Authenticity in the Music of Video Games explores the many facets of gamers' relationship to the concept of authenticity. From historical games to hyperrealism to retro gaming, authenticity proves to be a sticky, ever-shifting term. What do gamers believe authenticity to be? How are their expectations structured and manipulated by the soundtrack? Are they conscious of music's impact on their gameplay? And how do their actions as gamers impact the overall interaction of sound with game world and narrative? Stephanie Lind explores three facets of authenticity-accuracy, expectation, and emotion-through the lens of music analysis. Ranging from harmonic analysis, mappings of musical form, to more multimedia approaches to the overall soundtrack and game world, the book takes a theoretical approach as well as links analysis to the practical experience of gamers. Lind shows how specific processes of musical organization help to structure player experience with a focus on games as true multimedia experiences and that all three components of authenticity are inseparable.

Covers the essential fundamentals of digital video: from video principles, to conversion, compression, coding, interfaces and output.
Written for television professionals needing to apply digital video systems, equipment and techniques to multimedia and /or digital TV applications, as well as for computer system designers, engineers, programmers, or technicians needing to learn how to apply digital video to computer systems and applications. The text is based on the acclaimed industry bible' The Art of Digital Video, but covers only the essential parts of this larger reference work.
It starts right from the basics from what a digital signal is to the how digital video can be applied.
John Watkinson is an international consultant in Audio, Video and Data Recording. He is a fellow of the AES, a member of the British Computer Society and Chartered Information Systems Practitioner. He presents lectures, seminars, conference papers and training courses worldwide. He is author of many other Focal press books including MPEG2, Art of Digital Video, Art of Digital Audio, Art of Sound Reporduction, Introduction to Digital Audio, Television Fundamentals and Audio for Television. He is also co-author of the Digital Interface Handbook and a contributor to The Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook.
new edition has more on the computing aspects of videoincludes extra material on digital video broadcasting and video principlescovers more basic colorimetry and picture principles as well as progressive versus interface scanning

Digital TV Over Broadband: Harvesting Bandwith offers a clear overview of how technological developments are revolutionizing television. It details the recent shift in focus from HDTV to a more broadly defined DTV and to the increasing importance of webcasting for interactive television. Digital Television examines the recent industry toward a combination of digital services, including the use of the new bandwidth for additional channels of programming, as well as some high definition television. The book discusses the increasingly rapid convergence of telecommunications, television and computers and the important role of the web in the future of interactive programming. This new edition not only covers the new technology, but also demonstrates practical uses of the technology in business models.

Essential reading for anyone involved in broadcasting. The Business of Digital Television presents an overview or the digital television industry. Chris Forrester examines the key technologies and developments of the marketplace, with comments on the future from leading industry experts.

Written in an accessible style for the non-engineer, Forrester covers the issues that are most pertinent to strategic direction, providing, broadcasting professionals with essential facts, data and commentary in one single source.
You will:
Discover trends in digital TV technology
Gain knowledge about the international marketplace
See an analysis of the financial models
Understand the importance of partnerships
Find out the key drivers for change
Gain an insight into emerging technologies in the future
Gain from the research of a key industry consultant, a complete factual understanding of the digital television industry worldwide in one readable source
See the facts in context, from the key drivers for change through to future applications
Get up to speed quickly on emerging technologies and complex markets

TV Technical Operations is an introduction for new entrants to the broadcast industry and is designed to prepare them for working in mainstream television by discussing essential techniques, technologies and work attitudes.

