Internet commentary

Citation

Ellis, B. (2003), "Internet commentary", Microelectronics International, Vol. 20 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.2003.21820bag.001

Internet commentary

The medium is the message[1]

Keywords: Internet, Video

In Microelectronics International, Volume 20, Number 1, the prologue to my article concerned the use of video on the Internet. As a result of this, I have received two e-mails. The first was from a reader who asked me for more information on camcorders, especially digital ones.

There are two or three digital formats currently available, but the main one, representing about 95 per cent of the market, is called Mini-DV. This gives excellent quality, almost up to broadcast standards. It allows for up to 1h on a very small standard tape cassette. The recorded material is already compressed and can be downloaded into a computer with no further losses, through an IEEE-1394 interface.

There are over 50 Mini-DV camcorders available in the market. Even the cheapest one (about GBP 450, in the UK) gives good quality, although the lens may not be comparable with those found on more expensive models. In particular, the more expensive lenses give better quality at the extremes of their functionality, such as fewer aberrations on macro and a sharper image on full zoom in and out.

There is perhaps one feature that merits discussion and that is whether to use a single- CCD or a three-CCD model. Without doubt, the three-CCD models give better colour rendering and, possibly, a slightly sharper image. As a general rule, video professionals would never consider a single-CCD model. That having been said, a good single-CCD model will produce excellent results. The question resolves, therefore, into a matter of budget, because a good three-CCD camcorder will cost the double of a single one with otherwise similar features (GBP 1,500-3,000, as against GBP 450-1,500).

I am not able to recommend a specific model of camcorder. As far as I am aware, all the well- known Japanese makes give excellent results and are equally reliable. It is probable that the lifetime of a camcorder is also a function of price; it would seem reasonable that, if you choose the cheapest model, it would not give you such good service as a more costly one.

My second correspondent requested some more information about editing software. Here, the choice is enormously wide. So is the price range; you can pay anything from a few tens to tens of thousands of dollars. We can discount the latter type as being systems usable only in large, professional, studios. I would also suggest that the very cheapest types would be unsuitable for anything but the most fundamental operations.

The most suitable softwares for general-purpose use are those which cost between, $200 and $600. Sometimes, these may be bundled with hardware, such as IEEE-1394 cards or DVD recorders, at a much lower cost than buying the boxed items. However, these are often "light" versions. It is probable that the most used is Adobe Premiere, maybe because it is frequently bundled with analogue capture hardware. I have used this, but find that it is quite difficult to master, very slow and lacking many features of other programmes. Another one is Vegas Video, which I have never used; I am told that it is full of features but has a very long learning curve. A word of warning though, newspaper reports have shown that the manufacturers are in grave financial difficulties, so it may be possible that this software is not here to stay. In this category, there is also Ulead MediaStudio Pro (Figure 1). This is my favourite and the latest version is fast, full of good features, not too expensive and not too difficult to master. There is a cut-down version called Director's Cut. This is very much the same as the full version but with fewer special effects and with less capability of advanced editing, such as sophisticated titling and animation.

Figure 1 Ulead MediaStudioPro editor screen. The top left window is the preview of the completed project, with effects. The top middle shows the source file and the top right the library of files and effects. The bottom window is the Timeline, which is the working area for both video and audio.

In a somewhat cheaper category, the only one that I can personally recommend is also by Ulead and is called VideoStudio. It is obviously of the same family as MediaStudio Pro and is frequently bundled with low-cost hardware. It is also available in two versions. It is quite basic, but sufficient for editing videos for the Internet and possibly for some other purposes, and do not expect great sophistication in the way of special effects or titling. Strangely, this software is more difficult to use than its more progressive big brother. If you wish to do anything a little more advanced, such as to burn DVDs, it would probably be better to consider something from the previous paragraph.

Once the editing has been completed, the finished video has to be converted into a format suitable for use in Internet applications. The means of doing this are standard parts of the more sophisticated software, such as MediaStudio Pro, but may not be found on some of the lower cost ones. In this case, it will be necessary to add some other software for this purpose. The one that comes to mind is Real. A basic converter is available free of charge for downloading from the Internet and can be used for either streaming or embedded applications. Microsoft also offer something along these lines. However, for embedded applications, conversion to a low resolution MPEG-1 format may be better in terms of quality, at the cost of a few extra kilobytes per second of playing time. Another possibility is conversion to QuickTime, a format developed by Macintosh. In fact, the choice is wide and not expensive! For those who insist on using Shockwave effects on their Web sites, a few editors will also convert to Macromedia format swf files (use with caution!).

