Due to gamma difference between TV/video and a PC monitor the image might appear a bit darker. This is normal, adjust the exposure as described above and don't worry. The same video played back on a TV monitor should look normal since it will have the correct gamma value.

The trickiest part, eliminating flicker:

To eliminate flicker, we have to match the projection frame rate with the camera frame rate. For PAL cameras this is relatively easy. We adjust the projection speed to 25fps for 24fps footage or to 16.66fps (50/3) for 18fps footage using a variable speed projector. Audio pitch difference is negligible and should not concern an amateur. A different approach is to adjust the shutter speed in cameras that support it. Mine doesn't so I cannot tell how good that works. I can tell that I was able to almost eliminate flicker by carefully adjusting the projection speed as described above. For NTSC users you could project at 20fps (60/3) for both 24fps or 18fps footage but the audio pitch difference might be very annoying, and not all variable speed projectors support that large variation of ±2 or ±4fps (my Chinon 9600 only supports ±1.5fps for example). I only have a PAL camera model, so I cannot tell how bad audio pitch difference sounds at 20fps. Later you could speed up or slow down the movie as appropriate to restore audio pitch, using a video editing software which supports this feature (eg Adobe Premiere). Of course you should rely on your monitor to eliminate flicker, not the camera viewfinder or built-in monitor! A CRT monitor is preferable since LCD monitors tend to hide flicker if it is small. Of course make sure the refresh rate (for CRT PC monitors) is set to highest possible for the used resolution, so as not to mistake monitor's flicker as film's flicker. Color depth should also be at least 16-bit or higher to assist color balance. Have in mind that when changing reels you may need to readjust the projection speed to eliminate flicker again. Also I am not sure if enabling the steady shot feature will help, but I do it anyway just to be on the safe side. Besides, since the video-camera is mains-powered we shouldn't worry about the higher power consumption. For new digital cameras that support it, you could try the 24fps setting (for 24fps films only), provided the image aspect ratio is not affected (in some models setting 24fps capture may also set 16:9 mode). Also enabling progressive mode (if supported) will improve image quality, regardless of the frame rate setting. Unfortunatelly my old analog Hi-8 camera doesn't support either of the two, so I don't know how much they help.

Adjusting the audio recording level for sound films:

It is recommended to use headphones for this as with speakers you may not notice much of the noise. Since we will be using the camera's external microphone input, it is usually boosted to improve reception, or in our case to distort sound! Using the headphones lower the volume a lot until you don't hear any distortion or the distortion is as small as it gets. Make sure the sound is heard as clear as it gets albeit if you cannot remove noise 100%. Usually a small noise is not audible in normal listening conditions through the TV loudspeakers. It only becomes audible in a very quiet environment or using headphones, so an amateur should not worry too much. Some video editing applications can also clean noisy soundtracks in some degree, if necessary, but again I wouldn't bother if noise is not audible in normal listening conditions.

What about my silent films?

If you have silent films I suggest that you set the projector to "silent" mode (if applicable) and switch off the internal camera microphone. Many will rush to say this is not possible with consumer cameras. Don't worry, here is a trick I have used: Connect a cable in the external microphone input but leave the other end unconnected. This will switch off the internal microphone in order to use the "external" one supposedly connected to the external microphone input. Always use your headphones to confirm no sound is recorded as a bad connection could record electronic noise and spoil the movie (unless you are willing to mute your TV set when watching your silent films). Don't forget to switch back to "Magnetic" or "Optical" mode for your sound films!

Ready to telecine your films?

Rewind the short reel you used to calibrate your setup. Load carefully the projector with the actual film you want to telecine, making sure you don't move the projector! Load carefully the tape or disc in the camera without moving it. If there is a remote control for the camera, it is a good idea to use it to avoid any accidental movement. Set the projection switch to THREAD (or similar) position and make sure the film leader is properly wound on the take up reel, even if it supposed to do that automatically, to avoid damage while projection. Do not thread it too much however, but keep it as far from the beginning of the movie as possible, so you won't miss the start! Switch off the projector. Turn off all lights to make sure stray light doesn't affect the projected image so the colors will look as vivid as it's possible (stray light reduces saturation and makes old films look even fader). If it is daytime darken the room as best as you can and use only a very small light (about 2 or 4 watts) away from the projection screen. It is recommended that all calibration is done in these final dark conditions for best results. When ready start projecting immediately and then start recording as fast as you can. If you don't mind leaving some blank seconds on the tape, you could start recording first, to make sure you won't miss the film start if the film leader is too short and the movie is almost starting. Fine-tune the focus of the projector carefully, if required, avoiding to blur the image. If you are familiar with your projector you should be able to know which way to turn the focus knob to avoid blurring the image accidentally. Wear your headphones for a few seconds, make sure sound is recorded as expected (I have had some bad experiences), or no sound is recorded at all for silent movies. When finished with one reel, rewind and change reels carefully without moving the projector. Refocus the new reel if required. Never leave the projector unattended as the picture may jump and you have to press the relevant release button briefly. If you fail to do so, the rest of your movie will be jumping and useless and you may damage the sprocket holes of the rest of the film. Don't even think about fixing a jumping movie digitally. It is virtually impossible. It is better to telecine that again. Other problem that I have seen is that the framing of the projector is lost and the upper or lower area of the picture shows the adjacent frame. This usually happens between spliced sections (not perfect splices) and can be corrected with the relevant knob which moves the projection gate vertically. Once familiar with the projector you should know which way to turn it to correct rather than pronounce the error. Usually the overscan feature of a TV will hide a small framing error, but I personally prefer to be as perfect as I can.

Digitizing tips:

