CSC391/691 Digital Video and Animation

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“Pied Beauty” Assignment

What sampling rate and bit depth did you use for the recording? Why?

A standard sampling rate is 44.1 kHz with a bit depth of 16 bits per sample. This is "CD quality" sound. However, you don't really need stereo, since there isn't going to be any separation of the sound as the poem is read directly into the microphone.

What type of microphone did you use for the recording? Why?

• I used a Shure SM58 Vocal microphone. – Low impedance– Cardioid pickup

Note: Wikipedia has a good article on microphone types. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone#Directionality

Specs of the SM58 from the Shure web page

The Shure SM58® unidirectional (cardioid) dynamic vocal microphone is designed for professional vocal use in live performance, sound reinforcement, and studio recording. A highly effective, built-in, spherical filter minimizes wind and breath "pop" noise. A cardioid pickup pattern isolates the main sound source while minimizing unwanted background noise. The SM58 has a tailored vocal response for a sound which is a world standard. Rugged construction, a proven shock mount system, and a steel mesh grille ensure that even with rough handling, the SM58 will perform consistently. Outdoors or indoors, singing or speech, the SM58 is the overwhelming choice of professionals.

Specs of the SM58 from the Shure web page

Legendary Shure vocal mic tuned to accentuate the warmth and clarity of lead and back-up vocals. Consistently the first choice of performers everywhere.  Cardioid, Dynamic.

•Shure SM58® Frequency response tailored for vocals, with brightened midrange and bass rolloff•Uniform cardioid pickup pattern isolates the main sound source and minimizes background noise•Pneumatic shock-mount system cuts down handling noise•Effective, built-in spherical wind and pop filter•Supplied with break-resistant stand adapter which rotates 180 degrees•Legendary Shure quality, ruggedness and reliability•Cardioid (unidirectional) dynamic•Frequency response: 50 to 15,000 Hz

Other inexpensive mics

You might also use an inexpensive mic like the one shown below, described at the Best Buy web site.

Cyber Acoustics Stereo Headset with Removable Noise-

Canceling Microphone ($24.99)

Specs of the Headset Mic from the Best Buy web page

• 3-in-1 functionality serves as a PC headset, stereo headphones and notebook microphone

• DCNT4 (direct noise-canceling microphone technology) for enhanced vocal clarity

• Adjustable headband for added comfort • Removable boom arm for use with your notebook

computer • 30mm dynamic drivers deliver deep bass • 7' shield cord with 3.5mm gold-plared plugs • Frequency response: 20Hz - 20kHz headset, 100Hz -

16kHz microphone • Impedence: 32 ohms headset, 2.2 kOhms microphone

Impedance

• A low impedance mic is generally better.

• High impedance mics don’t perform well over distances. They get interference and loss of high frequencies

• Low impedance is less than 600 Ω

• Medium impedance is 600-10,000 Ω

• High impedance is greater then 10,000 Ω

Frequency Response

• Check your mic’s frequency response as well– Shure SM58 has a frequency response of 50

to 15,000 Hz– Headset mic has a frequency response of 100

to 16,000 Hz

200 Hz 300 Hz 500 Hz 800 Hz 12,000 Hz 15,000 Hz

What processing, if any, did you do to the sound after you recorded the reading of the

poem. Explain how and why?Tools for audio processing• Adobe Audition• Audacity (freeware)• Logic (Mac)• Pro Tools (Mac)• Sound cards sometimes come with their own audio processing

software (e.g., the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi in the DM Lab)

Commonly-used filters and processing• Normalization• Removing clicks and pops• Reverb

Understand the difference between destructive and non-destructive edits.

What kind of camera did you use? What was the resolution and format of the

photographs given by the camera?

•Know the choices you have of resolution and file type for your camera. •Resolution is the number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions. Some cameras call this “image size” in their specs.•File type is normally JPG or TIFF. TIFF files can be compressed or uncompressed. Some cameras call this spec “image quality.”•Your choice of resolution and file type affects the file size and how many pictures you can take on your memory card.

Nikon CoolPix 995

Image Quality

Nikon CoolPix 995 Image Size

Taking CloseUp Pictures

• f-stop refers to the size of the aperture that lets in light. A smaller f-stop number means a wider aperture.

