Synchronized Sound Recording

Mammotty in his recent blog had discussed about the importance of sync sound.What do we mean by sync sound??Sync sound (synchronized sound recording) refers to sound recorded at the time of the filming of movies, and has been widely used in U.S. movies since the birth of sound movies. The first animated film in which sync sound was used is Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie. The characters and the boat dance in time with the music, and the gags are sound-related.
 History
Even in the silent film era, films were shown with sounds, often with musical accompaniment by a pianist keeping time with the screen action. The first synchronization was a turning recording device marked with a white spot. As the white spot rotated, the cameraman hand cranked the camera to keep it in sync with the recording. The method was then repeated for playback, but with the projectionist hand cranking the film projector."Single-system" sound recorded sound optically to part of the original camera film, or magnetically to a stripe of magnetic coating along the film edge"Double-system" sound used independent cameras and sound recorders. The first sync sound standard used recorders and cameras both powered by AC (alternating current) motors - essentially clock motors. Later the 50Hz or 60Hz sine wave, called a "Pilotone," was recorded on a second parallel track of an audio recorder.In double-system filming, speed variations of camera and recorder, as well as the elasticity of the magnetic recording tape, requires some positive means of keying the dialogue to its appropriate film frame.The inclusion on the sound recorder of a second, parallel, sync or "Pilotone" track, is the most common method in use today.If a location camera is driven by a DC motor, with some sort of governor control to hold it fairly accurate at 24 f.p.s., a sync pulse generator geared to the movement or motor shaft could be employed to provide the sync pulse output. A cable conducts the sync pulse from camera to sound recorder. The sync pulse is typically a sine wave of 50 or 60 Hz with an RMS amplitude of approximately 1 volt.This double-system audio recording could then be transferred or "resolved" to sprocketed magnetic film, with sprocket holes that match one to one with the original camera film. These two sprocketed media could be run through a "Moviola" or flat-bed editing table such as the Steenbeck for synchronous sound editing.With the introduction of the Bulova "Accutron" watch that used a tuning fork as a time reference (watches later used an oscillating electronic crystal), the camera no longer needed to be connected to the sound recorder with a cable. The camera speed was controlled by one oscillator, and a second oscillator in the recorder generated the Pilotone.This method was developed in the 1960s by pioneering filmmaker Richard Leacock. It was called Direct Cinema and was the basis for a "New Wave" of Cinéma Vérité films, especially in Europe, made by filmmakers who abandoned the studio and went out on location to film, often with hand-held cameras.In 1972 Bell & Howell brought out a consumer version of a double-system Super-8 sound filmmaking system called "Filmosound." A Compact Cassette recorder was attached to the camera with a cable that transmitted a single pulse to the recorder every time a new frame of film was exposed in the camera. On playback, the cassette recorder pulse was used to control the projector speed.A that time a professor in the MIT Architecture department Film Section, Ricky Leacock developed a Super-8 film production system with a crystal-controlled camera, a crystal-generated Pilotone cassette recorder, a sprocketed magnetic film recorder, a flatbed editing table, and a projector. The MIT/Leacock System was funded with a $300,000 grant from Polaroid founder Edwin Land.In 1973 the one-pulse-per-frame technique was used to control recording directly onto sprocketed magnetic film in the Super8 Sound Recorder.developed by inventor Bob Doyle. The Super8 Sound Recorder could also "resolve" sound that had been recorded onto cassette tape with this new "digital" sync pulse.Today, every digital video camera and digital sound recorder have very accurate crystal time references and so can be used for double-system video production.
 Sync Sound in Asia
In Hong Kong, sync sound was not widely used until the 1990s, as the generally noisy environment and lower production budgets made such a method impractical.
Most Bollywood films from the 1960s onwards do not employ this technique and for that very reason the 2001 films Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai were noted for the use of Sync sound. The common practice in Bollywood is to 'dub' over the dialogues at the Post-Production Stage, although people such as sound designer and mixer, Resul Pookutty, are endeavoring to change this. Although the very first Indian talkie Alam Ara released in 1931 saw the very first use of Sync Sound in India, and since then Indian films were regularly shot in Sync Sound till the 1960s with the silent Mitchell Camera, with the arrival of the Arri 2C, a noisy but more practical camera particularly for outdoor shoots, 'dubbing' became the norm and was never reversed. In malyalam "Loudspeaker" movies features with sync sound.Use of this technique has increased in recent times with development in film techniques and instrumentations like Arri Blimp camera.This system has been used in Hindi movie Jodhaa Akbar.

2012

SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS from around the world are predicting that 3 years from now, all life on Earth could well come to an end. Some are saying it'll be humans that would set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it'll be God himself who would press the stop button. The following are some likely arguments as to why the world would end by the year 2012.

Reason one: Mayan calendar

The first to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things -- building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and sacrificing virgins.
Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it's likely they've got the end of the world right as well.

Reason two: Sun storms
Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery. Our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic and it's supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the earth with lot of radiation energy. It's been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse and calculations suggest it'll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012.

Reason three: The atom smasher
Scientists in Europe have been building the world's largest particle accelerator. Basically, its a 27 km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it's properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They're predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.

Reason four: The Bible says it
If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn't bad enough, religious folks are getting in on the act as well. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between good an evil, has been set for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese Book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

Reason five: Super volcano
Yellowstone National Park in United States is famous for its thermal springs and old faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple -- it's sitting on top of the world's biggest volcano and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we're many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.

Reason six: The physicists
This one's case of bog -- simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berkely University have been crunching the numbers.
They've determined that the earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they're claiming that their calculations prove that we're all going to die, very soon. They are also saying that their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 per cent; and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.

Reason seven: Earth's magnetic field
We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that shields us from most of the sun's radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call North and South have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so -- and right now we're about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30 kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is under way, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.