Television Studio Research Articles

DyStar on the block

The positive and negative effects of social media in crises are currently receiving an increased amount of scholarly attention. This study focuses on Twitter users in the context of a crisis in the Netherlands on January 29, 2015. After having made a bomb threat, an armed man managed to get access to the national news broadcasting station around 8 pm, where he demanded airplay to share “an important message” with Dutch citizens. Three weeks after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, approximately 1.5 million viewers were anxious that a similar attack was taking place in the television studio. The crisis, also followed by social media users, reached a climax when armed policemen arrested the man, which was later shown on national TV. We analyzed 58,931 tweets, posted in the six hours after the incident. By examining shared facts and rumors during the gunman crisis, we identified an “echo-effect”: the dissemination of older tweets continued after the posting of new facts by the same source. Moreover, we found that two rumors were based on misinterpreted humor in Twitter messages. The study adds insight into the self-correcting mechanism of social media communities when verifying and dispelling online rumors during crises.

Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells Ltd

The positive and negative effects of social media in crises are currently receiving an increased amount of scholarly attention. This study focuses on Twitter users in the context of a crisis in the Netherlands on January 29, 2015. After having made a bomb threat, an armed man managed to get access to the national news broadcasting station around 8 pm, where he demanded airplay to share “an important message” with Dutch citizens. Three weeks after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, approximately 1.5 million viewers were anxious that a similar attack was taking place in the television studio. The crisis, also followed by social media users, reached a climax when armed policemen arrested the man, which was later shown on national TV. We analyzed 58,931 tweets, posted in the six hours after the incident. By examining shared facts and rumors during the gunman crisis, we identified an “echo-effect”: the dissemination of older tweets continued after the posting of new facts by the same source. Moreover, we found that two rumors were based on misinterpreted humor in Twitter messages. The study adds insight into the self-correcting mechanism of social media communities when verifying and dispelling online rumors during crises.

Experimental 3-D digital TV studio

The Michelangelo project at the University of Glasgow has developed an experimental three-dimensional television studio. This uses 24 video cameras and parallel computers to capture moving three-dimensional models of human actors. This allows the capture in real time of the appearance and three-dimensional positions of a human actor. It does this using stereo imaging techniques that have been under development at the University of Glasgow for several years. The development of the studio has thrown up many technical problems which are still to be fully resolved, nonetheless it is already producing convincing animated sequences.

Enclosed by Images: The Eameses' Multimedia Architecture

I. We are surrounded today, everywhere, all the time, by arrays of multiple, simultaneous images. In the streets, airports, shopping centers, and gyms, but also on our computers and television sets. The idea of a single image commanding our attention has faded away. It seems as if we need to be distracted in order to concentrate. As if we— all of us living in this new kind of space, the space of information— could be diagnosed en masse with Attention Dee cit Disorder. The state of distraction in the metropolis, described so eloquently by Walter Benjamin early in the twentieth century, seems to have been replaced by a new form of distraction, which is to say a new form of attention. Rather than wandering cinematically through the city, we now look in one direction and see many juxtaposed moving images, more than we can possibly synthesize or reduce to a single impression. We sit in front of our computers on our ergonomically perfected chairs, staring with a e xed gaze at many simultaneously “ open” windows through which different kinds of information stream toward us. We hardly even notice it. It seems natural, as if we were simply breathing in the information. How would one go about writing a history of this form of perception? Should one go back to the organization of television studios, with their walls of monitors from which the director chooses the camera angle that will be presented to the viewer; or should one go to Cape Canaveral and look at its Mission Control room; or should one even go back to World War II, when so-called Situation Rooms were envisioned with multiple projections bringing information from all over the world and presenting it side by side for instant analysis of the situation by leaders and military commanders? But it is not simply the military, or war technology, that has dee ned this new form of perception. Designers, architects, and artists were involved from the beginning,

Heat-Resistant Liquid Crystal Light Modulator Containing Polymer Network for High-Power Luminaires

This paper describes a heat-resistant liquid crystal light modulator, which contains a 20-µm-thick polymer-dispersed liquid crystal film comprising tolane nematic liquid crystal with a high nematic-isotropic phase-transition temperature of 160°C and a three-dimensional fine polymer network of polyacrylate formed by means of photopolymerization-induced phase separation. The light modulator with an electrically controlled light scattering function can operate in the wide temperature range from room temperature to 120°C with excellent thermal stability. A new light-controllable spot luminaire system using the light modulator and a 575 W high-intensity metal halide lamp is also demonstrated with a high extinction ratio of more than 100 for illumination of television studios and stages.