• Wider apertures let in more light. • Wider apertures (i.e., smaller f-stops) also

create a shallower depth of field.• A shallow depth of field makes objects in

the foreground stand out while the background is blurry.

Shallow depth of field

From Digital Photography by Katrin Eismann, Seán Duggan, and Tim Grey,PeachPit Press

SLR vs. Point-and-Shoot Digital Cameras

• SLR refers to single lens reflex. This is a professional grade camera. You look straight through the lens.

• Professional digital SLRs use an imaging sensor that’s the same size as the 35mm film they replace, so the specs of lens size and focal length match what you might be used to in analog cameras.

• SLRs often have interchangeable lenses.

The CS Department has an SLR Camera, a NIKON D100

• SLR (single-lens reflex) The advantage of SLR is that when you look through the viewfinder, you are seeing exactly the image that you will take.  This makes it possible for you to use manual focusing in a very accurate way.

• We bought two lenses for the camera.  (You often have to buy the lenses of SLR cameras separately.) – Nikon AF Nikkor – Nikon AF Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D (for close-ups)

• CCD (charge-coupled device) is 23.7 x 15.6 mm/0.9" x 0.6" • advertised as 6.1 million "effective" pixels  (Multiply 3008 x 2000

and you get approximately this value. Manufacturers always advertise their maximum pixel size ("megapixels") to their advantage.)

NIKON D100• image size (resolution): 

– 3008 X 2000 pixels, 2240 X 1488 pixels, or 1504 X 1000 pixels

• six image qualities/file types: – NEF raw uncompressed (12 bits per pixel) – NEF raw compressed – TIFF-RGB (uncompressed) – JPEG Fine (lossy compression at a ratio of 4:1) – JPEG Normal (lossy compression at a ratio of 8:1) – JPEG Basic (lossy compression at a ratio of 16:1)

(See page 43 of the camera manual for the relationship between image size in terms of pixels, image quality, and image size in terms of number of bytes required for storage.)

NIKON D100• 3D matrix metering as its method to determine correct

exposure (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_metering.)• built-in Speedlight • single frame, continuous, or self-timer shooting modes • "film" sensitivity levels between values roughly equivalent to

between ISO 200 and 1600 in steps equivalent to 1/3 EV.  Higher values of HI-1 (ISO 3200) and HI-2 (ISO 6400) also possible.

• manual settings can be made for aperture, sensitivity, shutter speed, focus, single-shot vs. continuous mode, etc.

• storage medium – Nikon, SanDisk, LexarMedia, or IBM CompactFlash cards

• photos transferable to computer through USB cable or CompactFlash Card adapter

NIKON D100 SetUp

NIKON D100 SetUp

NIKON D100 SetUp

Your choice of image size affects how many pictures you can put on your

memory card.

3008 X 2000 uncompressed TIFF, 24-bit color, requires

3008 * 2000 * 3 bytes/picture = 18,048,000 bytes/picture

If you have a 100 MB memory card, you can take only 5 pictures on the card with that image quality

What processing did you do on the photographs, if any.

• You can use Photoshop to do all kinds of things.– Auto levels– Brightness/contrast, color levels– Filters– Image size in total pixels and ppi

What file format did you decide the photographs should be when imported into the multimedia programming

environment (e.g., JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, PSD)? • Choose a lossless compression format for

importing into Director

• JPEG is lossy

• GIF is good for images that requires <= 256 colors

• PNG is good

• PSD preserves the layers of your Photoshop editing

What multimedia programming language did you use? Why?

• Here’s Adobe’s comparison of the features of Director and Flash:

http://www.adobe.com/products/director/resources/integration/flash/quick_comparison.html

How did you create transitions?

• Library palette gives you a library of built-in behaviors

• You can put transitions on the Transitions Channel

• You can tween by hand

Did you compress the final multimedia production? What format did you save it in? Why?

• Save and compact using Director’s own compression method.

• You can save as an executable, or save as a Shockwave file to be played from a web page.

What else can you do to make the file smaller?

• Eliminate cast members that you never use.• Make your images exactly the size that you want

them to be (pixels, width and height). Don’t import them and then shrink them in Director.

• Don’t use stereo sound.• Bring only one instance of a built-in behavior into

the cast (which you can apply repeatedly to different sprites).