Mark Schubin ranks among the best of the best television engineers today. He brings more than 40 years experience to every production along with a wealth of television history and lore. A consultant now to many large communications companies both here and abroad he took time out from his busy schedule to talk to us about the production of an opera produced in 720p with the Panasonic production truck, the same one used for many of the ABC produced Monday Night Football games. Mark talks about some of the characteristics of HDTV which differ from the older standard.
In 1957, a plaque commemorating “Hollywood’s Golden Jubilee” was dedicated by the mayor of Los Angeles, but everything about it was wrong. Was Hollywood actually born in Pennsylvania? Sixty years after the ceremony Mark Schubin tries to uncover the truth. And, no, Pittsburg, the one in Pennsylvania, is not spelled incorrectly above or here. Find […] More
On Saturday night, 2017 January 7, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences bestowed Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards on Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET), and Siemens for “The Concept of Opto-Electronic Transduction,” a fundamental principle of television cameras: the ability to convert variations in light intensity […] More
I was shocked and dismayed to read in The New York Times that in its opening weekend Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk “took in a breathtakingly low $930,000 at 1,176 theaters.” Maybe it was the competition (which included Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them). Maybe it was the timing, between a bruising election and the Thanksgiving holiday in […] More
A long time ago, I worked on a television show featuring opera star Luciano Pavarotti singing at the Spectrum arena, home of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. The concert was performed between games, so flooring was laid over the ice, and the stage and seats over that. It wasn’t the first time opera had […] More
“Introduction and Technology Year in Review,” HPA Tech Retreat, Hyatt Regency Indian Wells, 44-600 Indian Wells Ln., Indian Wells, CA 92210 More
Welcome back from Labor Day! It’s time to get back into the grind and to consider the Hollywood Professional Association’s upcoming technology event. The 2017 HPA Tech Retreat will take place February 20-24 at the Hyatt Regency Resort in Indian Wells, CA (Palm Springs area). Those of you not familiar with the event will […] More
A version of this was originally posted in Media-Technology and Opera History on Rossini’s 54th birthday, February 29, 2016. Gioachino Rossini, composer of such operas as Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and Guglielmo Tell (William Tell), was born on February 29, 1792, which means today is his 54th birthday (there was no February 29 in […] More
Correction: In the video of the Technology Year in Review, a modified version of what was presented at the HPA Tech Retreat, the Polaroid Snap camera shown starting about 8:12 in does make instant prints but is not a film-based camera. There are also new Polaroid instant-film cameras being sold, such as the PIC-300, […] More
In 1890, Henry Sutton, of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, published the diagram above (minus the annotations) in The Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review. It was, conceivably, the first viable proposal for a complete television system (this diagram shows only an elevation of the receiver). Was Sutton able to televise the Melbourne Cup race in 1885? Did […] More
