Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 567 The Fanatical Combination of Technology and Art

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With the gradual maturity of analog television technology since the 1950s, people's pursuit of digital video and non-linear editing has never stopped.

While some powerful manufacturers have successively launched their own initial digital video solutions, the field of non-linear editing has also seen a symbolic progress.

One of the notable achievements comes from George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd., which has a system called EditDroid-an editing robot, with a size similar to a 12-inch vinyl record and a surface similar to an audio CD. Laserdisc, and database.Combined with other means, a certain degree of non-linear editing function has been realized.

Founded in 1922, the National Association of Broadcasters, the National Association of Broadcasters, held the NAB Annual Meeting in April this year, and at the same time hosted the world's largest broadcasting equipment exhibition - "NAB Show".

EditDroid and another competitor, MontagePictureProcessor—a montage picture processor, appeared on the stage at the same time, which attracted a lot of attention.
In fact, these solutions are difficult to commercialize into mature products, because they are all non-universal solutions made by "indigenous steelmaking".

In Tang Huan's view, among the pioneers in the field of digital video and nonlinear editing, although traditional manufacturers have technical strength, they lack a bit of creative spirituality; With creative spirituality, research and development can be carried out spontaneously, but they do not have sufficient technical strength.

However, having said that, even if they have both technical strength and creative spirituality, they may not be able to catch up with Tang Huan, who also has industry vision and resource integration advantages.

Whether it is digital video or non-linear editing, it needs to combine various achievements before it can enter the practical stage.In the original time and space, it developed passively and naturally; but now it is urged ahead of time by Tang Huan's rapid accumulation of resources over the past few years.

Take the D-VHS camera responsible for the video capture process. Its lens and imager part are not much different from other types of cameras, but the recorder part condenses the analog-to-digital converter, digital signal processor, real-time Technical achievements such as lossless compression, videotape format, etc.

If the collected digital video information is not compressed, the bit rate will reach 173Mbit/sec, which is 21.625MB/s.

It can be seen that any one of these elements is indispensable in order to store the data on the 94-minute D-VHS tape and prepare it for subsequent post-processing.

The Digital-1 system, which provides digital video and nonlinear editing functions at the same time, is even more comprehensive. It is equivalent to an extremely complicated Fangyuan server, and Tang Huan has endowed it with many high-end microcomputer system technologies.

For example, the system bus, Digital-1 adopts the latest InterconnectStandardArchitecture designed by Fangyuan Computer—the interconnection standard architecture is the 32-bit version of ISA-32.

The system bus of the Fangyuan computer architecture officially began with the second-generation Fangyuan personal computer, and even collided with the system bus of the IBM-PC developed at the same time in the abbreviated name.

As part of the business war, the two companies spat at each other on patents. In the end, because the "Internet Standard Architecture" came out earlier, Big Blue resentfully abandoned the name "Industry Standard Architecture". -PC/XT is directly called the XT bus, and the current main model IBM-PC/AT is also called the AT bus.

"Interconnect standard architecture" and "industry standard architecture" have the same abbreviation of the bus, but also have some similarities in technical specifications. For example, the original version has a width of eight bits and the frequency is the same as the operating frequency of the CPU.

But the difference between the two is quite obvious. The "Internet standard architecture" supports a certain degree of "plug and play", while the "industry standard architecture" does not have this feature.

另外，由于IBM-PC使用的CPU是4.77MHz的Intel8088，因此“工业标准结构”的频率也是4.77MHz，进而总线带宽为4.77MHz*8位/8=4.77MB/s。

而二代方圆个人电脑使用的CPU是8MHz的Intel8088和MC68000，以及12.5MHz的MC68000等，所以总线带宽至少为8MHz*8位/8=8MB/s
This gap cannot be ignored, because the other end of the slot connected to the modem, network card, sound card, graphics card and other expansion cards is connected to the system bus, which in turn has a significant performance improvement for the operation of network applications, games and other software.

In the era of the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer, the "interconnection standard architecture" and IBM's XT bus and AT bus became more and more distant, because of the further improvement of the "plug and play" function and the introduction of the 16-bit version of the ISA -16.

This means that while the bus frequency remains unchanged, the data throughput has doubled, which means that the computer performance has doubled.

Due to cost constraints, the application of ISA-16 in Fangyuan personal computer product line is limited, and the fields where it can show its talents are Fangyuan workstations and Fangyuan servers.

When the full 32-bit fourth-generation Fangyuan personal computer is coming, as a part of technical preparation, the ISA bus has also evolved to a 32-bit version - ISA-32, and is first deployed to the Fangyuan server on the high-end product line and Fangyuan workstations.

ISA-32 has many changes. For example, in addition to increasing the data width to 32 bits, so that the bus throughput is at least double that of ISA-16, its operating frequency is no longer the same as the faster and faster CPU. Synchronize.

In other words, the mechanism of "frequency doubling" is introduced.

The bus between the CPU and the Northbridge equipped with a memory controller is called FrontSideBus—the front-side bus or FSB.

