AV Accessories

Optical Digital Audio

Samsung Makes a Run at Camera Glory at PMA 2010
The Samsung TL500 serves up an incredibly bright, ultra-wide-angle lens; the TL350 has a high-speed burst mode; and new pocket camcorders take aim at the Flip.

The 50th Anniversary of the Optical Disc

The 50th Anniversary of the Optical Disc.

From the “Laser Disc” to “Blu-ray”

History of the Optical Disc

In 1958, 50 years ago, David Paul Gregg invented the first optical disc using a transparent disc technology. The disc is 30 centimeters in diameter and uses an analog format and laser technology. It is therefore also called a “Laser Disc” He patented his design in 1961.

A later development of the Optical Disc were patented in 1969.

In 1967, David Paul Gregg's company, Gaus Electrophysics, contacted Royal Philips Electronics, but was met with disinterest.

The laser disc player sold only about one million units in the United States and approximately four million in Japan and the last LD released in Japan was the “Tokyo Raiders” in 2001.

Laser Disc Museum gives some interesting history of the Laser Disc. See the link below:

http://laserdiscplanet.com/museum.html

One of the influential contributors to Audio, Video and Data recording, is Kees Immink.

Dr. Kees A. Schouhamer Immink was born on December 18, 1946 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He Joined Philips research laboratories in 1971.

His contribution to the technology of digital audio and video has enabled all of us to listen to audio and watch video on reliable, high quality media. Dr. Immink's coding methods are essential to CD's and DVD's. For a full biography about Kees Immink see the website:

http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/biography/immink.html

The Compact Disc (CD)

The Optical VideoDisc, although a major development to be used in later research, was not a great success. I recently talked to a number of people about the Optical Video disc, but they had never heard of it.

The Sony/Philips team was not idle, and building on some of the laser disc technologies, they set out to develop a new digital audio disc; in contrast to the earlier OpticalDisc, which had an analog format.

In 1979, they set up a task force of engineers led by the prominent Kees Immink and in 1980, the group produced a Compact Disc (CD) Standard, called the Red Book.

Compact Disc format

The CD uses a red laser to scan the patterns of bumps on a mirrored surface which are interpreted as bits. These bits can be assembled into bytes. A CD can hold about 700 megabytes of information or about 80 minutes of music.

The Red Book gives detailed information on the design of the compact disc and was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony.

It was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc Committee and ratified as IEC 908.

The development of the CD was the combined work of a large number of scientists working as a team. The Compact Disc Story, written by Kees A. Schouhamer Immink provides a lot of background information. See the weblink below for the full story.

http://www.exp-math.uni-essen.de/~immink/pdf/cdstory.htm

The CD, available on the market since late 1982, remains the standard playback medium for commercial audio recordings to the present day. Various formats of the CD were later developed. Some of the common formats are:

1. Audio files CD

2. Data storage CD-ROM

3. Write-once audio and data storage CD-R

4. Rewritable media CD-RW

By 2007 200 billion CDs had been sold world wide.

Search for a new way to play video movies and “super density” data storage.

The time was ready for a new way to play Videos and provide a higher capacity disk to store data and programs. Cd's were rapidly replacing the audio tapes and the VHS was coming to an end. Data often had to be stored on multiple discs.

Two teams set to work to produce a video disk to replace the VHS tape; the Philips and Sony team and Toshiba.

Philips and Sony started the Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD) and Toshiba the Super Density Disc. Notice the emphasis on each of these, “Multi Media” and “Super Density”. Of course both of these had both the video and data capabilities in mind.

Multi Media Compact Disc (MMCD) 1990s Philips and Sony

The MMCD was designed as a single sided compact disc, with a single or dual layer. The capacity for a single layer is 3,7GB , compared with 7.4GB for the dual layer. It is backward compatible with the CD and CDROM. It did not become a standard.

Super Density Disc (SD) 1990s Toshiba

The Super Density Disc (SD) was adopted as the standard format, with an addition of to two options, proposed by the Philis/Sony team. For more information see the section on the DVD below.