The author explores:
* the need to develop a professional approach
* the occupational skills needed to meet deadlines, work under pressure and within budget
* the importance of understanding the potential of broadcast equipment in program making
* the need to keep up to date with the technique and technology
* the responsibility to ensure continuity of experience and training in all craft skills that technical operators are required to work with
* the need to maintain a critical appraisal of what and who influences working practices and how these influences affect production and viewers
* an introduction to the basic skills needed to work as a multi-skilling technical operator in television
* an introduction to broadcast equipment in general production use
Peter Ward is a freelance cameraman and camerawork trainer working with international training and television consultancy. He was formerly head of cameras at Television South West.
Basic reference providing all the essentials on tv operations
Benefit from the knowledge and experience of a highly experienced international cameraman
Provides step-by-step operational advice for ease of understanding

Audio for Television outlinines all the relevant principles and practices. Newcomers to the field will find it an invaluable, up to date resource and experienced sound people will gain from the explanations of new technology. The rate of change in the technology of television sound has recently accelerated to such a degree that it is now a sufficiently expansive subject to warrant a book of its own. These rapid changes, from the introduction first of stereo, then multi-channel or surround sound, have made it difficult for those working in this field to keep up with the technology and even harder for those just setting out on a career in television sound. The book considers analog and digital audio as alternatives and stresses the advantages of both. Microphone and loudspeaker technology is also discussed in some detail and audio recording and routing and transmission are also covered.

Drawn from the pages of his popular |Advanced Television| column in TV Technology magazine, Issues in Advanced Television Technology collects the new television writings of technical author S. Merrill Weiss. Noted for his relaxed, conversational style and easily understood explanations, Weiss leads the reader on an enjoyable trip through the latest developments, making highly complex subjects accessible to those with all levels of experience. His material is of value to business managers making strategic decisions, technical managers forming implementation choices, as well as system designers and operators preparing for future work assignments. Included in the discussion are the interests of broadcasting, cable, wireless cable, telcos, DBS, and packaged media. Covering the broad range of new technologies with a depth not achieved elsewhere short of textbooks, Weiss introduces subjects such as digital video compression, transmission of digital signals, audio compression, adaptive equalizers, packetization, transport and program streams, multiplexing, MPEG-2, serial digital jitter, storage and servers, data broadcasting, and the motivations of the players in the media of the future. Merill's articles are collected by many, but early back issues are no longer available. Now, get all the articles in one place, organized by topic, updated and indexed. Catch up on what you've missed! Take advantage of the easy access. Increase your knowledge. Prepare for your future. Let Issues in Advanced Television Technology take you on an exploration of the marvels of the next generation of video technology. S Merrill Weiss is an award-winning consultant in electronic media technology, technology management, and management. He has nearly three decades of personal experience developing and implementing new television technologies, participating in the writing of standards, and generally thinking about how to move the industry forward. Through his regular monthly series of articles, and now through this, his second book, he shares his understanding of where things are going.

The only guide to the art and technique of color correction based on the invaluable knowledge of more than a dozen of the top colorists in the world. This book allows you unprecedented access to the way the masters of the craft approach their work. Containing decades of industry experience and professional colorist know-how, this book provides an understanding of what top-tier colorists look for in an image and how they know what to do to make it great. Featuring techniques performed in a variety of color correction software applications (DaVinci Resolve, Apple Color, Synthetic Aperture's Color Finesse, and more), this book turns what has long been a misunderstood "black art" into a set of skills that any colorist, editor, independent filmmaker, or motion graphics artist can begin to master. Packed with explanations, tips, and concepts that build on each other, you will learn how to: * fix poorly exposed shots and shots with color casts * create looks * match shots * master primary and secondary color correction techniques * use color correction to advance a story This edition includes * Downloadable resources containing two hours of video tutorials using DaVinci Resolve, extended interview transcripts and color correction sessions with the professional colorists featured in the book * A brand new tutorial-based chapter, with companion project files on the downloadable resources, so you can work along with the text * New insight from additional professional colorists, including legendary colorists, Bob Festa, Stefan Sonnenfeld, and Pankaj Baipai, showing you the 'hows' and 'whys' of each grade