 * If you want to digitally edit your video, of course you must first import it in a computer. When using a digital camera, video is already in digital form and is transferred as is to a computer (provided you use a DV cable, not analog cables!) or converted to other digital format (eg MPEG 2 for DVD authoring). So with the right software you can edit your footage in some degree. Remember that if the recording is not good enough you cannot do wonders, at least not with consumer level software.
 * If you are using an analog camera (or a digital connected with analog cables for some reason), make sure film flicker is totally eliminated or as small as it gets. This is because when digitizing the video using consumer level cards (such as TV tuner cards) the flicker will most likely be pronounced. I have seen some of my early telecine attempts that they have only negligible and hardly visible flicker when watched on a TV, but too much when the same footage is digitized. This usually appears like the picture is perfectly exposed for a moment and then overexposed and washed out. This cycle repeats about every half second or faster while watching and it is very annoying. No matter what settings I chose to digitize that footage, I could not avoid this annoying effect. Thankfully newer TV tuner cards do not suffer that much as my old Matrox Rainbow Runner I used back in the 90's but the problem still exists! And don't forget that the best analog connection (that cameras support) is S-Video, so prefer that over the simpler composite output. Also if you use the dual RCA audio outputs, you should get better quality than the headphones output.
 * Also for best results I recommend to capture the video (analog source) or convert it during transfer from the camera (digital source, DV connection) using the desired final resolution, such as 720x576 for DVD or 352x288 for Video-CD. Using larger resolution and then resizing could give better results but it takes more hard disk space and rendering time. If you don't want to make any corrections other than cut and merge, using the final desired resolution will make rendering times much shorter as scaling is time and resource consuming. Also make sure you capture (or convert for DV cameras) directly to the final desired format such as MPEG 2 for DVD, if your capture card/software allows. Of course you should capture at 25fps for PAL or 29.97fps for NTSC, to match the camera rate, NOT 24fps (unless video was shot at 24fps) or you will negate any flickering elimination efforts made!
 * If you first capture to AVI or MOV/QT for MAC computers (usually M-JPEG compressed) and then convert to MPEG (as with older capture cards that didn't support MPEG capturing), will make editing easier (most programs work with AVI/MOV/QT rather than MPEG files) but will make rendering time larger (conversion between formats is time consuming). Also if you compress the video in one format (eg M-JPEG for AVI/MOV/QT capture) and then convert to another, the video is re-encoded, even for simple cut and merge functions, and quality degrades. This is also true for scaling, so use final specifications (format, resolution, color depth etc) directly. There are several programs to edit MPEG video, such as Pinnacle Studio and some freeware too (eg TMPGEnc, search on the internet with keywords such as "MPEG editing").
 * During editing keep changes confined to the scene concerned (unless most of your film needs correction) to shorten rendering times and keep degradation from re-encoding to the minimum. A clever trick is to cut out the parts that need corrections or effects or titles, edit them separately and then merge them with the rest of the movie using references to the original video file for the unedited parts. If you do all of this keeping the SAME specifications, most programs will merge all the footage WITHOUT re-encoding (recompressing) the unedited parts, so there will be no degradation at all in the unedited parts (since basically their data will be copied directly from the original video file, rather than being processed)! This also saves much time since copying a digital file is much faster than creating it form start. (Processor only takes notice when starting to copy rather than being involved the whole time, whereas when creating the file all job is supervised by the processor).
 * If you want to make a DIVX video or similar MPEG 4 format, avoid capturing directly to MPEG 4 format, since MPEG 4 compression on the fly is very CPU and memory demanding and you will most likely get a lot of compression artifacts. It is best to capture to high quality M-JPEG compression (AVI/MOV/QT) or MPEG 2 format and convert to DIVX later. When you have finished editing your film in the original format, render it as a video file of the original capture format using the same specifications to minimize compression artifacts, as explained above. Then convert the final rendered file to DIVX or similar MPEG 4 format using as large bitrate as you can (provided the final video fits on a CD if you want to save it on CD) and of course select the best possible quality setting (this in DIVX PRO 5 and above is called "insane quality"). Conversion utilities include QuickTime Pro (for MOV/QT files), VirtualDub and its variants (for M-JPEG AVI to DIVX AVI conversion), FlaskMPEG, XMPEG Pro (for MPEG to AVI DIVX conversion) DIVX PRO Encoder (for MPEG/AVI/MOV/QT to DIV/DIVX format or AVI/MOV/QT DIVX format) and many more. There is no need for dual or multi-pass encoding, if you set enough bitrate (at least above 700 Kbit/sec for 720x576) and best possible quality. As a novice guide, 700Kbit/sec video data rate and 96kbit/sec audio data rate will fit 2 hours of video in a 80min (700MB) CD-R disc. Keeping audio data rate at 96Kbit/sec, for up to 90 minutes use 960 Kbit/sec video data rate which will give far better quality. For up to 60 minutes use 1500Kbit/sec which will give excellent quality for standard definition video (720x576 for PAL, 720x480 for NTSC).
 * For DVD Authoring you have to convert the final rendered video file in MPEG 2 (MPG/MPEG) if it is not already in this format (some consumer level DVD Authoring applications may also accept AVI/MOV/QT files, but it is not recommended as their rendering quality is usually inferior to that of a dedicated video editing application) and as for the bitrate, 5000 Kbit/sec is the minimum acceptable quality and will fit 2 hours in a standard (single layer) DVD disc, while 9500 Kbit/sec is the maximum DVD compatible (not all consumer grade programs support it) and will give about 1 hour of excellent quality on the same disc. Of course you can use anything between but don't forget to use the SAME settings from capturing, editing and to the final rendering to avoid unnecessary re-encoding and minimize compression artifacts. If you had set rather high bitrates and the final DVD files don't fit in a single layer DVD (about 4480MB), don't worry. You can use Nero Recode, DVD Shrink or similar utility to recompress it at exactly 4480MB. To minimise degradation use dual pass encoding (this in DVD Shrink is called Deep Analysis). This may take some more time, but for sizes about 75% to 100% of the original DVD folder size, you won't notice any difference.
 * For DVD audio you can either use Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo) or MPEG Layer II format. I consider 192 Kbit/sec adequate, so you leave more space for video data on a DVD disc. Of course Dolby Digital 2.0 will give better sound than MPEG at the same bitrate since it is more efficiently compressed than the much older MPEG Layer II and it is compared to MP3 (MPEG Layer III) compression which at 192 Kbit/sec Stereo is almost CD quality. Of course the audio format for DVD compatibility is 48000Hz (48KHz) 16-bit per channel, and Stereo or Mono. Don't make the common mistake to capture at 44.1KHz (CD quality) because later you may experience audio sync problems when the DVD Authoring application may wrongly suppose audio is at 48Khz (DVD compatible)! Yes, I have seen this problem in consumer grade DVD Authoring applications, for example Sonic DVDIt. Fortunately most video capturing applications will force the correct settings if the DVD template is chosen.
 * DVD Audio Note: Most consumer level video capture applications do not support audio capturing directly at Dolby Digital 2.0 format, even if the DVD template is chosen. Don't worry, you can capture audio at MPEG Layer II format and convert it to Dolby Digital 2.0 at the Authoring stage using a compatible DVD Authoring application, such as Pinnacle Studio Pro, DVDIt! etc (degradation in quality from conversion between audio formats is not gererally noticeable as it is when converting video from one format to another). For better quality you could try capturing at a higher rate (eg 256Kbit/sec or 384Kbit/sec) for MPEG sound and then select to encode sound to 192Kbit/sec Dolby Digital 2.0 in the Authoring application before proceeding with the rendering step. Don't forget the 48KHz setting, or you will most likely end up with audio sync problems which cannot be fixed!!! You will have to render the DVD data again, provided the original audio format is in 48KHz, otherwise you may have to capture the video again! So take care to avoid frustration! I cannot emphasise more the need to use correct settings for the intended final video format (eg DVD). And don't forget: Using the same settings (resolution, bitrare etc) from capturing to rendering will save you time and provide the best possible quality for the selected settings, based on your hardware and software used.

When calibrating your telecine setup as good as it gets, the results are amazingly good considering the method used, and best of all it is for FREE!

I hope that this amateur telecine guide was helpful. Good luck to anyone trying that. I know the video digitization section should be in another place in Wikipedia and Moviemaker Manual. Excuse me for this lengthy reference to video digitization, but I was trying to help novices.

By: Mr Sotirios Papakonstantinou, Greece, © 1993-2006. Feel free to distribute this text or link to this page, provided you state its source and my name.

Film Editing Software
Apple Computer develops Cinema Tools with Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro (and Cinema Tools) are purchased as part of Final Cut Studio. You use Cinema Tools to keep track of all the original frames for each piece of film before it was telecined into the computer. 'NOTE: Please explain the Cinema Tools process."

Resolutions
- 1280 x 720 called also as 720p or 720i p = progressive, i = interlaced frame's
 * 4k - 4,096 pixels across
 * 2k - 2,048 pixels across
 * 1k - 1,024 pixels across
 * HD - 1920 x 1080 called also as 1080p or 1080i
 * PAL - 720 x 576
 * NTSC - 720 x 480

It's unlikely that your telecine machine will be able to capture high resolution images in 'real time'. For example, most telecine machines can only do a 4k capture at about 6 frames per second.

In comparison, I had once read in a Super 8mm newsgroup that Kodachrome 40 (discontinued in 2005) had a resolution of approximately 2048x1536 (3 Megapixels). This was determined experimentally by a poster, and it means that if film had discrete pixels like digital video, Super 8mm Kodachrome could capture at 2048x1536 resolution (2K). Super8 mm film is snubbed by some professional filmmakers, who state that it can show limited detail (and a lot of grain) compared with larger formats. But even this humble format can show better definition than HD video (currently 1920x1080 maximum).

2- and 3-perf telecine
WikiPedia article on 3-perf and 2-perf pulldown

Facilities

 * Todd Ao in London will TK 2-perf


text:
Movie Making Manual/Short Films/Distribution and Exhibition

Short Film evenings
Take a look at these links to find out where you can try to get your short film screened and/or watch others' shorts.

London

 * ShortiCulture
 * Fresh Films Cafe
 * Exploding Cinema

Hamburg

 * Zeise short film slam

Berlin

 * Great Shorts Cinemaxx

India

 * Beta Movement [SPA,Delhi]

/Sales and exhibition /Short films

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Movie Making Manual/Lighting

Lighting Conventions
Broadcast, Video, and Film Productions share common lighting conventions. Due to the fact that most lighting tools were originally developed for film, with a few tools introduced for video, the equipment carries ratings and specifications are standardized for film. All the lighting tools found in a decently equipped video production studio have direct relatives (usually just larger, brighter and more expensive) in a film production studio.