Bring 'em back... Alive? The BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs brings extinct species back to life--Or something like it.

In their one-hundred-plus year history, wildlife and natural history films have always been filmed in wild or natural settings. Neither have they always depicted completely natural behavior. Harsh conditions, expensive film stocks and equipment, and most of all the uncertain behavior of animals, have driven many wildlife filmmakers to long for the control enjoyed by their colleagues in feature films. It was this lack of control, in fact, that led many critics to dismiss wildlife films unfairly as being amateurish. Clearly, there is nothing amateurish about today's wildlife filmmakers, but even those most determined to film authentic wild behavior in the natural settings have found themselves forced by competitive pressures to shoot close-ups, missed shots, dramatic angles, and subtle bits of behavior in enclosures, zoos, laboratories, television studios, and now, finally, in cyberspace. The second century of wildlife films may well be the one in which the wild and often unpredictable behavior of some of the most awesome and ferocious creatures can be made to conform to any scripted scenario, brought under control at last--by a mouse. Yet well before the age of computer generated imagery, indeed, from the start there have been those wildlife filmmakers who have tried to make animal behavior conform to audiences' preconceived notions, and to the dramatic conventions of mass market entertainments. Many have resorted to manipulations more severe than the digital kind. In the 1930s, for example, a Barnumesque American named Frank Buck achieved notoriety with a trio of wild animal capture films, Bring 'em Back Alive (1932), Wild Cargo (1934), and Fang and Claw (1935). The popularity of these with audiences rested largely on the dramatic way in which they proved widely held notions that animals in the wild exist in a state of constant interspecies warfare (a never ending arms race, as a more recent wildlife film put it). Buck's specialty was staging dramatic fights in small enclosures between animals who would normally have avoided each other in the wild, but who reacted to shared confinement by attacking each other with audience-pleasing ferocity. Armand Denis, who directed the second Buck outing, later recalled his reaction to Buck's plan for one such a battle. How's about a fight to the death between a tiger and an orang-utan? Buck asked. Well, I said cautiously, occurs in Borneo and Sumatra; there are tigers also in Sumatra, so it is that an orang-utan and a tiger could meet--but surely if they did, they'd just avoid each other. Animals don't normally fight to the death for nothing. Don't they, eh? replied Buck. When I'm around they do. (1) In the world of mass market entertainments, where wildlife films still reside today, accuracy continues to rest uneasily on the same slippery slope. That is, in Denis's phrase, if it is not inconceivable that something could occur, then, according to the logic of film and television it probably has occurred, or could very well at any moment. The fact that extraordinary circumstances would be required to produce its occurrence is irrelevant. The implied conclusion is, simply, that such things do occur. Every climactic rescue, epic gun battle, and apocalyptic explosion in film and television thus carries with it an implied, if muddled, statement of probability: such things could occur, therefore such things do occur. This is, in a way, the basis of film and television realism. Realistic drama has long been seen as the meeting point between fantasy and truth, but today it seems ever more to be engulfing documentary, journalism, and even natural history exposition. The problem is especially evident in the recent six-hour BBC production Walking with Dinosaurs (1999), which aired in the US in April, 2000, on the Discovery Channel. This high concept production combined the conventions of wildlife and natural history films with digitally produced dinosaur images of the sort seen in Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World (1997), and Disney's Dinosaur (2000). …

