Production, Distribution, and Exhibition |  |
Chapter Summary| Production, distribution, and exhibition are complicated processes that involve human creativity combined with proper equipment. All three processes are changing from analog to digital.
Radio programming consists primarily of voice and music and uses microphones, audio boards, DATs, and MiniDiscs. Mostly it comes from an on-air or production studio, but news reporters work in the field.
Some TV programming is studio-bound, some is produced in the field, and some is a combination of both. A studio contains a grid and its lights, a set, microphones, and cameras on pedestals. The nearby control room houses a computer graphics generator, audio board, switcher, video recorders, and monitors.
Film production is similar to video field production in that material is shot single-camera style and then edited with nonlinear editing equipment. The main difference is that a film camera is used for the shooting.
Many methods of program distribution are in use. Most use the electromagnetic spectrum that encompasses a continuum of frequencies. These frequencies have varying characteristics and uses that involve terms such as hertz, VHF, UHF, SAP, AM, FM, PCM, modulate, line of sight, bandwidth, C-band, Ku-band, DTV, SD, multiplexing, and carrier waves.
Often several methods of distribution and exhibition are used for various media. For example, the telephone industry uses twisted-pair wires, fiber optics, and satellites. Radio uses terrestrial transmission, wires, and satellites. Car and home radios keep getting smaller while adding features.
A local television station program might be received from a network or syndicator by satellite and then microwaved to the transmitter from which it is broadcast over the air. It might be sent by microwave to a cable TV system to be further distributed by wire. When it is received in a home, it might be shown on a tube, LCD, or plasma TV set, or it might be projected or be shown on a computer monitor.
A movie could be hand-delivered to a movie theater, shown through wires on a hotel video-on-demand system, broadcast over the air by a TV station, shown by satellite on a DBS system, or distributed by satellite to a cable or SMATV system from which it is sent to consumers by wire. It could also be carried to a video store for tape or DVD distribution.
Cable TV reception and distribution illustrate the combining of distribution systems. At the cable head end, local and distant signals are received by microwave while pay cable and other cable network services are brought in by satellite. The head end may also include videotape recorders to which members of the public carry their access programs for cablecasting. All of these inputs come to the head end where they are converted in such a way that they can be placed on the various cable system channels. Here the inputs become outputs and they are sent through coaxial cable or fiber optics to subscribers' homes.
With all the production, distribution, and exhibition processes in mind, try to describe what is happening to the program being produced in Exhibit 14–18.
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