Basic TV Technology is the essential basic guide to the fundamentals underlying all television and video systems, written for students and nontechnical professionals. You don't need to have a math or science background in order to understand this explanation of how the principal pieces of equipment work, what their functions are, and how they are integrated to form a complex video system. An understanding of this material will be necessary for you to succeed in the real world, where one person often has to perform many different roles and functions within a production. Armed with some basic technical background information, you'll be more effective at figuring out new applications and at problem-solving. The fourth edition of Basic TV Technology has been updated to reflect the industry shift to digital video and includes new information on compression, television standards, LCD displays, HD, and equipment. This book features the accessible Media Manual format, in which every topic is covered in two pages: one of explanatory text and one of figures. Need more information on TV technologies, go to: http://www.insightmedia.info/newsletters.php

With the milestones of Digital TV and HDTV, there are lots of questions to be asked about television of today... Understanding Digital Television explains complex technical systems and solutions in an easy to comprehend manner along with visual 3D graphics. It helps non-technical individuals such as managers, executives, general media professionals, as well as TV and home cinema enthusiasts gain a practical understanding of the equipment, technical aspects of digital television, and various ways of distributing. Most examples are from a European perspective, but also include comparisons with North American systems. This book answers the confusing questions about new devices and digital formats, what to do when the analog TV transmitters are switched off, watching TV using your broadband connection, and much more.

Learn all about Codecs--how they work, as well as design and implementation with this comprehensive, easy-to-use guide to compression. After reading this book, you will be able to prepare and distribute professional audio and video on any platform including streamed to the web, broadcast on-air, stored in PVRs, Burned onto CD-ROMs or DVDs, delivered by broadband, or viewed in Kiosk applications, PDA devices, and mobile phones.

Descriptive Metadata for Television is a comprehensive introduction for television professionals that need to understand metadata's purpose and technology. This easy-to-read book translates obscure technical to hands-on language understandable by real people.

What do we measure and why? Peter Hodges explains the answer to this question in approachable language and with clear illustrations. Newcomers to the video industry, as well as those already established, will find this uniquely readable guide to the basics of a complex subject. Building on the success of the two previous editions of this popular title and covering both analog and digital video, the third edition includes new sections on audio measurement, high definition video, and innovative techniques of test and measurement.

Video Over IP gives you everything you need to know to choose from among the many ways of transferring your video over a network. The information is presented in an easy to read format, with comparison charts provided to help you understand the benefits and drawbacks of different technologies for a variety of practical applications. This new edition is expanded to fully cover HD and wireless technologies and new case studies. Whether your background is video, networking, broadcast, or telecommunications, you will benefit from the breadth of coverage that this book provides. Real-life application examples give readers successful examples of a variety of Video over IP networks that are up and running today.

Mobile multimedia broadcasting compasses a broad range of topics including radio propagation, modulation and demodulation, error control, signal compression and coding, transport and time slicing, system on chip real-time implementation in ha- ware, software and system levels. The major goal of this technology is to bring multimedia enriched contents to handheld devices such as mobile phones, portable digital assistants, and media players through radio transmission or internet pro- col (IP) based broadband networks. Research and development of mobile multi- dia broadcasting technologies are now explosively growing and regarded as new killer applications. A number of mobile multimedia broadcasting standards related to transmission, compression and multiplexing now coexist and are being ext- sively further developed. The development and implementation of mobile multi- dia broadcasting systems are very challenging tasks and require the huge efforts of the related industry, research and regulatory authorities so as to bring the success. From an implementation design and engineering practice point of view, this book aims to be the ?rst single volume to provide a comprehensive and highly coherent treatment for multiple standards of mobile multimedia broadcasting by covering basic principles, algorithms, design trade-off, and well-compared implementation system examples. This book is organized into 4 parts with 22 chapters.

Learn how to compress video and audio with optimal quality and minimal hassles. Renowned expert Ben Waggoner teaches you to improve the quality of your final content and develop effective workflows. Understand the basic concepts of vision and hearing, apply that knowledge in the context of compression, then move onto practical, applicable information for creating, editing, and compressing the best video and audio, whether you're delivering for the web, DVD, Blu-ray, phones, or beyond.