Revisioning Argumentation Education for the New Century: Millennial Challenges

Argumentation instructors are increasingly called upon to adapt their methods to public argument forums dominated by mass mediation, audience segmentation, and the accelerating information age. Meanwhile, universities seeking to equip students to participate successfully in such circumstances have turned to curricular reforms emphasizing critical thinking and skill-based (as opposed to content-based) instruction. Communication departments have rushed to meet this demand based on their traditional strengths in teaching public speaking, argumentation, debate/forensics, and small group decision-making. The simultaneous appearance of these trends is not coincidental; argumentation pedagogy serves a critical function both inside and outside the academy. Within educational institutions, argumentation classes serve as sites where critical thinking, oral communication, research skills, and dialogic reasoning develop. Outside the academic setting, individuals equipped with argumentation skills emerge as active contri butors within society's political, legal, educational, and business contexts. The contributions to this special issue offer a range of pedagogical options to accommodate the evolving communication environment, in each case offering positions that skillfully blend emerging argumentation theory with proposals for revised curricular practices. ARGUMENTATION INSTRUCTION: EXTERNAL PRESSURES / INTERNAL FERMENT While new forms of mass mediated communication have been influential in shaping our theories of public controversy, little of the work done in this area seems to have trickled into the basic argumentation course or the texts most commonly used to teach argument. This is a curiosity, given the dominance of mass mediated arguments as examples used to illustrate conventional argumentative categories. Debates formerly conducted in town halls and civic centers have been turned over to Oprah Winfrey's television studio, and it is by now a well rehearsed position that America's deliberative politics have been transformed into a kind of talk show (cf. Thelen 1996). From a global perspective, the new media technologies portend for some observers a new epoch of identity politics. As Clifford Christians (1997) argues, an identity politics borne along by interactive technologies is the opening shot in a revolution heard round the world (201). The opportunities and constraints afforded by technological changes in the public arena have considerable implications for argumentation pedagogy. As Trend (1997) has argued, elaborating on a now familiar theme, Emergent forms of audio and visual communication helped create a myriad of new delivery contexts, each with its own reception characteristics. Such developments were accompanied by shifting approaches to commerce based on advertising and public relations, which further complicated the style and function of mass communication. Some analysts attribute to these changes a corresponding loss of agency within the population at large, as citizens began to see themselves less as participants in the ongoing drama of democracy than as observers of its effects. Others see media technologies as enhancements to democracy that provide more opportunities for viewers to exchange messages and engage in common decision making. Either way, within this technological transition the growth of electronic media produced the most consequences. (14-15) While similarly intrinsic connections have been observed by others, there remains a chasm between the typical undergraduate argumentation curriculum and the profound consequences of new technology highlighted by Trend. Changes in the modes by which arguments are typically transmitted and received are simultaneously energizing new scholarship on the socially constitutive nature of argumentation. As postmodern conditions yield increasingly fragmented and combative social exchanges, attacks on the nature of public argument and its instructional practices have mounted (cf. …

Viewing television's history

Television stands as one of the most visible contributions that engineers have made to twentieth-century life. This technology is at the heart of major shifts in public opinion, international politics and economics. It has become one of the leading media of information exchange in every country around the world. The history of television is instructive, because in many ways the development of TV was a precursor for later technologies such as semiconductors and computers. The paper discusses the history of television, including the great international TV standards wars, changing in broadcasting technologies, video recording in the television studio, color TV and new receiver technologies.

Teaching Introductory Psychology at a Distance by Two-Way Interactive Video

In this article, we describe a project evaluating the academic effectiveness of 2-way interactive video as a means of delivery for Introductory Psychology from a television studio on a main campus to a remote site. Final grades assessed student achievement, and a short survey assessed their attitudes regarding aspects of course delivery. Performance at the remote site was not significantly different from performance in the same courses on the main campus. Students' attitudes toward the delivery method were generally positive. We also include feedback from the instructors and the studio production staff and recommend that future endeavors of this sort recognize potential constraints with such a delivery system and alleviate them as much as possible.