Electricity
Every lighting fixture uses electricity. How much it requires and in what form varies on the application of the light(s). The electrical description consists of Voltage, Amperage, and Wattage. Commonly, studio lights use 115± (plus or minus) 5 Volts (V) or "225±5 V". The amperages (amperes or amps) and wattages (Watts or W) vary depending on the fixture, bulb type, and light output. 115V lights range from 10W (LEDs) up to 2000W-2500W (Halogen-Quartz), 225V range also from 10W to 4500W-5000W.

Terminology

 * Bulbs: Refers to the actual light source. Most bulbs consist of a filament, insulating gas, and a glass encasement. Also known as "lamps," or "globes."
 * Fixtures: The cases or enclosures that hold a bulb, and often serve the purpose of directing the light. Fixtures range from simple bulb holders (such as clamp lights), to elaborate mechanisms (such as Source Four). Also known as "heads," or "instruments."
 * Mounts: A device that holds the light where you want it to be. Some clamp to overhead lighting grids, while others are stands.
 * Power (AC): The power source or the power supply. Where the light is getting its electricity.

Lighting equipment
Lighting equipment consists of a great deal more than just sockets with bulbs. Lighting equipment (briefly) consists of bulbs (usually called 'lamps'), fixtures, dimmers/power units, mounts, light control/quality.

Redheads
Redheads are a specific type of open-faced light made by Ianiro. They usually offer tungsten 1000W. They are also known as Mickey-Moles (when made by Mole-Richardson). The term Redhead comes from the reddish color of the original fiber casing and is often used to loosely describe smaller, open-faced lights.

Blondes
Blondes are a 2k open-faced light. Because they are open-faced, they tend to put out more light than a 2k Fresnel.

Bulb Types
Video/Film recording lights use many different bulb types. Some are standards from Edison (tungsten) but others are cutting edge of the 2000s (LED). Most bulb types use a filament-ignition process to produce light. A wire of some electrically excitable material is put under voltage in an oxygen-depleted environment, causing it to 'burn' without lighting afire. Fluorescent bulbs and LEDs function rather differently from filament bulbs.

Tungsten
A tungsten light is basically a more powerful version of a common household light bulb. While a household light bulb may only take a few hundred watts at most, lights that are used to light film sets are easily 1000 watts (1K) and often over 20,000 watts (20K). The tungsten light bulb naturally produces an orange hue, similar to indoor lights. Tungsten lights have a colour temperature ranging from 3200 to 3400 Kelvin. One typically uses a CTB ( colour temperature blue) filter to balance the colour temperature with outdoor or HMI light.

Halogen-Quartz
Halogen-Quartz bulbs, often known as "Halogens" or "Quartz" are a staple of lighting. Halogens rarely posses a color temperature outside of 3200°K. These same bulbs are often used in car headlights, portable work-lights, and recently in house-decor lighting. The bulbs come in wattages ranging from 15W-3500W. Additionally they are manufactured in a wide range of enclosures, bases, and connectors. Common are the "T", and bayonet base. Halogens emit significant amounts of heat during operation, so much so that oils on the glass surface of the bulb case lead to uneven heat distribution and rupturing (through thermal shock to the glass) or heat build-up and exploding gas within the bulb.

HMI
An HMI light is used very often to light film sets. One requires a ballast in order to power and creates a loud noise when turning on, so it is set protocol to yell "striking" in order to warn others on set to both ignore the noise and avoid looking at the light. The HMI light is a different type of light bulb than the more common tungsten. An HMI emits ultra-violet lights and emits a blue hue. HMI lights produce a color temperature around 5600 Kelvin. One typically use a CTO (color temperature orange) filter to balance the color temperature with indoor or tungsten light.

Fluorescent
Fluorescent bulbs were not used for lighting film and video until recently. This was because of problems with flicker and a tendency to emit more of a greenish hue. The Fluorescent lights used in film now are made to be flicker-free and come in both daylight and tungsten balanced bulbs. "Kino-flo" is one of the major companies involved in making fluorescent bulbs and fixtures for film and video production. Fluorescent lights tend to be very soft, but do not put out much light in comparison to other lighting instruments.

LED
Until the last five to ten years Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have seen little implementation. Recent advances in production costs and chemical advances used in the diode junctions have led to inexpensive LED 'bulbs' as well as even color temperatures in multiple bulbs. LEDs are manufactured in all colors, and white comes in many color temperatures; 3200K being the most common, but ranging from 3000K to 5600K+. Diodes, due to their engineered design tend to have a very directional light. The front lens is parabolic, focusing the light to a small dot even several meters away.

Lighting Shape/Area
There are a number of tools used to control where light falls. Often these are used to prevent light falling where it is not needed. In other circumstances a pattern created by the light is desired.

Barn Doors
Perhaps the most common form of lighting area shaping, barn doors are found around the front outside of the fixture. Most commonly there are four barn doors forming a square around the fixture, but the numbers vary for specialty applications.

Basically, barn doors block the light from hitting an area of the set or frame you don't want them to. They swing towards and away from the fixture opening.

Gobos
Gobos shape the light. Many gobos appear to be shapes cut in a cookie sheet (and indeed many are) but they consist of a material able to withstand the heat put out by the fixture, with shapes cut out for the light to travel through.

Think of gobos as jack o' lanterns.

Flags & Cutters
A flag or cutter can be any item that blocks light. A standard flag on set can be of varying sizes. The standard flag is attached to a small metal handle and short rod that can be attached to a C-Stand and placed so that it blocks the light from hitting something in the shot. Flags can be used to prevent light from hitting background walls, for example, leaving only the central subject/s in the light.

Types of flags include singles & doubles to cut down hard light. Solids to block light. Silks, though similar, are translucent and used to diffuse, rather than block light.

Blackwrap
Blackwrap is essentially aluminum foil, but covered in black paint. It is often used to block light and kill any spill from a light. Blackwrap can be shaped however you like to affect where the light falls. It is useful in narrowing larger lights to point lights or spots or making lights non-circular. It is very inexpensive, light weight and more flexible than barn doors. However, it will burn on too hot a light, so watch for smoke. Blackwrap(TM) is a product from the company, Gam Products Inc. A similar product, CineFoil(TM) is made by Rosco Laboratories Inc.

Focus
Adjusting the focus on a focusable light changes the distance between the actual bulb and a lens at the end of the light. This affects how diffuse the light is. Closer to the lens spreads the light out more, whereas farther back makes it closer to a spot. Try to do this before the light gets too hot, so you can adjust it without burning yourself.

Neutral Density Filters
Neutral density filters are a variety of gel (or camera filter) which reduces all colors of light equally, making a light less intense without altering its color. This can be added on top of color gels or used on its own to make a light less intense.

Gels
Gels are thin and translucent. They come in rolls that can be cut into a more manageable size when needed. While a gel can be any color, there are two main colors which are referred to as Color Temperature Orange (CTO) and Color Temperature Blue (CTB). These two types of gel are respectively orange and blue, with varying degrees of darkness broken up into 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and Full. Full is the darkest and 1/8 is the lightest. When asking for a gel, one may say "I'd like a quarter CTO put on this light."

Gels are attached to a light in order to alter their color temperature. Tungsten lights produce an orange hue, while HMI's produce a blue hue. If filming outside with tungsten lights, gels would be needed to match the color temperature of the daylight if the DP wanted all the light to be the same color temperature. Daylight produces a blue hue like an HMI light, so CTB would be needed to be placed on all the tungsten lights. Gels are attached to lights with clothespins, also called "C-47's."

Besides CTO and CTB, to work with fluorescent lights or a "kino flo", there are "plus green" and "minus green" gels. Since fluorescent lights produce a green hue, a minus green gel would remove the green hue from a fluorescent light and a plus green gel would help match a non-fluorescent light to a fluorescent.