DVD

With the two competing options, one offered by Sony/Philips and the other by Toshiba, we seemed to be on the brink of another format war. It looked like a repeat of the format battle of the 1980s when the Sony Betamax was battling it out with the “Video Home System” VHS standards, at the expense of the consumer. What does the consumer buy? In my opinion the Betamax was a better option, but the consumer market decided, and the victory went to VHS.

But the impeding battle did not take place Through the with mediation of Lou Gerstner, president of IBM a compromise was reached.

The Sony and Philips MMCD format was abandoned and the Toshiba SD format adopted, with these two additions:

the pit geometry which allows push-pull tracking, a proprietary technology of Philips and Sony, and the EFMPlus, created by Kees immink. The EFMPlus encoder is based on a deterministic finite state machine, having four states, which translates 8-bit input words into 16-bit codewords.

This compromise created the DVD format, which became the standard format in December 1995 and will continue as such until the majority of people will no longer be satisfied with “standard video” but demands high density video for all there movies. Than the new Blu-ray format will take over.

DVD format

The DVD uses a red laser to scan the patterns of bumps on a mirrored surface, which are interpreted as bits. These bits can be assembled into bytes jus as on a CD. However the bumps and tracks on a DVD are much smaller and can therefore hold significantly more information, up to 4.7GB.

Professional Disc for Data (PDD)

With the decision made in favor of the Toshiba, Super Density Disc and the abandonment of the Multi Media Compact Disc (MMCD) as the main technology for the DVD, Sony set out to design a disc they called Professional Disc for Data (PDD). The need for a higher capacity disc for the upcoming high density television systems was a certainty.

Sony introduced the PDD in 2003 and it became available in 2004. This new format utilized the 405nm (Nana meter), BLU-violet laser for reading and writing to the disc, allowing for a much higher data storage than the red laser used in the DVD. The capacity of the disc was 23GB compared with 4.5GB for a single layer DVD.

The PDD format was very short lived and was discontinued in 2007. This made way for the next generation of optical media for the Philips/Sony team, the Blu-ray.

Blu-Ray

Blu-ray technology was developed jointly by Sony & Philips, along with an extensive board of directors.

Apple, Inc. Dell HP Hitachi LG Mitsubishi Electric Panasonic Pioneer Philips Samsung Sharp Sony

Sun Microsystems TDK Thomson Twentieth Century Fox

Walt Disney Warner Bros.

Blu-ray uses a 405nm wavelength blue-violet laser and has a tight track pitch of 0.85

The surface layer is 0.1mm-thick, which enables the laser to focus at the 0.85 aperture.

The disc uses a hard polymer coating called Durabis, which was developed by TDK and is supposedly? extremely resilient and fingerprint resistant.

The Java platform, which is used for menus and multimedia, is mandatory. Blu-ray systems must support JVM.

Capacity

Rom Single Layer 25GB

Rom Dual Layer 50GB

RW Single Layer 27GB

RW Dual Layer 54GB

Highest Test 100GB

Theoretical Limit 200GB

HD DVD

Toshiba

Rom Single Layer 15GB

Rom Dual Layer 30GB

Highest Test 45GB

Theoretical Limit 60GB

Abandoned February 19 2008

©Copyright Jacob Romeyn

About the Author

Radio Microwave engineer for 25 years, instructor in radio microwave engineering, computer technology 20 years.
I have been involved in online learning for 20 years and the 2nd user of the Moodle program.

Works Most

How can I test if my website works on most browsers?

Apart from installing all the common browsers, is there another way I could test to see if my website functions correctly in most browsers? I'd actually like to see what the site would look like in them too! Thx.

Send a link to friends via e-mail, ask them if they can see it ok.;o)

Reinstituting a Reformed Welfare-to-work Program

The current U.S. Welfare system needs to have a complete overhaul, not only to provide better programs for those who really need it, but to help close some of the loopholes currently ravaging the program. Some people, like Stephanie and her friend Maria, who currently work at the Columbus Port International Airport, have a familiar scheme they use to cheat the system.

Stephanie and Maria work as customer service representatives for an airline, where they make $9 an hour. They both work full-time and put in lots of overtime hours, but since each has three kids, according to their household income, they are qualified to receive welfare assistance for as long as they earn a certain salary amount per month which is below the poverty level. Therefore, each month, they report to the welfare office that they only work part-time. They don’t tell the exact number of hours they each have worked, and welfare equates their hours with cash assistance to make up what they didn’t earn at work. In doing so, they keep getting money from the welfare office plus their real monthly earnings.