Yugoslavia's Television Studios as Military Objectives

Yugoslavia's Television Studios as Military Objectives

Five Papers on Psychiatry in Rural Areas: An Introduction

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Papers on Rural PsychiatryFull AccessFive Papers on Psychiatry in Rural Areas: An IntroductionNorman C. Moore, M.D., and William H. Nelson, M.D.Norman C. MooreSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., and William H. NelsonSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Jul 1998https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.49.7.957AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Poor access to health care services for rural populations has been a difficult and long-standing problem. The twin conditions of shortages of trained providers and the stigma of mental illness have made the provision of mental health services in rural areas a particularly difficult challenge.The paper beginning on page 956 and the four papers that follow are based on presentations given at a symposium on rural psychiatry held on March 14, 1997, to mark the opening of a center for rural mental health at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia. The major mission of the medical school is to train primary care physicians to care for patients in underserved rural communities. The recent growth of interest in rural psychiatry coincided with the medical school's decision to establish the center for rural mental health as a joint program of the medical school's departments of community science and psychiatry. The center's purpose is to conduct research and evaluation and provide education to improve the level of access and care of those in need of mental health services in rural and underserved areas of the southeastern United States.The first paper, on planning the future size of the psychiatrist workforce, discusses methods for determining whether a geographic area has a surplus or a shortage of psychiatrists and how such workforce issues may affect mental health services for rural areas. If managed care continues to shift from specialties to generalists for the provision of services, the number of psychiatrists in training will be markedly reduced, and the delivery of care in rural areas may be adversely affected. On the other hand, a surplus of psychiatrists might benefit currently underserved rural areas if it encourages movement of psychiatrists into those areas. Whether the future brings an under- or oversupply of psychiatrists, the bulk of psychiatric care in rural areas will be provided by nonpsychiatrists. Thus it is important to ensure that family practice physicians and other primary care practitioners are well trained in psychiatry.The second paper, on psychiatric patients and their families, is an account of the problems faced by patients and family members living in rural areas. This paper also highlights the impact of managed care on mental health services, focusing on its effects in the public sector.The third paper, on rural telepsychiatry, describes how gaps in delivery of mental health care can be filled by modern technology. It is now possible for the individual psychiatrist to operate a telemedicine system from a personal computer. These advances mean a saving in time that used to be spent commuting between office and television studio. In addition, the psychiatric consultant and caregivers and patients in remote areas can communicate much more rapidly and conveniently.The fourth paper reviews what is known about collaboration between primary care and psychiatry in rural areas. The fifth paper offers an international perspective on the role of the psychiatrist in rural psychiatry.Dr. Moore is professor and director of psychiatric research and Dr. Nelson is professor and chair in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Mercer University School of Medicine, 1550 College Street, Macon, Georgia 31207. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByTelemedicine and e-Health, Vol. 17, No. 8 Volume 49Issue 7 July 1998Pages 957-957 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 July 1998 Published in print 1 July 1998

Media Acting: An Affordable Reality with Portable Equipment.

Media Acting: An Affordable Reality with Portable Equipment John Rustan (bio) Media acting—acting for camera, voice-over, and other electronic media—has become a frequent topic of discussion in actor training circles. Two recent articles by John Istel in American Theatre attempt to clarify the new challenges facing acting teachers in the electronic age. Agreeing with Istel about the need for new approaches to actor training, Michael Shurtleff responds: “My teaching now emphasizes acting for the screen and television and the specifics needed to do well in the medium of the camera” (4). Robert Cohen, in Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting, urges prospective acting students to find schools that offer camera acting: “You can learn this later,” he notes, “but a school that provides such opportunities gives you a chance to get a jump on the competition” (32). In her book, Acting in Commercials: A Guide to Auditioning and Performing on Camera, Joan See recognizes that success for actors may depend on broader training. [Actors] must abandon any notion of specializing in only one field. . . . Although an overwhelming number of actor training institutions continue to educate their students specifically for acting on a stage, the reality is that the actor who can’t take that training and use it in front of a camera may not survive in the business. (15) While many writers have supported the need for media acting, the question of how affordably to incorporate media acting into an acting program has received little, if any, attention. In The Training of Stage Actors in Film/Video Acting Techniques (1993), Jerry Ivins suggests that resistance to offering film acting courses is partly due to the perceived lack of resources (21). Ivins’s definition of “resources” includes funding to hire new faculty and purchase equipment, space availability, and time within the curriculum schedule (26). Although one might reasonably conclude that a television studio or recording booth provides the optimum environment for teaching media skills, in my own more recent study, most educators conceded that the basic skills of camera acting, voice-over, and auditioning for commercials could be accomplished in a conventional classroom (Rustan 109). Indeed, a course in media acting need not be as elusive or expensive as it may initially appear. What follows is an account of the media acting course we developed at Gonzaga, including [End Page 205] descriptions of equipment purchased, class structure and content, materials used, and some of the lessons learned. Media Acting Setup Rapidly changing technology renders any discussion of equipment almost immediately obsolete. New equipment enters the market constantly, changing standards along with prices. At present, however, the equipment necessary for conducting a media acting class are as follows: a video camera, tripod, microphone and stand, videocassette recorder, monitor, and a tape recorder with speakers for playback. A camera that accommodates VHS tapes allows for the recording of exercises on the student’s own personal tape for a record of their work to keep and review at home. An informal survey made in 1995 revealed that most colleges and universities already own such equipment (Rustan 109). At Gonzaga University, we understood that the equipment necessary for the media acting class would also have other departmental uses. Our goal, then, was to supplement the already owned TV and VCR with a budget of around $1,000. After consulting with the school’s Broadcasting Division and library media center, we managed to purchase a suitable VHS camera, a heavy-duty tripod, a directional microphone, a microphone stand, extra-long extension cords, and a portable stereo tape/CD player (with dual cassette drive) for a total of $1092. (See Appendix B for a complete listing of equipment purchased and notes on technical setup.) All of the equipment was easily portable to the conventional acting classroom used for our course. Even with minimal setup, some instructors fear that teaching a media acting class can become a technical nightmare. To alleviate the potential anxiety of both students and instructors in this regard, I recommend devoting one full class to familiarizing students with the necessary equipment. At Gonzaga, we spend a portion of the first day of class on this task, setting up...