Attaching
Some lights have clips for attaching gels, but the most common method of attaching them is via wooden clothespins (also referred to as C47s, pegs, or bullets). These clothespins will begin to smoke before the gels, so you can prevent your gels from being ruined, and they also don't conduct heat, so they can be manipulated even on a very hot light. They can also be reversed to give them a longer mouth, allowing you to use them to pull scrims from hot fixtures. Once reversed, they often go by C-74's or "scrim pullers".

General Lighting
Here is the nitty-gritty of the page. Although different formats have varying needs in both quantity and quality of light, the underlying yet critical concepts of lighting are fairly applicable to any medium.

Lighting Digital Video
Dynamic range. There are many differences between DV and film, but one that particularily stands out regarding lighting is dynamic range.

Most DV and video cameras have a relatively low dynamic range. (I.ex. the Sony PD150 has about 4-5 stops, and Kodak's 50D film has up to 11). This means the range between the completely black and the whitest white is very low. One therefore has to keep this in mind while lighting. This has been an integral part of cinematography since the beginning. Controlling so one can see details in the darkest area of an image, and also in the brightest. One can always adjust the contrast in post (Colorgrading). This style of working is called shooting for post. (The DV standard has an ok light intensity resolution, so adjusting contrast in post is not as difficult as adjusting color.)

White balance. As the DV standard has a low color-resolution, it is important to control and know how to filter and white balance the image on set. It has been proved difficult to adjust color in post with a good result, although it has been done. Regarding lighting, be aware of the possibilities the white balance setting on the camera have, and use gels on the lamps, and sometimes on windows to create a neutral image.

In return for these shortcomings, DV-cameras can be more light-sensitive than most film stocks, and therefore require less light intensity, to give the same image. (PD150 is about 320ASA versus Kodak's 50D's 50ASA. One would need about 8 times more light, to get the same image at the same F-stop). Although high ASA film is available.

You just do what you have to do.

Within the Movie Making Manual

 * Power Sources - generators, tie-ins, batteries, inverters etc..

Lighting Equipment Manufacturers

 * ARRI] Lights, cameras and other equipment.
 * Bardwell & McAlister Manufacturer of lightweight, Green Power Saving Movie Lighting.
 * Chimera Manufacturer of soft boxes used to control and modify light.
 * ETC Lights Manufacturer of ellipsoidal fixtures.
 * K5600 Manufacturer of daylight fixtures, including the popular Joker family.
 * Kino Flo Manufacturer of lights, specializing in fluorescent and LED fixtures.
 * Lee Filters Gels, filters and accessories.
 * Litepanels Manufacturer of LED fixtures.
 * Lowel Manufacturer of small lighting fixtures.
 * Matthews Grip Century Stands (C-stands), and other equipment.
 * Mole Richardson Manufacturer of lights, power distro, effects machines, and stands.
 * Used Movie Lighting the largest buyer and seller of used movie lighting & stands

/Cinematography /Production

title: Movie Making Manual/Lighting


text:
Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms

This is a book to complement the Data Structures book and the Algorithms book, and assumes these books as prerequisites.

There are two conflicting goals in online book writing:

 * to be an introduction to fundamental material
 * to be a complete reference work that includes discussions of tangential material

We've decided to do both. The Data Structures text and the Algorithms text focus on just the fundamentals. This book (Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms) is a place for reference material. The idea is that a student in the span of a year or less can cover those fundamentals and then move on the advanced topics in this book.

Possible topics

 * Parallel Programming (section; an elaboration of divide and conquer, or pipeline decoupling for streaming algorithms)
 * Memory Management and Garbage Collection (whole chapter)
 * NP-Completeness (whole chapter)
 * Proof of the master theorem (section)
 * Quadtrees and Octrees and R-trees (chapter)
 * Trie data structure
 * B-trees (chapter) (didn't we already cover this in Data Structures/Trees and Algorithm Implementation/Trees/B+ tree ?)
 * (pseudo) random number generators (see Statistics/Numerical Methods/Random Number Generation, etc.)
 * Introspective Sort (section; a hybrid sorting algorithm)
 * Closures ( What Is Closure? )
 * Continuations ( continuations )
 * Cache-Aware and Cache-Oblivious Algorithms
 * Approximation
 * Maximum Flow
 * Primality testing (see Algorithm Implementation/Mathematics/Primality Testing, Algorithm Implementation/Mathematics/Prime number generation, Some Basic and Inefficient Prime Number Generating Algorithms, Cryptography/Mathematical Background, Discrete Mathematics/Number theory, Cryptography/RSA, etc.)

While there is no content here yet, please feel free to start writing sections! Because this book is more of a reference, chapters can be more independent of each other. Further, you can assume the reader already knows the basic data-structures and algorithms.

FFT Multiplication*
As covered in the Algorithms book, by breaking an integer into two parts and treating it as a polynomial, we were able to derive a better-than-grade-school multiplication algorithm. Even more gains in efficiency can be made if we break the integer into three parts instead. However, we don't need to stop there: we can generalize the technique of polynomial multiplication and interpolation by breaking an n digit binary number into a degree n polynomial, which breaks the number up into its individual digits (and is the furthest we can divide such a number).

We noticed that evaluating the polynomial representations at points 1, -1, and 0 made the expressions easy, but if we are to use degree-2n polynomials, how can we come up with enough points to use? The trick is to evaluate the polynomial using complex numbers, in particular, by using "roots of unity": that is, complex numbers that are all distance 1 from the origin.

Trie data structure
A Trie, also called digital tree and sometimes radix tree or prefix tree (as they can be searched by prefixes), is an ordered tree data structure often used to store an associative array where the keys are usually strings. Unlike a binary search tree, no node in the tree stores a complete key.

Tree-List
w:Rope (computer science)

When dealing with lists, we normally have two choices: either we get $$O(1)$$ indexed access but $$O(N)$$ insertion with vectors, or $$O(N)$$ indexing and $$O(1)$$ insertion with linked lists. It'd be nice if we could find some middle ground, say with $$O(\log N)$$ (amortized) running time for all operations. Well, Soren Sandmann has implemented GSequence, which uses a splay tree to achieve exactly that. ''[TODO: This structure doesn't have a widely accepted name yet. If someone can think of a better name, suggest it.]''

''I think B-tree algorithms give worst-case O(ln(N)) insertion, deletion, and access by name. Is GSequence better in some way? I've been told that some operating systems stored files and directories on disk as B-trees. --DavidCary 23:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)''

''There's a number of balanced trees that give O(ln N) performance. The idea here is just wrapping a list interface around a tree. You might as well just say that you can use a tree since a list interface is only for implementation convenience.''

There are various heap data structures that give O(log(N)) insertion, deletion and access by name.

''I believe these are called random-access lists. Also, it is possible to get O(1) insertion and O(log N) indexing; e.g. Okasaki's skew-binomial random access lists. If there is an interest, I can upload a demonstration-quality implementation in Common Lisp.''

title: Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms


text:
Wikijunior talk:South America

Other Questions?
Are there other questions we should answer? Culture? Religion? Music? Any ideas? Lyellin 01:37, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Oh yes, definitely. I was in fact hoping this issue to focus primarily on those topics. Really, cover whatever you want to write about. Extra content online is a major bonus if we can get it. A few years from now, I hope we're at the stage with content and funds that we could publish issues on single countries, or at least groups. --  user:zanimum

Racism
The only country in the whole of South Americas that's primarily white is Argentina, the rest are primarily Indian or Black. South America is composed of mestizo (Indian - European), mulatto (Black - European) or mestizo-mulatto (Indian - Black - European) people. The white people are a small minority everywhere except Argentina. Are these facts reflected in the books? No, they are not. The books all read like they were written by white supremacists. The only exception is Venezuela and only because I fixed it personally. It's one thing to distort the picture by not mentioning the blatant racism in South America, it takes it to a whole other extreme when you distort such an obvious thing as ethnicity. 70.26.56.242 21:08, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Actually, many of the Wikijunior:South America modules are stubs missing much information. --Kernigh 21:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

El Salvador
Why is El Salvador not in this book? Is it because it is in fact in Central America? Some children in New York think it is in South America, and I'm inviting them to participate in this book, and that's why I should like some correct information. I've had one accusation in regard to this book of passing on incorrect information to children, so I should not like another on my conscience. --EuropracBHIT 00:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC).

