Monthly Archive: July 2014

Video

Japanese Industrial Video Formats of the 1970’s

When I was in High School (1978 through 1981) we had a small closed circuit TV station with B&W cameras, video recorders, and a small switcher. Much of the equipment was Sony or old broadcast cast-offs (Conrac monitors, Tektronix waveform monitor, etc.). The video recorders we had were all Sony. Starting with the largest (and biggest), the EV-200 was an EIAJ 1″ B&W helical scan recorder with mechanical transport control. In other words, a big Rewind – Stop – Play/Rec – Fast Forward lever / knob. The tape wrap was 180 degrees around the drum. Next was the EV-340 which...

July 23, 2014
Computers / USB

USB … beware

Call me old fashioned, but I have never bee a big fan of USB. Part of it is because I have always had trouble finding a USB hub that just works. I have tried hubs from Belkin and the Staples store brand and while they might seem to work for a while, eventually I am loading data to or from some device and it just randomly goes offline (usually due, I suspect, to high throughput, but nowhere near the limits of USB 2.0). I have found one hub that, with one small exception, has never caused me a problem. It...

July 22, 2014
Broadcasting / Video

Portable Video Tape Recording Formats of the 80’s and 90’s

Between 1984 and 1993 I worked professionally in Broadcasting on the Engineering side of the house, mostly at TV stations. Right around 1990 there was a new low cost video tape format on the market, Hi-8, that was supposed to be better than the bulky 3/4″ U-matic. The TV Station I worked at decided to try it and bought three combination camera / recorders. They were given to three of the News Videographers who were told to shoot with them and see what they thought. Keep in mind that adding a new format took more than just putting gear in...

July 17, 2014
DNS / Geek / Internet

What Does PK1048 Mean

Geeks love inside jokes. Most (if not all) Unix commands actually have a meaning and are not just an assortment of random letters. So why did I choose PK1048 for my domain and blog? Well, back in the earlier days of the Internet (I do not claim to have been around for the real early days of the Internet in the 1960’s and 1970’s) you needed a way to manage domain names. These are the names we use to refer to things on the Internet, like coke.com, since all the Internet knows is the numeric address of the systems. The...

July 1, 2014
Broadcasting / Computers / Geek / Personal / Sound

Who am I

When meeting someone new, an introduction is in order, so here is my introduction. I am a “Geek” and I mean that in the sense that I seek to understand how everything works. Not just what buttons to push, but what the buttons do and why I might want to push them. I went to a major technical institute in the early 1980’s and failed out after 2.5 years as a Physics major. I then leveraged my experience at the school’s student run radio station into a string of jobs in Broadcasting on the engineering side of the house. UHF TV...

July 1, 2014
July 2014
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