Acting "at the nerve ends": Beckett, Blau, and the Necessary

Acting “at the nerve ends”: Beckett, Blau, and the Necessary Phillip B. Zarrilli and Jenny Kaminer (bio) Thought of everything? . . .Forgotten nothing?. . . —Samuel Beckett, Eh Joe As we well know, it’s the simple that complicates. —Herbert Blau, Take Up the Bodies As Herbert Blau describes them, both the process of acting and the works of Samuel Beckett “stink most of mortality” (Take Up 83). The “stink of mortality” in performing Beckett’s plays derives both from their contrapuntal turns of thought, and in the excruciatingly difficult process of embodiment required of the actor. One way of describing these demands is that the actor’s bodymind is precariously counterpoised and counterbalanced “on the edge of a breath” (Blau, Take Up 86). Acting Beckett highlights those moments of necessary “suspension” always present in acting, as the actor rides the breath/thought/action—that moment where the possibility of failure is palpable. It is in that moment of possible failure that perceiving consciousness (or “action”) bodies forth because it “must.” Beckett and Blau require of the actor an unremitting attention to engaging “the necessary”—the “consciousness that it must be seen, what would make the word come even if there were no breath” (Blau, Take Up 86). This essay focuses on the “stink of mortality” required of actors performing the plays of Beckett, and why and how I require graduate and undergraduate student actors to work on the plays of Beckett in order to encounter this “necessary.” As Director of the Asian/Experimental Theatre Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, each year I take a group of graduate MFA and undergraduate BA acting students through a year-long process of psychophysiological training. As I have explained in detail elsewhere (Acting (Re)Considered; Asian Martial Arts), the students undergo intensive daily training in martial and related arts which (ideally) attune their bodyminds to an intuitive ability to “stand still while not standing still.” They apply this awareness to improvisatory movement and sensory exercises, and eventually to Beckett’s Act Without Words I. Each year’s work culminates in a full production project performed for the public. [End Page 103] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Act Without Words I performed as a group choreography with four protagonists. From left to right: Jason Bohan, Peder Melhuse, Jeff Morrison, and Dan Crozier. Using black umbrellas held by onstage attendants, each casts “a circle of shadow.” The protagonist “continues to reflect” when there is a “Whistle from above.” Here, each protagonist “turns, sees tree . . .” Photo: Phillip B. Zarrilli. In 1994–95, the year-long project began with our daily psychophysiological training focusing on the breath and “internal action,” which laid the foundation for a month-long residency by noted actress Billie Whitelaw, who took students through her “journey with Samuel Beckett.” 1 Whitelaw’s workshop reinforced an approach to Beckett based on formulating metaphors of action that give the actor a map of the psychophysiological territory they enter when performing certain Beckett plays. The project culminated in a five-week intensive period of rehearsals and performances of eight shorter Beckett plays, performed in two separate programs in four locations within the same building (the Hemsley Theatre—Act Without Words I (see fig. 1), Rough for Radio I, Footfalls, and What Where; a fully-equipped television studio—Eh Joe; the theatre scene shop—Play; and a classroom transformed into a white, cloth environment—Ohio Impromptu and Come and Go). The project involved thirteen graduate and undergraduate actors, four student designers, and four MA/PhD students, each of whom directed one play, while I directed three (Act Without Words I as an ensemble choreography, Eh Joe, and Ohio Impromptu). Comments by actors on the process of working on Beckett included in this essay were written as part of their culminating reflections on their acting process through the martial/meditation arts and Beckett. [End Page 104] Foundations for “the Necessary” Discovering what is “necessary” in the performative moment is not a decision of the mind, but one of learning how to embody a sedimented decisiveness in space, through time. One path toward that process is working with a discovery of the bodymind’s relationship to...