 * Some people consider Mexico to be in South America too. Look at a map of North America and you will see some important differences.  From a geological viewpoint, El Salvador is actually in North America (it is physically on the Carribian plate, often associated in physical geography with North America) even if it has strong cultural ties to South American coutries.  For now, all we are trying to do is to somehow limit the range of countries that are involved with this Wikibook.  We really do need to eventually expand and move into other regions, and often Central America and the Carribian nations are geographically linked together.  Also, distinguishing between Anglo-America and Latin-America is very artificial and overly broad as well.  And tends to gloss over important groups like French-speaking people in Quebec, Louisiana (OK, Creole there) or Haiti. Or the Pennsylvania Dutch for that matter.  There is also a huge difference in culture between Mexico and Argentina, even though the typical American doesn't see any difference.

 * In this regard, don't try to spread misinformation that El Salvador is in South America. In addition, we do want to get to the Central American countries as well at some time in the future but not at the moment.  I am glad that you are trying to help improve this Wikibook, and I hope that the kids that you are encouraging to work on this have been enjoying the experience.  They would be a group of kids writing for kids, and that is exciting by itself.  --Rob Horning 13:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Aztecs?
There is a page on Incas, why not the Aztecs? MiltonT 14:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

 * The Aztecs lived in North America. Where Mexico is now. --Xixtas 02:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Revitalizing Wikijunior South America
In my opinion, Wikijunior South America doesn't really work as is. I think there are probably reasons rooted in it being the third book to be started and the push that happened on the first two books for it being as undeveloped as it is.

I find the history/culture/geography approach to be kind of dry. I think that most kids wouldn't find these articles to be very interesting. I would like to propose a major reworking of the book, with new questions, and a new development effort. A relaunch almost. I think we need questions that are more directly relevant to kid's experience.

The new set of questions I would propose for each country are:
 * What are %country's% national symbols?
 * (Flag, Animal, Seal, etc.)

 * What are some famous places in %country%?
 * (Historic places, Big Cities, Natural Features)

 * What important events have happened in %country%?
 * (European Contact, Founding, Elections, Millitary Conflicts.)

 * What is the natural environment like in %country%?
 * (Natural Geography, Climate, Animals, Nature Preserves)

 * What types of things are exported from %country%?
 * (Business & Economy Overview, GNP, Free-Market/State-Run, Natural Resources)

 * What is school like in %country%?
 * (Language, Education System, Age of students, Education levels of kids and adults, Universities)

 * What is the food like in %country%?
 * (Agriculture, Local dishes, specific foods eaten (eg. beef, plantains)

 * What music is popular in %country%?
 * (Indigenous music forms, popularity of music from other parts of the world, dancing)

 * What sports are popular in %country%?
 * (Football (soccer), Olympic Athletes, Notable athletes playing internationally.)

 * Who are some famous people from %country%?
 * (2 sentence biographies, writers, politicians)

Is anyone else up for this kind of effort? --xixtas 05:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I have been working on Colombia to demonstrate how these articles might look. --xixtas 21:38, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

title: Wikijunior talk:South America


text: User:Saša Ćetković~enwikibooks

title: User:Saša Ćetković~enwikibooks


text:
Cookbook:Chocolate Mousse Cake (Vegan)

| Vegan Cuisine

Cake

 * 1½ cups (200 g / 7.1 oz) unbleached white flour
 * ⅓ cup (40 g / 1.4 oz) unsweetened baking cocoa powder
 * 1 teaspoon baking powder
 * 1 cup (225 g / 7.9 oz) unrefined sugar
 * 1¼ cups (300 ml / 10 oz) water
 * ¼ cup (60 ml / 2 fl oz) vegetable oil
 * 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
 * 2 tablespoons vinegar (plain red, plain white or rice vinegar)
 * 1 pinch of shredded coconut

Chocolate tofu filling

 * 6 oz chocolate chips
 * 6 oz tofu
 * ½ tablespoon vanilla extract

Chocolate walnut sauce topping (optional)

 * ¼ cup (60 g / 2.1 oz) margarine
 * ¼ cup (30 g / 1.1 oz) cocoa powder or carob powder
 * 4 tablespoons soy milk
 * 5/6 cup (180 g / 6.3 oz) sugar (preferably unrefined)
 * ⅓ cup (75 g / 2.6 oz) packed unrefined sugar
 * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 * ½ cup (40 g / 1.4 oz) walnuts (optional)

Cake

 * 1) Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
 * 2) In bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar.
 * 3) In another bowl combine water, oil, and the 2 teaspoons of vanilla.
 * 4) Pour liquid into dry ingredients, then whisk with fork.
 * 5) Add vinegar and stir. You'll see bubbles when the acidic vinegar reacts with the basic baking soda!
 * 6) Pour into baking dishes, and bake for 25–30 minutes.
 * 7) Remove from oven and let cool completely.

Chocolate tofu filling

 * 1) Melt the chocolate chips.
 * 2) Combine the tofu, ½ tablespoon vanilla extract, and melted chocolate chips in a blender. Blend until creamy.
 * 3) Cut the top of the cake off and set the top aside. Pour the chocolate tofu mousse on the bottom half of the cake. Replace the top half.
 * 4) Refrigerate until mousse thickens.

Chocolate walnut sauce topping (optional)

 * 1) In a saucepan combine everything but vanilla extract. Bring to boil, stirring constantly.
 * 2) Boil 1 minute, stir to cool, then add vanilla extract.
 * 3) Pour over the top of the chocolate mousse cake.
 * 4) Garnish with coconut.

title: Cookbook:Chocolate Mousse Cake (Vegan)


text:
Ada Programming/Generics

Parametric polymorphism (generic units)
The idea of code reuse arises from the necessity for constructing large software systems combining well-established building blocks. The reusability of code improves the productivity and the quality of software. The generic units are one of the ways in which the Ada language supports this characteristic. A generic unit is a subprogram or package that defines algorithms in terms of types and operations that are not defined until the user instantiates them.

Note to C++ programmers: generic units are similar to C++ templates.

For example, to define a procedure for swapping variables of any (non-limited) type:

Element_T ; Swap (X, Y :  Element_T);

Swap (X, Y :  Element_T) Temporary : Element_T := X;   X := Y;   Y := Temporary; Swap;

The  subprogram is said to be generic. The subprogram specification is preceded by the generic formal part consisting of the reserved word followed by a list of generic formal parameters which may be empty. The entities declared as generic are not directly usable, it is necessary to instantiate them.

To be able to use, it is necessary to create an instance for the wanted type. For example:

Swap_Integers  Swap (Integer);

Now the  procedure can be used for variables of type.

The generic procedure can be instantiated for all the needed types. It can be instantiated with different names or, if the same identifier is used in the instantiation, each declaration overloads the procedure:

Instance_Swap  Swap (Float); Instance_Swap  Swap (Day_T); Instance_Swap  Swap (Element_T => Stack_T);

Similarly, generic packages can be used, for example, to implement a stack of any kind of elements:

Max: Positive; Element_T ; Generic_Stack Push (E: Element_T); Pop return Element_T; Generic_Stack;

Generic_Stack Stack: (1 .. Max)  Element_T; Top : Integer  0 .. Max := 0; Generic_Stack;

A stack of a given size and type could be defined in this way:

Float_100_Stack  Generic_Stack (100, Float); Float_100_Stack; Push (45.8); ;

Generic parameters
The generic unit declares generic formal parameters, which can be:

 * objects (of mode in or in out but never out)
 * types
 * subprograms
 * instances of another, designated, generic unit.

When instantiating the generic, the programmer passes one actual parameter for each formal. Formal values and subprograms can have defaults, so passing an actual for them is optional.

