So you want to set up your own studio, in the garage or spare bedroom.  Where do you start? what equipment will you require?.  Lighting is the most important item with regard to a successful studio but in this article we will only cover the other requirements. (more…)

In the main tripods are manufactured from ALUMINIUM or CARBON FIBRE.  Many years ago some were made from WOOD but not nowadays, but saying that wood is sometimes used for telescopes tripods and many people prefer them.

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There are lots of different cases for Cd and DVD.  Many colours, shapes and sizes.  The best way to look at this is to find out what type of cover you want.  Do you want a large cover with lots of information on? Or a small cover with a picture and number/website address on it.  Templates for the artwork can be found on the internet.  Once you know what you want and you have the artwork done.  The next thing is what type of case, a slimline case, standard case, double cases etc…..  . The list goes on.  there are also a lot of colours can choose from, so if you want to match the colour of a company’s logo you can. Well within reason.

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Correct terminologies are very important when discussing or writing about Duplication or Replication matters.

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The most modern and up to date TV around at the moment is the new 3D TV.  Is it any good you ask? well, from what I have read on blogs and other articles I’m not too sure.  Some say its fantastic and others say its OK but needs tweaking.

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Your wedding day, one of the most important days of your life.  Everthing is arranged, venue, cars, church, flowers, etc, but, what about the man who is going to film your big day….. the videographer.

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There are lots of  different discs to print on, silver, white matt, white silver, glossy, semi glossy etc…

Most of the matt finish discs are not water proof.  You need to spray them with a water proof shield.  Once they have been sprayed they look nice, they have a semi shine to them, but beware, you need a lot of room to spray them. The area needs to be well ventilated as the spray can be harmful.

There are a few silver discs about. You can inkjet print on some, much the same as the matt discs.  Alternatively you can buy discs that are lightscribe, this is where you etch the text or artwork on the discs, this is water proof as there is no ink being used, however, you do need the correct software and burner for to be able to use these.

The semi glossy discs are very good for text and photo print.  They are water proof and scratch resisant, so you don’t need to spray them.  They are not very glossy but do look good, you don’t have to worry about finger marks on the face of the disc, these discs do cost a bit more than the matt finished disc, but they are a better looking disc, also you are saving the cost of the seperate sealing spray.

The glossy disc is the best inkjet printable disc you can get.  The print is very much like thermal.  Water proof and scratch proof.  Almost the same as the semi glossy disc, but very shinny.  The only problem is you can see finger marks ont he face only if you look for them.. The print is not affected.

The best print to use is thermal.  They do cost more than the other discs, this is because you get a better finish and also the cost of printing.  It’s  a different process from ink jet where they are water colours, thermal print they use ribbons instead of water based ink.

For many years VHS was the best thing since sliced bread.  The picture quality was good (better than the TV picture).  The sound was good too.  Easy to record on and you could rerecord on the tape also.  One of the main benefits of the VHS was they were easy to use.  All you did was put it in the VCR player and press play. Not difficult at all.  Unless you had to sort out the tracking.  what a pain in the neck that was.  The other thing with VHS was the tape sometimes got chewed up in the VCR player, and the only way to get it out was to take the thing apart, or simply cut the tape. When you did get it out it was ruined, not all of it but about 20-30 seconds of the tape.  You also had the worry that when it got to the same point in the tape will do it again? (most likely).  When copying a tape it is done in real time so if the tape was one hour long that is the time it would take to copy.

All the manufactures have stopped making VCR machines and all the film industries are only producing DVD and blu-ray discs.  So if you’ve got any old VHS tapes I would get them converted to DVD as soon as possible.  The cost of this service can be expensive, depending how long the tape is.  If its an old film you can buy them cheap on the intenet.  If it’s a wedding or a special event gets it on DVD fast or all will be lost.  You can buy a kit from the internet that connects to your pc.  So if you want to edit the film you can, they don’t cost much, if you have a lot on VHS buy the conversion kit it will work out cheaper than sending the tapes away to be converted onto DVD.

The age of digital photography is well upon us.  Virtually every household now have a digital camera.  Children and adults alike just point the camera and press, but to get that little bit extra from your digital camera there are a few things yu may wish to consider.

APERTURE: This is basically a lens with an adjustable hole in the centre, the adjustable part is called the diaphragm.  Adjusting the diaphragm determines the amount of light allowed into the camera thus affecting the finished image.

WHITE BALANCE: Is how the camera interpretes white under different light sources.  Our eyes can tell the difference no problem but cameras have great difficulty with getting the white balance correct.  If the white balance is not set correctly you can get horrible Green, Orange or Blue showing on your photograph.  Most digital cameras have an auto white balance filter, this makes life much easier as the filter calculates the best white balance for the lighting conditions.

SHUTTER SPEED: All cameras from the very cheap upto the most expensive have shutter speeds.  On some cameras the shutter speed is not adjustable so there is nothing you can do but point and press.  On others the shutter speed is adjustable BUT this is done automatically so you are unable to change it by hand.  On more expensive and modern cameras there is automatic shutter speed BUT this can be changed by the operator.

Finally to get the best out of your camera invest in a sturdy, well build tripod.  A tripod will last for years so invest wisely.  The cheap tripods available are usually very light and flimsy.  Look for a well known name, Manfrotto, Libec, Benbo are but a few that offer quality, reliability  and will not break the bank.  Also if possible invest in a sturdy bag or case for your tripod, this small investment will pay dividends in the long term.

The first thing to be aware of if you are thinking about Copy Protection on your disc is that no copy protection hardware or system is 100% reliable.  If an experienced hacker or computer expert wants to get into your disc they will. Saying that, there are several methods available that will stop the average guy in the street from copying your material.

If you are going to get your discs REPLICATED the copy protection needs to be put in place at the authoring stage.  Then make sure that the replication house you are using is aware of this nad they will finalise the operation at the stamping process.  With regard to cost, there is usually an extra one off cost from the stamping house then a licence cost per disc, not a great deal approx between 1 - 5 pence a unit depending on quantity.

Up until recently is was very expensive and quite difficult to get copy protection on DVD discs in quantities less than 1000 (replicated) but nowadays with modern equipment and software any quantity can be protected and does not cost the earth.  Most people are aware of duplication towers.  The single towers allow you to duplicate upto 10 or 11 discs at a time.  Well now there are towers available that if specific specialised software is used they will copy and protect discs.  Basically this software embeds a proprietory copy protection encryption into the master DVD video through a PC.  This can then be transferred onto the duplicators hard drive via the USB connection.  A licence has to be purchased for each title but then you can copy protect as many discs as you require without any additional costs.  Additional licenses are available on a USB in quantities from 30 to 100.  The actual towers are slightly more expensive than standard towers but obviously their costs will decrease significantly as time goes on.