Teaching Pruning through Television

Two interactive pruning televideoconferences were produced, each comprised of videotaped segments and in-studio pruning demonstrations. In the first televised conference, viewers received step-by-step instructions for pruning four small and tree fruits. Twelve woody ornamentals were pruned in the second conference. The “how-to-prune” segments were performed by Extension personnel and videotaped by University Electronic and Photographic Services. Each of the 2-hour conferences was broadcast live from a classroom television studio with a total of 30 in-studio participants and 178 county extension agents, Master Gardeners, and residents at downlink sites statewide. A toll-free number was available throughout the conference to encourage two-way communication. These televideoconferences culminated in the creation of a library of “how to prune” videotapes, which are available to county agents, Master Gardeners, or residents. Also, several of these segments were aired on C.U.E. Magazine, a monthly, half-hour Extension-sponsored cable television program, and on Making It Grow!, a bimonthly, hour-long Clemson Extension program that is broadcast on SC-Educational Television.

Television discussion and the public sphere: Conflicting discourses of the former Yugoslavia

Using a case study approach, a television studio debate on events in the former Yugoslavia is analyzed. In the program, an audience of “ordinary” Serbs and Croats met with expert or elite representatives of these groups to discuss their country's future. The analysis focuses on the rules and roles for public discussion that are established and managed by the program. This is important in the context of the broader question of the media's potential to contribute to or undermine the public sphere. Debates over the public sphere center on a contrast between the Habermasian bourgeois public sphere and the oppositional public sphere. It is argued that programs that involve the active participation of a lay studio audience come closer to the requirements of the latter than the former, although audiences and their observers remain ambivalent about this role. By analyzing the access and identities of participants, the role and treatment of different categories of participant (host, expert versus lay, men versus women), and the diversity and organization of claims made during the argument, some of the conditions under which the media may promote public discussion are explored.

Quality Control in a Digital Facility

In previous articles in this series, we discussed the various types of signals used in television studios. Now that digital signals are becoming commonplace in television and production facilities, methods for maintaining a high level of quality control are needed. In this article, we will discuss the 50 and 75-ohm (Ω) connectors used, jitter in digital systems, and the use of the SDI check field or pathological test signal. EDH evaluation methods will be addressed in a later article.

Docs on the Box or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tube

The business of moralizing isn't what it used to be. Ethics has gone public, both in substance and in style. As the eye of the populace has turned toward medical affairs, the television cameras have turned toward medical ethicists, who have taken to their new role as media pundits with enthusiasm, if not outright glee. Liberated from the ivory tower, bioethical talking heads now field questions from news anchors as confidently as they once fielded questions from student The lure of the camera is undeniable of course. Given the prospect of celebrity (however fleeting), an article in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research can't really measure up. More importantly, though, there exists a genuine need for bioethicists to play a role in public debate: a liberal democracy requires an educated public, and popular discussion of ethical issues is aimed, at least in theory, toward that end. Not so obvious, perhaps, is the need for some restraint. If the way ethical issues are discussed in the popular media becomes misleading or starts to hinder public education, then the enthusiasm with which we are starting to seek the spotlight might well be contrary to our ostensible goals. They're Brainy, They're Humane; They're Docs with a Conscience: "The Bioethicists". . . Up Next Let us be honest. American television is not renowned for its intellectual sophistication. Apart from a few high-minded public television programs discussion of ethical matters on American TV generally comes across as shallow and simplistic, even downright misleading. The ethos of tabloid journalism has spread from print to screen; the lines are blurring between information, entertainment, and advertising; the already notoriously short attention span of the American public is being shortened still further by a rapid-fire discharge of sound bites, video clips, trailers, slogans, and jingles. Carl Bernstein argues that the American media are creating an "idiot culture" - a culture of the weird and the stupid and the coarse," distorted by celebrity worship, titillation, and sensationalism. America, says Bernstein, is becoming a "talk-show nation," where reasoned public discourse is wasting away and in its place is growing a more vigorous substitute: "ranting and raving and posturing."(1) Even if one does not agree with Bernstein that "the great information conglomerates of this country are now in the trash business," it is hard to feel comfortable with the way any discussion of public affairs takes place in the television studio. Bioethics doesn't fit very comfortably into this arena. Television uses bioethicists not so much for explanation or reflection upon the gray areas of an issue as for taking contrary, novel, or activist positions. Typically, a person identified simply as an "ethics expert" is asked by a television host or news anchor to comment on the latest bioethical event. The ethics expert offers a few sentences, either critical or supportive, but often little more than unargued conclusions. Unlike a scientist, say, or a scholar specializing in Middle East affairs, either of which might be asked to explain a new development or give some context to an issue, the bioethics pundit is expected to take a stance, however briefly. Put simply: ethical explanation is boring, while advancing a position, however unreflective, entertains. Philosophy through the Looking Glass But if the problem were simply quality, the solution would be relatively simple. The more disturbing possibility is that the form in which television coverage of public affairs takes place is incompatible with - or at least hostile to - the methods and assumptions of rational ethical discussion. The biases built into television as a medium dramatically influence the way ethical discussion is perceived by its audience. First, and most crucially, television trades in images, not in sentences. …