• Clear examples of how to make the best choices in real-world projects
  
• Covers Mac and Windows products for a complete look at today's compression technologies: all the different tools, codecs, and formats for different kinds of deliverables are described, focusing on how to pick the right options for particular projects, players, and sources

Formats

• Windows Media
• QuickTime
• Flash FLV and F4V
• MPEG-4 and H.264
• MPEG-2
• Ogg Vorbis and Theora
• Silverlight and Smooth Streaming

Devices

• iPod and iPhone
• Zune HD
• Playstation Portable
• Playstation 3
• Xbox 360
• DVD and Blu-ray

Visit the companion website at http: //www.taylorandfrancis.com/cw/waggoner-9780240812137/.

Between 2008 and 2012 the UK plans to turn off its conventional analogue terrestrial television and switch fully to digital TV. This is part of a trend across all the technologically advanced nations of the world. The city of Berlin led the way in 2003. The Netherlands became the first country to switch fully in 2006. Digital television was launched in the UK in 1998. Its growth has been dramatic and by no means smooth. The decision to switch fully is, at its heart, a political one: governments and regulators manage terrestrial spectrum and are ultimately responsible for switchover policy. Switching off the conventional analogue television signals to which consumers (and voters) have been accustomed for most of their lives poses a tricky political challenge. It cannot be accomplished by government diktat. Switching to Digital Television shows how, for success, public policy needs to work in conjunction with both competitive market forces and with organised broadcasting industry collaboration. Switching to Digital Television is an authoritative study of the policy of digital switchover. It is based primarily on UK experience but includes comparative studies spanning the United States, Japan and the leading countries of western Europe.

Metadata is data about data, or information known about the image in order to provide access to the image. It can be as simple as the subject of an e-mail, but as new technologies emerge and the media world continues to globalize it is getting more and more complex. Metadata is key to today's IT-centric television production environment and this is the first book approaching the subject end to end, from shooting the footage to archiving to consumer set top box.

Learn all about Codecs--how they work, as well as design and implementation with this comprehensive, easy-to-use guide to compression. After reading this book, you will be able to prepare and distribute professional audio and video on any platform including streamed to the web, broadcast on-air, stored in PVRs, Burned onto CD-ROMs or DVDs, delivered by broadband, or viewed in Kiosk applications, PDA devices, and mobile phones.
Key benefits:
* Learn from an award-winning technologist for a top media company who knows how to explain codecs in terms you can understand
* This entry-level guide contains clear explanations and hundreds of diagrams--no math background needed! Also includes a comprehensive glossary which serves as a useful reference to many technical terms and jargon you will encounter
* Learn how to choose the right technique to get the most out of your compression system--saving both storage space and money

For any digital TV developer or manager, the maze of standards and specifications related to MHP and OCAP is daunting-you have to patch together pieces from several standards to gather all the necessary knowledge you need to compete worldwide. The standards themselves can be confusing, and contain many inconsistencies and missing pieces. Interactive TV Standards provides a guide for actually deploying these technologies for a broadcaster or product and application developer.
Understanding what the APIs do is essential for your job, but understanding how the APIs work and how they relate to each other at a deeper level helps you do it better, faster and easier. Learn how to spot when something that looks like a good solution to a problem really isn't. Understand how the many standards that make up MHP fit together, and implement them effectively and quickly. Two DVB insiders teach you which elements of the standards that are needed for digital TV, highlight those elements that are not needed, and explain the special requirements that MHP places on implementations of these standards.
Once you've mastered the basics, you will learn how to develop products for US, European, and Asian markets--saving time and money. By detailing how a team can develop products for both the OCAP and MHP markets, Interactive TV Standards teaches you how to to leverage your experience with one of these standards into the skills and knowledge needed to work with the critical, related standards.
Does the team developing a receiver have all the knowledge they need to succeed, or have they missed important information in an apparently unrelated standard? Does an application developer really know how towrite a reliable piece of software that runs on any MHP or OCAP receiver? Does the broadcaster understand the business and technical issues well enough to deploy MHP successfully, or will their project fail? Increase your chances of success the first time with Interactive TV Standards.
* A practical, real-world introduction to the technical elements of the OCAP and MHP standards.
* Get everything you need without wading though thousands of pages of standards- many of which don't apply to digital TV!
* Get inside concrete problems that have been found by the authors and other users - issues not generally known outside of the standards committees.