Other examples of those who might be exploiting the welfare system are the cases of Angela, Jackie, John, and Helen.

Jackie is a 45 year old woman, who has two grown daughters. Her husband passed away when the kids were 19 and 17. She lives in a nice apartment in a Section 8 division where she doesn’t pay any rent. She never graduated from high school and only has had a few odd jobs on and off, in her whole life. If you go in her apartment, you will not think that she is a welfare recipient, because she has a large TV screen, DVDs for almost every movie ever released, and she smokes about two packs of cigarettes every day. Jackie is completely healthy and is capable of finding and having gainful employment, but because she chose not to, she doesn’t have to work because she relies on her welfare benefits.

Helen is a 29 year old young lady and has 6 kids. Her oldest daughter is 13 years old and each child has a different father. Helen doesn’t have to work and she probably never will, because she receives welfare. For each child, she receives a certain amount of money each month, and she too lives in section 8 housing where she doesn’t have to pay rent.

John is 52 years old and has 5 kids. Each of his children live with their different mothers. For years, he has been in and out of jail for selling drugs, and now lives with his girlfriend in a one-bedroom apartment in section 8 housing, where they don’t have to pay rent for as long as they have no income. His girlfriend works, but she gets paid under the table and she doesn’t have to file her federal income tax, because of fear of losing their welfare benefits. John still sells drugs, and they have three different cars, except not one car is in their names, but in his brother’s name and his oldest daughter’s name.

Angela is a 46 year old lady, who has been legally deaf since she was in the 8th grade. She doesn’t have to work, never has, and probably never will, because she is legally disabled and therefore she receives federal welfare, which are housing, food and money each month.

As portrayed in the above examples, the current welfare system does not have the needed tools in place to help forcefully combat welfare fraud. It also handicaps and makes people to become lazy, because the longer they stay on welfare and don’t have to work, then the more they lose the will to ever look for a job. In addition, they may even forget any work they might have done when they were employed. These are the people who could be out there working, helping to contribute to the national economy, but they simply chose not to work and  live off of welfare without having to ever worry about working and paying for rent, utilities and food.

America is the richest country on earth with the largest economy. The American government is well known around the world for taking good care of its own people, in terms of social welfare and socio-economic empowerment.

Most Americans, even those who are on welfare or live below the poverty level are still far better off compared to those in many other countries. However, in continuing to provide unrestricted welfare to some citizens, the government has been handicapping some of the welfare recipients by continuing to provide them with all their necessities without ever trying to help them improve their skills in order to find jobs in the future.

In achieving these goals of caring for its people, the U.S. federal government has instituted many programs designed to implement policies to achieve the highest well-being for every legal resident. The U.S. Welfare system is one of the best social programs in the U.S. designed to provide the necessities for those who are unable to work and have income to support their well-being.

The U.S. Social Welfare system was first introduced after the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The U.S. Social Security Administration website states that beginning in 1932, the Federal Government first made loans, then grants, to States to pay for direct relief and work relief. After that, special Federal emergency relief and public works programs were started. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to Congress economic security legislation embodying the recommendations of a specially created Committee on Economic Security. There followed the passage of the Social Security Act, signed into law August 14, 1935.

The current Welfare program provides necessary food coupons, known as food stamps, and housing assistance, known as Section 8 programs, for low income families and those who are unable to earn a living because of health related issues, as well as monthly cash stipend to some recipients.

Because of the current welfare system which most observers believe has loopholes, there have been talks about reforming the welfare system for many years. In 1997 President Clinton took the initial step in reforming the welfare system with his initiatives of a Welfare-to-Work program. The Welfare-to-Work program was specifically designed to help provide welfare recipients with the needed recourses, training and skills, so that they may get jobs in the future and not continue to solely rely on the federal welfare system. In doing so, the program will help more welfare recipients to return to the workforce.