Generic formal objects
Formal parameters of mode in accept any value, constant, or variable of the designated type. The actual is copied into the generic instance, and behaves as a constant inside the generic; this implies that the designated type cannot be limited. It is possible to specify a default value, like this:

Object : Natural := 0;

For mode in out, the actual must be a variable.

One limitation with generic formal objects is that they are never considered static, even if the actual happens to be static. If the object is a number, it cannot be used to create a new type. It can however be used to create a new derived type, or a subtype:

Size : Natural := 0; P     T1   Size; T2  1 .. Size; T3  Integer  1 .. Size; T4 Integer  1 .. Size; P;

The reason why formal objects are nonstatic is to allow the compiler to emit the object code for the generic only once, and to have all instances share it, passing it the address of their actual object as a parameter. This bit of compiler technology is called shared generics. If formal objects were static, the compiler would have to emit one copy of the object code, with the object embedded in it, for each instance, potentially leading to an explosion in object code size (code bloat).

(Note to C++ programmers: in C++, since formal objects can be static, the compiler cannot implement shared generics in the general case; it would have to examine the entire body of the generic before deciding whether or not to share its object code. In contrast, Ada generics are designed so that the compiler can instantiate a generic without looking at its body.)

Generic formal types
The syntax allows the programmer to specify which type categories are acceptable as actuals. As a rule of thumb: the syntax expresses how the generic sees the type, i.e. it assumes the worst, not how the creator of the instance sees the type.

This is the syntax of RM :

formal_type_declaration ::= defining_identifier[discriminant_part] formal_type_definition; formal_type_definition ::= formal_private_type_definition | formal_derived_type_definition | formal_discrete_type_definition | formal_signed_integer_type_definition | formal_modular_type_definition | formal_floating_point_definition | formal_ordinary_fixed_point_definition | formal_decimal_fixed_point_definition | formal_array_type_definition | formal_access_type_definition | formal_interface_type_definition

This is quite complex, so some examples are given below. A type declared with the syntax  denotes a type with unknown discriminants. This is the Ada vernacular for indefinite types, i.e. types for which objects cannot be declared without giving an initial expression. An example of such a type is one with a discriminant without default, another example is an unconstrained array type.

In the body we can only use the operations predefined for the type category of the formal parameter. That is, the generic specification is a contract between the generic implementor and the client instantiating the generic unit. This is different to the parametric features of other languages, such as C++.

It is possible to further restrict the set of acceptable actual types like so:

Generic formal subprograms
It is possible to pass a subprogram as a parameter to a generic. The generic specifies a generic formal subprogram, complete with parameter list and return type (if the subprogram is a function). The actual must match this parameter profile. It is not necessary that the names of parameters match, though.

Here is the specification of a generic subprogram that takes another subprogram as its parameter:

Element_T ; "*" (X, Y: Element_T) Element_T; Square (X : Element_T) Element_T;

And here is the body of the generic subprogram; it calls parameter as it would any other subprogram.

Square (X: Element_T) Element_T X * X;    Square;

This generic function could be used, for example, with matrices, having defined the matrix product.

Square; Matrices; Matrix_Example Square_Matrix  Square (Element_T => Matrices.Matrix_T, "*" => Matrices.Product); A : Matrices.Matrix_T := Matrices.Identity; A := Square_Matrix (A); Matrix_Example;

It is possible to specify a default with "the box", like this:

Element_T ; "*" (X, Y: Element_T) Element_T  <>;

This means that if, at the point of instantiation, a function "*" exists for the actual type, and if it is directly visible, then it will be used by default as the actual subprogram.

One of the main uses is passing needed operators. The following example shows this (follow download links for full example) :

Element_Type ; ...       "<"        (Left  :  Element_Type;         Right :  Element_Type) Boolean ;   Search (Elements : Array_Type;      Search   :  Element_Type;      Found    :  Boolean;      Index    :  Index_Type') ...

Generic instances of other generic packages
A generic formal can be a package; it must be an instance of a generic package, so that the generic knows the interface exported by the package:

P  Q ;

This means that the actual must be an instance of the generic package Q. The box after Q means that we do not care which actual generic parameters were used to create the actual for P.  It is possible to specify the exact parameters, or to specify that the defaults must be used, like this:

P1  Q (Param1 => X, Param2 => Y); P2  Q; You can specify one default parameters, none or only some. Defaults are indicated with a box (" => <> "), and you can use " others => <>") to mean "use defaults for all parameters not mentioned". The actual package must, of course, match these constraints.

The generic sees both the public part and the generic parameters of the actual package (Param1 and Param2 in the above example).

This feature allows the programmer to pass arbitrarily complex types as parameters to a generic unit, while retaining complete type safety and encapsulation. (example needed)

It is not possible for a package to list itself as a generic formal, so no generic recursion is possible. The following is illegal:

A;     P   A ; A;

In fact, this is only a particular case of:

A;  A;

which is also illegal, despite the fact that A is no longer generic.

Instantiating generics
To instantiate a generic unit, use the keyword new:

Square_Matrix  Square (Element_T => Matrices.Matrix_T, "*" => Matrices.Product);

Notes of special interest to C++ programmers:

 * The generic formal types define completely which types are acceptable as actuals; therefore, the compiler can instantiate generics without looking at the body of the generic.
 * Each instance has a name and is different from all other instances. In particular, if a generic package declares a type, and you create two instances of the package, then you will get two different, incompatible types, even if the actual parameters are the same.
 * Ada requires that all instantiations be explicit.
 * It is not possible to create special-case instances of a generic (known as "template specialisation" in C++).

As a consequence of the above, Ada does not permit template metaprogramming. However, this design has significant advantages:

 * the object code can be shared by all instances of a generic, unless of course the programmer has requested that subprograms be inlined; there is no danger of code bloat.
 * when reading programs written by other people, there are no hidden instantiations, and no special cases to worry about. Ada follows the Law of Least Astonishment.

Generics and nesting
A generic unit can be nested inside another unit, which itself may be generic. Even though no special rules apply (just the normal rules about generics and the rules about nested units), novices may be confused. It is important to understand the difference between a generic unit and instances of a generic unit.

Example 1. A generic subprogram nested in a nongeneric package.

Bag_Of_Strings Bag ; Operator (S :  String); Apply_To_All (B :  Bag); Bag_Of_Strings;

To use Apply_To_All, you first define the procedure to be applied to each String in the Bag. Then, you instantiate Apply_To_All, and finally you call the instance.

Bag_Of_Strings; Example_1 Capitalize (S :  String)  ; Capitalize_All Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All (Operator => Capitalize); B : Bag_Of_Strings.Bag; Capitalize_All (B); Example_1;

Example 2. A generic subprogram nested in a generic package

This is the same as above, except that now the Bag itself is generic:

Element_Type (<>) ; Generic_Bag Bag ; Operator (S :  Element_Type); Apply_To_All (B :  Bag); Generic_Bag;

As you can see, the generic formal subprogram Operator takes a parameter of the generic formal type Element_Type. This is okay: the nested generic sees everything that is in its enclosing unit.

You cannot instantiate Generic_Bag.Apply_To_All directly, so you must first create an instance of Generic_Bag, say Bag_Of_Strings, and then instantiate Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All.

Generic_Bag; Example_2 Capitalize (S :  String)  ; Bag_Of_Strings Generic_Bag (Element_Type => String); Capitalize_All Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All (Operator => Capitalize); B : Bag_Of_Strings.Bag; Capitalize_All (B); Example_2;

Generics and child units
Example 3. A generic unit that is a child of a nongeneric unit.

Each instance of the generic child is a child of the parent unit, and so it can see the parent's public and private parts.

Bag_Of_Strings Bag ; Bag_Of_Strings; Operator (S :  String); Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All (B :  Bag);

The differences between this and Example 1 are:
 * Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All is compiled separately. In particular, Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All might have been written by a different person who did not have access to the source text of Bag_Of_Strings.
 * Before you can use Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All, you must with it explicitly; withing the parent, Bag_Of_Strings, is not sufficient.
 * If you do not use Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All, your program does not contain its object code.
 * Because Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All is at the library level, it can declare controlled types; the nested package could not do that in Ada 95. In Ada 2005, one can declare controlled types at any level.

Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All; Example_3 Capitalize (S :  String)  ; Capitalize_All Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All (Operator => Capitalize); B : Bag_Of_Strings.Bag; Capitalize_All (B); Example_3;

Example 4. A generic unit that is a child of a generic unit

This is the same as Example 3, except that now the Bag is generic, too.

Element_Type (<>) ; Generic_Bag Bag ; Generic_Bag; Operator (S :  Element_Type); Generic_Bag.Apply_To_All (B :  Bag); Generic_Bag.Apply_To_All; Example_4 Capitalize (S :  String)  ; Bag_Of_Strings Generic_Bag (Element_Type => String); Capitalize_All Bag_Of_Strings.Apply_To_All (Operator => Capitalize); B : Bag_Of_Strings.Bag; Capitalize_All (B); Example_4;

Example 5. A parameterless generic child unit

Children of a generic unit must be generic, no matter what. If you think about it, it is quite logical: a child unit sees the public and private parts of its parent, including the variables declared in the parent. If the parent is generic, which instance should the child see? The answer is that the child must be the child of only one instance of the parent, therefore the child must also be generic.

Element_Type (<>) ; Hash_Type (<>); Hash_Function (E : Element_Type) Hash_Type; Generic_Hash_Map Map ; Generic_Hash_Map;

Suppose we want a child of a Generic_Hash_Map that can serialise the map to disk; for this it needs to sort the map by hash value. This is easy to do, because we know that Hash_Type is a discrete type, and so has a less-than operator. The child unit that does the serialisation does not need any additional generic parameters, but it must be generic nevertheless, so it can see its parent's generic parameters, public and private part.

Generic_Hash_Map.Serializer Dump (Item : Map; To_File :  String); Restore (Item : Map; From_File :  String); Generic_Hash_Map.Serializer; To read and write a map to disk, you first create an instance of Generic_Hash_Map, for example Map_Of_Unbounded_Strings, and then an instance of Map_Of_Unbounded_Strings.Serializer:

Ada.Strings.Unbounded; Generic_Hash_Map.Serializer; Example_5 Ada.Strings.Unbounded; Hash (S : Unbounded_String)  Integer  ; Map_Of_Unbounded_Strings Generic_Hash_Map (Element_Type => Unbounded_String,                            Hash_Type => Integer,                             Hash_Function => Hash); Serializer Map_Of_Unbounded_Strings.Serializer; M : Map_Of_Unbounded_Strings.Map; Serializer.Restore (Item => M, From_File => "map.dat"); Example_5;

Wikibook

 * Ada Programming
 * Ada Programming/Object Orientation: tagged types provides other mean of polymorphism in Ada.

Wikipedia

 * Generic programming

Ada Reference Manual

|Generics

Programación en Ada/Unidades genéricas

title: Ada Programming/Generics


text:
User:Vipuser

w:en:user:

w:zh:user:

title: User:Vipuser


text:
User:GK~enwikibooks

I am mostly an editor on the English-language Wikipedia.

 * gK on the Wikipedia
 * gK's Wikipedia Talk page

gK [[User talk:GK|¿?]] 11:03, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: User:GK~enwikibooks


text:
User talk:GK~enwikibooks

Nothing here yet, but I hate seeing an empty talk page. gK [[User talk:GK|¿?]] 11:04, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called GK. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name GK~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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User:Hemanshu~enwikibooks/sandbox

Wikipedia:Wikibooks:Wikipedia:Sandbox Wikiquote:Sandbox

title: User:Hemanshu~enwikibooks/sandbox


text:
Movie Making Manual/Post-production/Finishing format

35mm, HDCAMSR, HDCAM, D5 HD, D5, DvcproHD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, XDCAM, HD DVD, online, hard disk, digiBeta, Beta SP, beta SX, HDV, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO 25, DVCAM or DV?

/Cinematography /Post-production /Sales and exhibition


text:
Robotics/Design Basics/Tools and Equipment

You can't build a robot without at least a few tools. This page will cover some of the tools and equipment that'll be useful.

Mechanical Tool
For building your robot you'll need some tools to form the body.

 * 1) Small vise: you'll need not need this.
 * 2) Hammer: A hammer is one of the standard tools you'll need.
 * 3) Screwdrivers & Wrenches: their uses are obvious.  Two spanners of equal size are required for lock-nutting.
 * 4) Saw: Metal and wood saws. Miter saws can be very handy, but are pretty expensive. A miter box might suffice for many purposes.
 * 5) Square, measuring tape, scribe and other marking out tools.
 * 6) Vernier calipers: Allow very accurate marking out and measurement.  Also can be used to check thread pitch on machine screws without a dedicated pitch gauge.
 * 7) Files: especially when working with metal, as rough metal edges are sharp.
 * 8) Center Punch: Essential for accurate drilling of holes in metal to prevent the drill skating over the surface.
 * 9) Drill Press: (small table top versions suffice) is very handy for drilling accurate holes.  Can also provide the low speeds for drilling large holes in metal, which hand drills cannot do easily.
 * 10) Hobby Tool: Useful for many purposes.
 * 11) Sharp utility knives: Mostly used when working with plastics.
 * 12) Hot glue guns: handy for quickly mounting parts. Not too strong bound, but useful for many applications.
 * 13) Arc Welder: Only useful when working with thick steel on large projects (use a gas welding torch for thin metal;arc welders tend to burn holes right through the work-piece). Aluminium cannot be welded with ordinary welders. (Unless you have a MIG/MAG or TIG welder available)
 * 14) Paint stripper/Electric Heat Gun: like a hairdryer on steroids. Useful for bending plastics, also applying heat-shrink tubing to electric cables at low power.
 * 15) Safety Goggles: You only get one pair of eyes, and machine tools are potentially dangerous.  Safety goggles are essential for using anything other than hand tools.

Soldering iron
The soldering iron is a very useful tool for assembling electronic circuits and connecting copper wires together.

For electronic circuits you'll need a light soldering iron (~25W) with a small point (shaped like a pencil point). Especially SMD components require small points (or even better: special SMD soldering points). Soldering electronic components is done with "soft soldering": with a low temperature (less than 300°C). Usually for electronics the melting point of the solder lays around 238°C. When buying solder choose for a solder wire (60% lead, 40% tin) with non-corrosive flux. (There is also "eutectic solder" - 63% lead, 37% tin, which transitions from liquid to solid immediately, with no plastic state in between.) Take the thinnest wire you can find (<=1mm).

See this page for an in depth explanation of soldering electronic components.

For connecting metal wires you'll need something more powerful (30W-100W) like a soldering pistol, but an ordinary soldering iron would do just as well. Note: not all materials are as good to solder. Copper is easy to solder and has a reasonable strong bond. Aluminum has a weak bond.

For stronger connections it's better to braze instead of soft soldering. Brazing involves higher temperatures (typical between 450°C and 1000°C) and different flux ("Borax") and solder (copper and zinc or silver alloys) it also requires a welding torch instead of a soldering iron. see this online book for more in depth information on brazing.

If you need even more strength you could use welding. However welding is only used for heavy materials like steel alloys and these are in most cases too heavy to be used in robots (unless you're building a very big or industrial robot). Aluminum can be welded but it isn't as simple as welding steel alloys. See this site for basic welding information.

Breadboard
The boards allow you to build a temporary circuit in no time. Especially handy for testing new circuits. Connections are made with either ordinary thin stiff wire with the insulation removed at the ends or with special breadboard wires with stronger tips. Wires with crocodile clamps are needed for hooking up signal generator, oscilloscope, DMM, etc. Larger boards have connectors (typically banana plugs) for the power supply.

There are small breadboards with an adhesive strip at the bottom. These can be mounted on an empty part of a microcontroller board and can be used to build small circuits.
 * Note: when you build a sensitive analog circuit on a breadboard, it can behave differently than when it's build as a PCB. This is because of parasitic components: the wires connecting the components on the board act as a combination of a resistor, capacitor and coil (all with very low values). Keep in mind that in some circumstances this can affect the working of a circuit. Usually this is only a problem when working with low amplitudes and/or high frequencies.

