IAC DISCUSSION FORUMS

Hi Ian,

We all know that in the PAL system the actual image is on 576 lines but the broadcasters transmit 625 lines. In those extra lines they can include a number of special signals. One of those is the width tag.

Dave

films shown in the wrong aspect ratio drive me to distraction. - Brian Saberton If you want to give yourself a real nervous shock start by looking at this: http://www.sciencemedianetwork.org/Pixel_Aspect_Ratio You can work you way onwards from there. Essentially nothing is as it seems : in the UK w...

I have been delving a bit into this field and it is FAR more complex than you might think. BUT - dealing only with SD here ... So far as I can tell any system which detects 4:3 or 16:9 digital video does it by looking at the shape of the pixels. Basically 4:3 pixels are "nearly square" (1....

Hi Roger, Some helpful suggestions on hardware there ... at such low prices DVD burners (plural) should be on every desktop! To answer your second question, most people prefer DVD-R format discs which seem to be accepted well by most players. Three additional notes on DVDs: - beware of using stick-o...

I am fuming because a tape I carefully prepared in 16:9 was shown at an event recently in 4:3. I was not there but am told the projectionists claimed their professional equipment did not recognise the signal as 16:9. The tape was full 16:9 - i.e. an anamorphic image, so that when shown "square&...

Without getting into all the detailed problems of distribution, advertising etc there is a fundamental problem about any notion of making Film & Video Maker available to the public. IAC is a charity. As such it is not allowed to sell a magazine to the public, accept payment for advertising in it...

Ahem...
50th Anniversary!

Apologies - the Orpington lot always look so young and have such a high proportion of active, lively people - I got it wrong.
Dave

Hi Tony, Sorry I haven't used any of the Pinnacle editors. Do people change their edit program often? If it works, it works. Only if you really need one of the features of a new version or a rival product is it worth considering. If you don't like Pinnacle's track record why keep looking at their pr...

For many individuals their video club is enough to satisfy their needs for watching and talking about movie making. That's fine. But I keep thinking there are also club members who would enjoy going beyond the boundaries of their club. Attending a regional event - whether a training day or a festiva...

The Canadians are doing the same thing with their impressive magazine. So far as I know there is no question of IAC moving that way yet - though it may come in time. Around half of the IAC's income each year pays for the magazine. I am surprised that more clubs do not make their magazines available ...

I have heard much muttering about how many award winning amateur film makers use professional actors (working for sandwiches and bus-fares). But no one seems to worry about the fact that most amateur films use professional music ... and professional music which has been paid for at the going rate. A...

A conversation with a couple of festival organisers today set us all wondering when is the appropriate time to have these events. If we assume the IAC Competition is pretty much a fixture at the end of January - just to give us a starting point ... Many countries use a system whereby each region has...

Good point, Ian.

Of course most of the systems we use have some form of compression on them but the critical question is what shows up on the screen.

Dave

I was very sceptical about memory-sticks for holding data when they first arrived but now find myself using them a lot in general computing work. For that reason I am holding fire in judging solid-state memory systems for camcorders. On the plus side is reduced size / weight / complexity which may b...

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/ ... becker.swf has a fascinating and clever piece of animation.