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In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. In 1972 she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking another political barrier.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Reverse Standards Conversion or RSC is a process developed by a team led by James Insell at the BBC for the restoration of video recordings which have already been converted between different video standards using early conversion techniques.
Many programmes produced by the BBC in PAL in the 1960s and 1970s were converted to NTSC for distribution to 525 line markets. Because of the cost of video tape at the time, the original PAL master was often overwritten with new material or simply discarded. This often left the NTSC version as the only remaining copy.
PAL and NTSC have a differing number of lines of resolution and also use a different field rate. Traditional standards conversion techniques adopted interpolation as a way to cater for the differences between line resolution and field frequency.
What the original BBC converter tried to do (using the limited technology of the day) was to minimise judder by choosing either one 50 Hz field or a half-and-half mix of two 50 Hz fields, whichever was "nearer" to the temporal position of the target 60 Hz field. This gives a sequence like this (Nx = 60 Hz field x, Py = 50 Hz field y):
Simply taking the nearest raw field would produce a peak to peak "error" of 0.83, instead of 0.33.
This approach of interpolation results in some of the image data present in the PAL source material being merged between lines / fields of the resultant NTSC version.
Attempts to convert the NTSC version back to PAL format using traditional conversion processes yielded unsatisfactory results. Such double conversions produce artifacts that manifest themselves as jerkiness in the picture where movement is present, and in soft-looking pictures.
Using interpolation processes to convert source material twice-over (in this example, PAL to NTSC to PAL) causes the artefacts previously mentioned to be exacerbated.
RSC was developed as an alternative to double-conversion. Use of RSC bypasses the generation of the artefacts that would be introduced in a normal NTSC-to-PAL conversion, and actually reverses the early standards conversion method used to create the NTSC copies. RSC is the result of reverse engineering the method of conversion inherent in the old traditional BBC PAL to NTSC converter.
RSC attempts to separate the information from the merged lines and fields of the NTSC conversion. One of the problems inherent in this is that of increased noise. RSC employs techniques to minimise the resultant noise - both in the separation process itself, and in preparation of the NTSC material prior to processing through use of HF linear filtering.
Early examples of material processed for commercial re-release using RSC are the Doctor Who stories Inferno (1970) and The Claws of Axos (1971). The resulting DVD release of The Claws of Axos also contained a short documentary about the Reverse Standards Conversion process, presented by Jack Pizzey. It includes a split screen comparison between the source NTSC version and the final RSC processed version. The "Inferno" DVD does not feature this comparison. RSC was also used to restore the "Undertaker Sketch" from Monty Python's Flying Circus, which had been cut from the BBC's PAL master tape for being in (deliberately) bad taste.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Reverse Standards Conversion or RSC is a process developed by a team led by James Insell at the BBC for the restoration of video recordings which have already been converted between different video standards using early conversion techniques.
Television standards conversion is the process of changing a television transmission or recording from one video system to another. Converting video between different numbers of lines, frame rates, and color models in video pictures is a complex technical problem. However, the international exchange of television programming makes standards conversion necessary so that video may be viewed in another nation with a differing standard. Typically video is fed into video standards converter which produces a copy according to a different video standard. One of the most common conversions is between the NTSC and PAL standards.
A reverse mortgage is a mortgage loan, usually secured by a residential property, that enables the borrower to access the unencumbered value of the property. The loans are typically promoted to older homeowners and typically do not require monthly mortgage payments. Borrowers are still responsible for property taxes or homeowner's insurance. Reverse mortgages allow older people to immediately access the equity they have built up in their homes, and defer payment of the loan until they die, sell, or move out of the home. Because there are no required mortgage payments on a reverse mortgage, the interest is added to the loan balance each month. The rising loan balance can eventually exceed the value of the home, particularly in times of declining home values or if the borrower continues to live in the home for many years. However, the borrower (or the borrower's estate) is generally not required to repay any additional loan balance in excess of the value of the home. Regulators and academics have given mixed commentary on the reverse mortgage market. Some economists argue that reverse mortgages may benefit the elderly by smoothing out their income and consumption patterns over time. However, regulatory authorities, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, argue that reverse mortgages are "complex products and difficult for consumers to understand", especially in light of "misleading advertising", low-quality counseling, and "risk of fraud and other scams". Moreover, the Bureau claims that many consumers do not use reverse mortgages for the positive, consumption-smoothing purposes advanced by economists. In Canada, the borrower must seek independent legal advice before being approved for a reverse mortgage. In the United States, reverse mortgage borrowers, similarly to other mortgage borrowers, can face foreclosure if they do not maintain their homes or keep up to date on homeowner's insurance and property taxes.
PAL (an acronym for Phase Alternating Line) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of the three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 frames) per second, and associated with CCIR analogue broadcast television systems B, D, G, H, I and K. The articles on analogue broadcast television systems further describe frame rates, image resolution, and audio modulation. PAL was developed by Walter Bruch at Telefunken in Hanover, West Germany, with important input from Gerhard Mahler. The format was patented by Telefunken in December 1962, citing Bruch as inventor, and unveiled to members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on 3 January 1963. When asked why the system was named "PAL" and not "Bruch", the inventor answered that a "Bruch system" would probably not have sold very well ("Bruch" is the German word for "breakage").
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.