Television has become a ubiquitous part of our lives, and yet its impact continues to evolve at an extraordinary pace. The evolution of television from analog to digital technology has been underway for more than half a century. Today's digital technology is enabling a myriad of new entertainment possibilities. From jumbotrons in cyberspace to multi-dimensional viewing experiences, digital technology is changing television. Consequently, new advertising metrics that reflect the new viewer habits are emerging. The ability to capture a viewer's interactions changes the advertising proposition. Telephone and wireless companies are challenging the traditional mass media providers - broadcasters, cable and satellite companies - and they're all finding ways to deliver TV programming, video content and Internet offerings to large and small screens in the home and on the go.

This volume showcases insights from industry insiders and researchers from a variety of disciplines. It explores the economic, cultural, technical, and policy implications of digital television, addressing such questions as: How will content be monetized in the future? What programming opportunities become possible with the advent of going digital? Will content still be king or will the conduits gain the upper hand? This book analyzes the digital television evolution: its impacts on the economics of the TV industry, its significance for content creation from Hollywood blockbusters to You Tube, the changing role of the consumer, and what's coming next to a theatre near you.

The Practical Guide to MPEG 4 offers an up to date introduction to this important interactive and multimedia compression standard (including MPEG-4 Part 10), with real examples and information as to how and where this new technology should be used. All aspects of MPEG-4 that are relevant in today's technical landscape are described in this book, including video and audio creation, production, distribution, reception and consumption environment. This book explains everything you really need to know in jargon-free language: interactive systems, content management, deployment, licensing and business models.
* Jargon-free explanation of media compression technology and it's impact on business objectives by MPEG 4 insiders
* Get a grip on MPEG-4 technology without wading through thousands of pages of specifications and details.
* Navigate through the jungle of digital media business opportunities and pitfalls.

Technology is meant to make life easier and to raise its quality. Our interaction with technology should be designed according to human needs instead of us being required to adapt to technology. Even so, technology may change quickly and people and their habits change slowly. With the aim of supporting user acceptance of iTV, the focus of this book is on the usability of iTV applications. A method for developing interaction design patterns especially for new technologies is presented for the first time.

The main characteristics covered in this new approach are: systematic identification of recurrent design problems; usability as a quality criterion for design solutions; integration of designers into the pattern development process including identification of designers' needs, and iterative evaluation and optimisation of patterns to encourage designers to accept and use them; usability testing to identify proven design solutions and their trade-offs; presentation of specific design guidelines.