According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Welfare-to-Work program was tasked to encourage states to provide certain logistical support such as funding for transportation, vocational training, child care, and substance abuse treatment assistance for welfare recipients. However, many states have complained that they could not meet some of the requirements such as providing transportation and child care. Due to logistical and political reasons, the program abruptly ended in September 2004.

Some applauded the program while many thought that the program was designed to force people to work. In 2003, O’Neil of the New York Post wrote that politicians from both left and right perceive the Welfare to Work program as a success beyond expectations, but yet the program is nonetheless under political siege that requires it to reauthorize its basic component and it is now a year overdue and seems like it may never pass through Capitol Hill politics. In this article, O’Neil simply characterizes how some politicians from both left and right may say one thing, just to score some political points for future re-election purposes, but fail to fulfill their obligations and do the opposite.

President Clinton’s goal and purpose were to reform the Welfare system in order to better serve its purpose. He reinforced his rigorous commitment to provide welfare recipients with opportunities of attaining educational training and development that further help improve their knowledge and necessary skills in finding better paying jobs in the future and that help rid them from continually receiving welfare assistance.

However, when Bush came in the office in 2000, he had his own agendas such as the No Child Left Behind program, but not to make sure that the Welfare-to-Work program survives the political hurdle. It was also just a few months of him in office when the U.S. was hit by the act of terrorism in September 2001, and thereafter the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq followed in October 2001 and March 2003 respectively.

Thus, maintaining and continuing to fund certain programs such as the Welfare-to-Work program might not have been a priority for the U.S. government during these years of war on terror and the recession. The U.S. economy has been slowing down since the early part of 2000, and up to now, in the year 2008, the economy has really never recovered to the point where the government may want to include certain programs such as the Welfare-to-Work system in its monstrous budget to fight and combat terrorism.

The Welfare-to-Work program was designed to be a solution to the welfare system and to provide constructive benefits to the recipients. However, President Clinton’s plan collapsed because he and his advisors failed to study it more on how to make it work better, given its complex task and States’ requirement. An addition to the cause of its collapse, the House was mostly controlled by the Republican lawmakers who severely opposed and voted against most of President Clinton’s proposals.

Thus not having provided all the needed tools, recourses and funding might have helped to contribute to the collapse of the program. If it was well studied and developed, then it could have lasted for a long time to help provide better incentives to help some people and families from solely relying on the federal government welfare subsidies.

In the article “Welfare-to-Work Transition” by Jacqueline J. Kirby, which appeared in The Ohio State University's Human Development and Family Life Bulletin, she describes the history and the after effects of the Welfare to Work program and used data and information from various sources to compare her argument such as the concern related to the inadequate federal regulations mandating matches in state funding, the lack of specific eligibility requirement for each state around the country, and no stated guidelines and specific requirements about how or where the money will be spent in each state. She depicts a program, which was implemented for a good intention but lack proper execution.

There are a few federal programs that are well-managed and strictly designed to make it hard or almost impossible for anyone to cheat or take advantages of them. Programs such as the educational Pell grant and some states have programs such as unemployment benefits, which have some of the best controlling programs designed to measure and check qualifications for anyone who may apply for either.

The educational Pell grant has two prominent and strict rules – felony and time cap for completing the first undergraduate degree. Under these rules, when someone applies for the federal financial aid, in order to qualify for the Pell grant, the applicant must not have a drug felony on his or her record and must graduate for the first undergraduate degree within eight years. If one applies for the financial aid and has a drug felony on his or her record, then that applicant will not be qualified to receive Pell grant for his or her education. Also, if the financial aid recipient does not graduate with his or her first undergraduate degree within eight years, then after eight years, he or she will not be eligible to receive a Pell grant.

For unemployment, when someone has been laid off work for any reason other than quitting or resigning, when that person applies to claim unemployment benefits for every week, then he or she must provide complete details of him or her looking for work for each week claimed. If he or she fails to look for a job, then he or she is not eligible to claim unemployment for that week or any other weeks he or she has not looked for a job.

These two programs work fine and they have tools and resources in place that help prevent fraud and make it hard for anyone to continually receive the benefits. They encourage their recipients to make sure that they must follow and abide by their strict rules in order to be eligible for their benefits. However, the current welfare system does not have a limit of how long someone can continue to receive welfare benefits.

