Category Archives: Technician Toolbox

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SMPTE IMF DOCS FREELY AVAILABLE 

Before the first SMTPE D-Cinema standards hit publication – back in 2008 – Post Production people began talking about workflows that would start with the DCinema Package as the mezzanine format then break those into anything else that someone needed for distribution on their channel.

That discussion worked its way independently of SMPTE for a while, then started the process that eventually turned into the ST 2067 – Interoperable Master Format (IMF), which today has its own website that makes these tools available for anyone to dig in and get it right.

The website is SMPTE ST 2067 — Interoperable Master Format (IMF)

It includes not only a suite of documents, but the normative references to those documents.

Modern logic says that since these documents are required to correctly implement these ideas and standards, then interface with other group’s equipment and implementations, they need to be available to the very people who can’t afford to get them all. SMPTE experimented with dozens of documents during the Covid times, and this implementation of the IMF documents is an advancement of that concept.

Take a look and get your products involved.

Technician Toolbox

mp4 Samples of Technicians Toolkit DCPs

This first DCP is an idea gone mad. It started as just a basic grey scale pluge, then it was noticed that there are 24 blocks on screen which led to a chasing dot per frame…then the idea crossed – hey, you must put a pop white patch in case someone has one of those cool pop sync devices! …but who wants to have a screen of white to blind them after all the grey? How about red, it goes with black…at least it did in the days of film. Who know why I chose the star burst. Tell me if you want something different.

Just an aside: A little research and it turns out that the reason for red lights in the developers lab had less to do with night vision as much as the way that film didn’t get exposed so quickly…or some such – seems kind of illogical now that I read it in my own handwriting. Anyway, there is something to the idea of maintaining night vision…the red doesn’t trigger the rods as the white flash would.

This 2Pop Sync test DCP repeats 6 puts the pop tone in different 5.1 speakers around the room. There is a bit of a cheat on the .1 speaker. That is, instead of a 1 frame long 1k tone, it is a 240Hz tone. Let’s hope that everyone is rolled off by 1k, though who wants to bet that many aren’t. Anyway, the last set puts the pop in all speakers.

Do you have some simple articles that you have made to teach the lightly trained person in audio and/or picture. Let me know in the Contact link above.

Thanks. C J

Here is a QuickTime file of the DCP:

Sound Quality, Technician Toolbox

What Means, New SMPTE Pink Noise…and How?

Hey! Hi. This page is was duplicated at the Training Courses site, with new edits, at: What Means, New SMPTE Pink Noise…and How?

Please use this new site, since it will be the most up to date and it will come with new features. Thanks!

SMPTE ST-2095-1 is a new standard for Pink Noise. It took a great deal of work by a great number of clever people, a lot of listening and testing and tweaking. The cool thing is that it isn’t made with a lot of transiticators, but rather, with digits. This is THE Digital Pink Noise Standard.

Pink Noise has been one of those things that has always been around, and people don’t think much about it. Flick a switch, and there it is. But it took a sophisticated circuit to do right, and it wasn’t always implemented the same…or even well. That is much less likely now because with the standard is a python script that is very easy to implement. Continue reading What Means, New SMPTE Pink Noise…and How? →