Electronic Equipment

 * Multimeter: measures voltage, current & resistance. Many can measure transistor and diode characteristics, frequency and capacity. Some can measure temperature or light intensity.
 * Note: measuring voltage and current of a AC source isn't as simple as measuring DC levels. But since robots rarely use AC this would be out of the scope.
 * Oscilloscope: makes a electric signal visible. Very useful when working with more complicated electronic circuits, especially analog signals and data communication. Oscilloscopes exist as stand-alone devices or as add-on modules for PCs. The latter provides extra abilities like spectrum analysing and recording of signals.
 * Variable power supplies: power supplies with variable output. Either AC or DC. Either the output voltage or current can be regulated, although most power supplies let you set a max current.
 * Signal generators: generates different shapes of signals (sine, square, saw and triangle), with variable frequency (1Hz up to 100MHz) and amplitude.
 * Logic probe: pen-like devices that detect logic levels (either TTL or CMOS). Most can detect pulse signals. Very handy when working with digital electronic circuits.
 * Frequency meters: measures the frequency of a signal. Can also be used as a pulse counter. Oscilloscopes can be used for measuring frequency, and storage scopes can freeze a waveform onscreen allowing pulses to be manually counted, but frequency meters are a good investment if this needs to be done very often.
 * LEDs: An underrated test device for digital circuits. LEDs are far better than voltmeters for digital circuits in some situations, as you can see many input and output values concurrently, without connecting a multitude of voltmeters or constantly checking everything with a logic probe. In particular, they can instantly show the status of several logic signals simultaneously, impossible with a logic probe.  Good breadboard building practice also includes an LED for each breadboard to show it is powered up correctly - this can help avoid the potentially frustrating situation of faultfinding a logic circuit that is actually sound, but has an intermittent or noisy power supply.  It's also an excellent indicator if a component is short-circuiting at any time during operation, as the LED will likely dim or go out.

Insulation Displacement Connectors (IDC)
Assembling parallel ribbon cables from ribbon and the IDC connectors:

Practical tips:

connectors you’re using, remove them from the side furthest from the ink stripe so it’s still present on the cable. helps guide you when you’re mating the cable connectors with those on the equipment, knowing that the stripe corresponds with pin 1.
 * 1) Note that IDC ribbon cable is usually not provided with multicoloured or ‘rainbow’ insulation, but with single-colour insulation — usually grey or white. However it also has a stripe of coloured ink or paint (red or black) down one side, to guide you with connector orientation. If you need to strip away some of the wires of a multi-way cable to suit the IDC
 * 1) It’s usual to fit IDC connectors to the cable so their pin 1 end is on the stripe side of the ribbon. This also
 * 1) Before clamping an IDC connector to a ribbon cable, make sure that the cable grooves are aligned with the contact jaw tips and that they are also aligned with the scallops moulded into the underside of the clamping strip.
 * 2) Make sure too that the connector pin/jaw axis is as close as possible to 90° with respect to the ribbon cable wire axes. If the connector/ribbon angle is not close to 90°, some connections may not be made properly. If the connector is being fitted at the end of a ribbon cable, cutting the end of the ribbon cleanly square first will allow you to use it as a guide.
 * 3) Try to squeeze the IDC connector and its clamping strip together as evenly as possible, so they remain as close as possible to parallel with each other during the operation. This too ensures that all joints are made correctly. The easiest way to squeeze them together evenly is by using a small machine vice or a special compound-action clamping tool.
 * 4) If an IDC connector has a second cable clamping strip, don’t attempt to fit this as part of the main assembly. Assemble the main parts of the connector first on the ribbon cable, and only then fit the second clamping strip.
 * 5) When you are bending the ribbon cable around before fitting the second clamping strip, don’t pull it hard. This may loosen some of the connections inside the IDC connector. Just bend the ribbon around gently — a small amount of slack won’t do any harm, and may in fact protect the IDC connections from strain.

Properly-assembled IDC connector illustration:

http://www1.electusdistribution.com.au/images_uploaded/IDCconnE.pdf

Practical uses:

A common IDC cable in use is an IDC D9 socket to IDC 2 by 5 header socket. This cable is often used to connect a PC serial (RS232) port to a microcontroller development board. On the board there will be a 2 by 5 pin header.

RJ45 network connector
These are the connectors used on UTP network cables. A smaller version (RJ11) is used for telephones. You need a crimping tool to attach the connector to the cable. These connectors are very useful for hooking up different PCB with each other. A good use for RJ45 connectors is for making serial (RS232) programming cables for small embedded systems (many credit card terminals use a DB9 to RJ45 cable to download software from a PC during development). If you are building small embedded controller boards an RJ45 can be a handy connector size to use.


text:
Talk:Robotics/Design Basics/Tools and Equipment

This page should include explanation about mechanical tools. Mostly tools that would be available to most people. (CNC cutters and such might fit on a differend page). Anyone willing and able to explain a particular tool please do so. I'm not sure where to put software tools. Any ideas are welcome. --Patrik 12:54, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I'd like an explanation of different types of solders, cores, leadfree, eutectic, and which are best for electronics boards, which are best for mechanical joints, etc. i am linking to it from the electronics book. - Omegatron 19:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)


text:
Movie Making Manual/Exhibition of Music Videos

=Distribution=

DVDs
One of the most exciting new areas for filmmakers with a strong visual style is the music/video DVD. Warp records are leading the way here - producing pieces of work that can only be described and visionary. DVDs where the music and the visuals have been developed together, not one after the other.

=Exhibition=

London

 * NFT and XFM's "Antenna" (annual)
 * Soho Rushes film festival

New York
/Sales and exhibition /Music videos


text:
Movie Making Manual/Windows in film production

Scriptwriting

 * Final Draft Industry pick
 * Celtx (free)
 * OpenOffice.org Scriptwriting Macro Free-Can do with Industry
 * Script Genie for MS Word for Windows
 * MM Screenwriter Industry pick # 2
 * Sophocles Screenwriting Software
 * ScriptMaker (free)
 * Slang Story development (free)

Budgeting

 * GnuCash
 * MM Budgeting
 * OpenOffice.org Calc (Spreadsheet)
 * Excel
 * Access

Scheduling

 * MM Scheduling
 * Sunfrog Film Scheduling
 * Company Move (Industry pick)
 * Celtx (free)

Storyboarding

 * Illustrator
 * FrameForge 3D-Industry Pick
 * Karbon14 (Free)
 * Storyboard Tools (shareware)
 * Springboard (free-most popular)
 * Power Productions Industry Pick # 2
 * Celtx (free)

Editing

 * Avid Media Composer Industry Pick
 * Adobe Premiere Pro Industry Pick # 2
 * Vegas Pro (formerly Sony Vegas)
 * Hitfilm (free express edition available)
 * Lightworks (free)
 * Jahshaka (free)

File conversion tools

 * ffmpeg
 * virtual dub (free)
 * SUPER © (free)

Animation

 * Adobe After Effects Industry Pick
 * Maya Industry Pick # 2
 * Autodesk 3DS Max Industry Pick #3
 * Lightworks (free)
 * Cinema 4D
 * Blender (free)
 * Jahshaka (free)
 * Anim8or (free)

Compositing

 * Adobe After Effects Industry Pick
 * Hitfilm (free express edition also available)
 * Jahshaka (Free)

Monitoring and Measuring Exposure

 * Serious Magic DVRack
 * Canon's Console
 * Avid Mojo

DVD Authoring

 * Adobe Encore (Encore is no longer in active development. Encore CS6 was the last version released.)
 * Adobe Premiere
 * TMPGEnc DVD Author
 * DVD-lab

Audio Editing

 * Avid Pro Tools Industry Pick
 * Adobe Audition
 * Steinberg Nuendo
 * Audacity (free)

Getting help
Software is often complex and has a steep learning curve. For ways of getting help online, take a look at the online resources page for links to forums and tutorials online.

/Tools and equipment /Post-production

Faire son film/Windows