Developments in WTDM technology for high-capacity optical studio networks

This paper reviews results achieved in high-capacity optical networking for television studios under RACE projects 1036 and 2001. A network based on wavelength- and time-division multiplexing (WTDM) has been demonstrated, which, using 16 wavelengths, provides a total capacity of 39.8 Gbit s-1. We summarize previously reported results obtained in the system test-bed, which demonstrate the distribution of uncompressed digital video signals ranging from PAL at 142 Mbit s-1 to HDTV at 1.15 Gbit s-1. The process of further developing this technology for a pilot installation has established that it will be applicable not only to central routeing within a television studio but also to resilient network provision and the interconnection of remote sites. We review how network resilience is achieved by multiple interconnected star architectures and outline how recent results with integrated star couplers suggest that these designs can be delivered at low cost. We report new experiments demonstrating an optically amplified network over a commercially installed 36-km link, thus confirming the feasibility of a long-reach routeing system. We also report results illustrating how lithium niobate devices can perform optical switching on the wavelength multiplex and thus offer potential advantages in system transparency and throughput. Our conclusion is that we have confirmed the feasibility of the WTDM concept and demonstrated its potential for wider application.

Robots in the news: camera robot navigation in television studio

Looks at the use of robotic cameras in television news studios and the problems of navigating them accurately around their environment. Explains how the robots recognize coded targets around the studio which they compare with a preprogrammed map. Discusses the choice between laser scanners and line scan tv cameras to scan the targets and why the line scan camera was chosen; because it exhibited a number of advantages including a lower cost than the laser. Concludes that camera robot development is still at an early stage and is very mush responsive to user requirements. It remains to be seen whether they can move from the news and presentation studio environment into areas such as drama and light entertainment.

Vlsi programmable digital filter for video signal processing

High speed digital filtering is required in real time video signal processing, as well as high order filters are needed to match television studio signal quality. The hardware complexity involved by such system constraints may be faced by a two-fold approach, concerning both the architecture and the technological aspects of a specific electronics device devoted to the above task. This article deals with a processor especially developed for the purpose of fast digital video signal applications, such as filtering, equalization, interpolation and so on. The nonrecursive transposed F.I.R. (Finite Impulse Response) structure has been selected, which exhibits a linear phase behavior. A novel approach has been developed for the multipliers implementation, by optimizing an EPROM based look-up table storing the products between all video samples and the filter coefficients significant bits, resulting in a programmable system. TheProgrammable Filter Processor has been designed with a high level of parallelism and pipelining and a 1.2 µm CMOS EPROM, single metal technology has been employed for the integration process of the chip. This has been successfully production-tested for 40 Msamples/s throughput rate, thus both allowing to meet most video filtering applications and demonstrating the potentialities of nonvolatile memory technologies in embedded applications. Moreover multiple devices can be interconnected to yield multiprocessor structures for more demanding performances such as, cascaded or longer filters, input signal precision extension, computation improved accuracy, increased throughput rate, and two-dimensional signal processing.