From now on, the operating frequency of ISA-32 and CPU is separated by FSB, the speed of CPU is determined by FSB and multiplier, and ISA-32 is linked to FSB.

This is the case in the Digital-1 system. The RISC architecture processor Holder is equipped with a running frequency of 40MHz and a multiplier of 2. The FSB and ISA-32 buses are both 20MHz, so the bus bandwidth reaches 20MHz*32bit/8 =80MB/s, thus laying a solid foundation for digital video processing.

Holder processor, ISA-32 bus, large-capacity memory, digital signal processor dedicated to hardware encoding and decoding, and other chips only ensure that the Digital-1 system has sufficient performance to handle huge data streams.

However, there is another bottleneck that needs to be dealt with, that is, mechanical external storage devices such as hard disks, CD drives, and D-VHS video tapes cannot hold back the high-speed electronic equipment that is already ready.

The hard disk used by Digital-1 is a 10.5-inch hard disk made by Fujitsu in Japan. Tang Huan took it and added a lot of his own technology, thus forming an enterprise-level storage system with a capacity of up to 1338MB.

Among them, there are two main technologies, one is RedundantArrayofIndependentDisks——Redundant Array of Independent Hard Disks, or RAID, and the other is SmallComputerSystemInterface——Small Computer System Interface, or SCSI.

As the name suggests, RAID is to use a controller to connect multiple hard disks together, so as to provide better indicators in terms of capacity, speed, and security. The 1GB hard disk capacity of the Digital-1.338 system is a good application example.

It is not enough to have a "big belly", but also must have sufficient data transmission speed. SCSI is used to solve this problem.

It is a system-level interface standard used between computers and peripheral devices such as hard disks, floppy drives, optical drives, printers, and scanners. It defines a set of commands and communication protocols, and data transmission is performed through an independent processor. And stable, low CPU usage and so on.

In fact, these technologies have long been applied to Fangyuan servers and Fangyuan workstations in the high-end field. Otherwise, why should they launch a fierce challenge to IBM's mainframes and DEC's minicomputers?
At present, the SCSI standard has evolved to the second version of SCSI-2. Compared with SCSI-1, the indicators have doubled, and 16 external devices can be connected at the same time, with a data width of 16 bits and a frequency of 10MHz, thus providing data throughput. The volume has reached 10MHz*16bit/8=20MB/s.

The ISA-80 bus with a bandwidth of 32MB/s also provides enough space for SCSI-2 to flex its muscles.

On the powerful hardware platform of Digital-1, Vientiane, the most powerful and stable operating system in the Fangyuan computer system, runs. It can seamlessly drive various hard-coded and hard-decoded processing chips, providing video processing software with Best real-time responsive performance.

Of course, a friendly graphical user interface is also indispensable. The directors in the TV station can use the mouse to perform intuitive operations based on their own professional knowledge and work needs.

With digital video, the foundation of non-linear editing, it is possible to access any video frame by directly entering timecode or other descriptive metadata, rather than having to watch the entire clip to find the desired video frame.

This will involve a "random access" mechanism. Memory, hard disks, and optical discs can all achieve "random access", while video tapes belong to "sequential access".

Fortunately, compared with those non-digital storage videotape formats, D-VHS videotapes can also gain speed from descriptive metadata such as time codes when performing data retrieval.

After non-linear editing by using Adobe's video processing software, the finished program is stored in a cheap videotapes or some expensive CDs.

However, the latter has an obvious advantage, that is, the video can be completely "randomly accessed" without being limited to "sequential access".

This mechanism can obviously bring great flexibility to the TV station's program broadcast.

During the Olympic Games, the viewers certainly hope to be able to watch in time which athletes won the gold medals and all kinds of wonderful moments. The workload of program editing can be imagined.

In addition, there is a time difference of about 4 hours between the western United States, where Los Angeles is located, and the eastern United States, the political and economic center in the traditional sense.

This also inevitably affects how the major American TV networks across the country present their programs to the audience in the first place.

Obviously, with the support of the Digital-1 system, CNN has achieved a step ahead of all its peers.Although everyone stays up late and works overtime to catch up on program tapes, CNN has an advantage in speed and quality.

Just like after Carl Lewis won four Olympic track and field gold medals, CNN was the first to launch a review of him from his debut to the present. The program can be called a Hollywood blockbuster and left a deep impression on all audiences.

The quality of CNN's Olympic TV broadcast is definitely the best in the world. After other TV organizations were helplessly robbed of the limelight, they naturally sent out scouts one after another to find out the secret of their victory.

Finally, at the end of the Olympic Games, the Digital-1 system, which was appraised by the National Federation of Broadcasters as a frenzied combination of technology and art, was presented to them.

Excited to see Liexin, major TV organizations who are not short of money asked the price one after another, how can I get a set of Digital-1 system?

The answer given by Tang Huan is starting from USD 50. With different configurations, the cost flexibility of the Digital-1 system is still very large.

In addition, from the Digital-1 system that provides non-linear video editing functions, a set of products dedicated to audio non-linear editing functions can be derived logically and naturally, for power supply stations, and the price will of course be lower accordingly.

(End of this chapter)