In some European countries such as Denmark, the government provides their citizens with government income subsidies, but they have an incentive program that encourages the citizens to work or do anything that may generate income for their households. In the U.S., it is different. For as long as one is unemployed and has a reasonable excuse to convince welfare officials, then he or she can perfectly and safely have access to government sponsored (section eight) housing without ever having to worry about paying rent.

Therefore, if the Welfare-to-Work program is reformed to equally and efficiently serve the needs of both the federal government, the states, and the welfare recipients, then it will help more welfare recipients to find jobs, which in turn will help them to become productive and that will help increase the GDP. A portion of the money spent in the program can be used towards other social programs.

Reforming the Welfare system has been a subject that has been discussed by many pundits over the years, but putting it into action yields little. Even our current presidential candidates, McCain, Clinton, and Obama rarely talk about it. But it is one of many issues that need immediate attention.

It poses no fair compliment to those who get up each morning going to work, just to help fund the welfare system for those who simply chose not to work, because they just do not want to work for as long as the welfare system finances their well-being.

In an article titled “Reforming welfare with work” Gueron decries how our country has been debating the question of how well to redesign the welfare system, especially the federally supported welfare Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which is equipped and is tasked to provide them with cash assistance for single-female-parent households. Gueron questions whether the welfare program should be continued with focus on providing broad assistance or it should simply become a "reciprocal obligations" program, whereby recipients must be required to find work within a given time period.

There are many Jackies, Johns, and Helens in most neighborhoods around the U.S. Let’s reform the Welfare system in order to help rehabilitate and empower them, give them the necessary training and skills and put them to work in order for us to further strengthen our economy.

Work Cited

Welfare-to-Work (1996, June). U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retrieved Wednesday, April 9, 2008, from http://www.opm.gov/wtw/index.htm.

O'Neill, J. (2003, April 14). Welfare Reform Works. New York Post, pp.A11, A14.

Kirby, J. J. (1995). Welfare-to-Work Transition. The Ohio State University's Human  Development and Family Life Bulletin, Volume 1, Issue 4, Winter 1995.  Retrieved Wednesday, April 9, 2008, from http://fcs.osu.edu/hdfs/bulletin/volume.1/bull14a.htm.

Gueron, J. M. (1987). Reforming welfare with work. New York: Ford Foundation.

About the Author

Simon Kapenda is a current economics student at the Ohio State University and creator of RentersQ at www.rentersq.com.

Digital Analog

Oconee nuclear gets nation's first digital makeover
SENECA — A $250 million digital upgrade of major safety-related systems at Oconee Nuclear Station will be the first of its kind at the nation's 104 nuclear plants and will replace 1970s-era analog controls.

Pin Dvi

Can i modify a DVI-I [dual] Male to make it a DVI-D [dual]?

I bought a VGA to DVI-I adapter because i wanted to connect my computer to my Samsung monitor using a standard VGA [Fem.] to VGA [Fem.].
Unfornately i found out that my Samsung monitor has a DVI-D [dual] input.

But i was wondering if i can modify the adapter [i.e. remove the 4 pins and file down the flat pin] to make it into a VGA to DVI-D adapter.

That will NEVER work.

You cannot connnect an ANALOG-ONLY video card VGA output to a DIGITAL-ONLY monitor DVI input.

Analog is NOT compatible with Digital. No matter what cable you use or what pins you break off on the cable.

You will get NO image if you attempt to connect a computer VGA port to a monitor DVI-D jack.

Tape Library Case

ahh help!!!!!?

ok so i got a cd rom from the public library, it was in my car all day, but then when i put it in my computer, i saw that the case had a broken line, so then i tried to make it better, but instead it just fell apart. ahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i first tried a gluestick and it didnt work. i thought about superglue, so i asked my roommate, but she didnt have any.

so i taped it together, it works, but what if they reliaze that it wasnt broken before??ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

i once kinda spilled water on my libarary books, but it was dry when i returned them, so that time i was in luck, but what do i do now!!!!????

should i just tape it and forget it and just go to return them with luck?????

what do i do!!???

What if you trade cases with one of your CDs? Then you will be accepting responsibility but not really losing anything. Plus you'll have a reminder to be more careful with things you borrow. I hope this helps.