The authoritative work on file formats for global film and television!
The FILE INTERCHANGE HANDBOOK is a must-have reference for every film and video professional moving to computer based production and distribution. It is the only book that gives a complete scrutiny and breakdown of all file formats for the transfer of images, sound and metadata.
Geared to a global audience, this text will get you the information that you need to learn this brand-new technology. Upcoming industry trends are mapped out alongside technology standards in this complete guide.
Learn the purpose, functionality, and structure of each standard format with this single major reference on file interchange. This handbook is the one-stop resource you want for this essential technology.
Table of contents:
Intro--Brad Gilmer, Gilmer & Associates, Inc.
1. History / background--Hans Hoffman, EBU
2. Metadata dictionary--Oliver Morgan, Metaglue Corporation
3. Digital Picture eXchange (DPX)--Dave Bancroft, Thomson
4. General eXchange Format (GXF)--Bob Edge and Ray Baldock, Thomson Grass Valley
5. Material eXchange Format (MXF)--Jim Wilkinson, Sony, and Bruce Devlin, Snell & Wilcox, Ltd
6. Advanced Authoring Format (AAF)--Phil Tudor, BBC
7. Windows Media 9-Advanced System Format (ASF)--Nick Vicars-Harris, Microsoft Corporation
8. Apple QuickTime--George Towner, Apple Computer, Inc.
Praise for the File Interchange Handbook:
"Brad Gilmer has assembled a timely and valuable reference work covering the technical and structural aspects of file formats and wrappers used for processing program content. The book provides a clear, concise description of the file wrapperstogether with valuable background and applications information. It has been tailored for the practicing engineer and technical manager. Chapters on the SMPTE Metadata Dictionary and the Advanced Authoring Format are particularly relevant. This book is a valuable reference work for every practicing broadcast and teleproduction engineer, every Information Technology professional, and those in the telecommunications field who are actively involved in the manufacturing, management, transport or delivery of media and entertainment content."
- Gavin Schutz, Chief Technology Officer, Ascent Media Group
"I found this book to be an excellent up to date reference manual and a "must read" for anyone currently involved in the design and implementation of multimedia facilities. It helped me to gain a better understanding of issues that must be addressed as we transition our stations from traditional base band audio video environments to a file based IT infrastructures."
- Ira Goldstone, VP chief technology officer Tribune Broadcasting

"In the mid '90s, CNN and other broadcasters recognized the need for standardized file exchange of broadcast material. Our technology plans mapped a path to an integrated production environment that was based on video files instead of video streams. With these new systems, we wanted to ensure that we could continue to leverage the best technology for the various parts of our production systems while taking advantage of more efficient content access. This created a strong need for open, standardized methods of exchanging video files that would support a variety of compressions and Metadata. These protocols needed to handle everything from simple fileexchange to complex authoring formats for content in active production. Because of these needs, CNN pushed the industry to create several of the formats discussed in detail in this book and provided active user requirements during their creation. Within the next year, CNN will have systems in place that use MXF for file exchange between our production editing, playback and archive systems. And we have decided that all future systems will support MXF and AAF."
- Gordon Castle, Senior Vice President, CNN Technology
"Worldwide, the transition from traditional video systems to those based on IT is creating opportunities in all quarters. Enter the ubiquitous use of the file; files for archive, streamed files, just-in-time file transfers, proxy files, video server files, compositional metadata files, digital cinema files and the list goes on. Our industry was in desperate need for a file format guidebook until this reference came along. This is just what the doctor ordered. The formats in this book will become the cornerstones of all professional video systems for years to come. Don't get left behind. The file format train is leaving now and this book is your ticket to ride."
- Al Kovalick, Strategist and Pinnacle Fellow, Pinnacle Systems
The only major reference on file interchange
A complete reference by the leading thinkers and innovators
For a global audience on a "need to know" topic

This book focuses on the two psychological factors of naturalness and ease of viewing of three-dimensional high-definition television (3D HDTV) images. It has been said that distortions peculiar to stereoscopic images, such as the puppet theater effect or the cardboard effect, spoil the sense of presence. Whereas many earlier studies have focused on geometrical calculations about these distortions, this book instead describes the relationship between the naturalness of reproduced 3D HDTV images and the nonlinearity of depthwise reproduction. The ease of viewing of each scene is regarded as one of the causal factors of visual fatigue. Many of the earlier studies have been concerned with the accurate extraction of local parallax; however, this book describes the typical spatiotemporal distribution of parallax in 3D images. The purpose of the book is to examine the correlations between the psychological factors and amount of characteristics of parallax distribution in order to understand the characteristics of easy- and difficult-to-view images and then to seek to create a new 3D HDTV system that minimizes visual fatigue for the viewer. The book is an important resource for researchers who wish to investigate and better understand various psychological effects caused by stereoscopic images. "