For the Review section of this article, I propose to touch upon one of the subjects, falling under the theme of microelectronics, that is receiving an enormous amount of attention and which represents one of the bright lights for the future.

http://www.eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/view/groups/

Unless I am very much mistaken, Southampton University was the first in the United Kingdom to offer a BSc course in electronics, as long ago as about 1950. At that time, I was already a student at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh but my course was more limited in scope, as Telecommunications and Radio Engineering. Southampton has always kept a strong lead in the discipline of electronics and, at present, is a world leader in several fields, not the least in prosthetics. Without doubt, intelligent prosthetics, which will imitate, for example, the action of the human hand, requires feedback from what the hand is doing. To pick up a valuable crystal vase without the feedback is probably a recipe for disaster. The university is developing three types of sensors, using thick film technology, for this application: pressure, temperature and slip. This page gives a list of thousands of scientific papers devoted to electronics, including a great number directed to thick film and sensor technology. The majority of entries are hyperlinked to a page giving more details of each paper, often with an abstract. I think this is an important starting point for anybody wishing to research this field.

www.ub.utwente.nl/ webdocs/ctit/1/00000092.pdf

I find this paper almost whimsical. It describes the use of piezoelectric and piezoresistive sensors in a smart card as a means of identifying that the person presenting it is the owner. From a technical point of view, it is probably not of great value; notwithstanding, the authors display much ingenuity. I doubt whether this has much practical application but it shows that the fields of thick film sensor technology are, indeed, wide.

http://web.tiscali.it/no-redirect-tiscali/biosensor/Traversa%20seminar.htm

This is the abstract of a seminar presentation, with full references, describing the preparation of powders for manufacturing thick film gas sensors. These were tested in dry and wet air in both laboratory and environmental station conditions. The author considers it feasible to use oxide sensors for cheap environmental monitoring.

http://www.ipc.uni-tuebingen.de/weimar/nose/gassensors/preparation/ageing.html

In a way, this is a short paper which can follow on from the last one. The point in common is the oxide gas sensor and this paper describes the potential errors due to ageing. The methodology is described in detail and the results show which technology is better for carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide measurements.

http://www.dupont.com/mcm/product/tf4sensors.html

Although commercial, this page reviews the types of material that are available for various sensor applications. Many of these are, of course, high-temperature materials for use on ceramics substrates, but there are also some low temperature materials for printing onto polymers. If anything, this page puts into a nutshell how wide the field of thick film sensors is.

192.107.77.201/Pillotonputida.PDF

This paper describes an entirely different kind of sensor, based on the reaction of organisms to chemicals. Essentially, a thick film sensor is coated with a culture medium of a specific bacterium in a matrix of an insolubilised gelatin. In the presence of certain chemicals to which the bacterium is sensitive, oxygen is released and detected by the sensor. In practice, this can be used for detecting the presence of phenol and similar chemicals in waste water. The value of this technology is obvious.

http://website.lineone.net/~d4tech/THICK-FILM%20POLYMER%20SENSORS.htm

This page briefly describes some applications of polymer thick film sensors, available from the manufacturer. Unfortunately, the page is badly designed and even more badly implemented. It is not obvious how the manufacturer can be contacted, if so desired, other than a link that does not work and some graphic “buttons” at the bottom of the page, which also do not work!

http://www.djinstruments.com/thickfilm.html

This is the introductory page of a company making thick film pressure sensors, with links to individual pages for each type of instrument. These pressure sensors are fired onto a ceramic substrate as a strain gauge with a thermistor for temperature compensation. Unlike the previous page, this one works!

www.ias.ac.in/matersci/bmsaug2001/385.pdf

Beware! Even though it is only about 120 KB, this file took me well over 2 min to download; it would appear that the server is remarkably slow! The paper describes an unusual application in that the thick film laid down on a magnesium oxide monocrystal is a complex superconductor at liquid nitrogen temperatures. The resistance of the conductor pattern varies according to the strength of the magnetic field, so that the sensor is used to measure the latter.

http://bsing.ing.unibs.it/~label/activity/SRIC_A99.html

This is an abstract of a paper describing planar and multilayer thick film inductors used for the detection and profiling of metallic objects. It is suggested that this may be a low-cost method of coin detection in automatic machines. The sensors used high-temperature techniques on an alumina substrate.

www.mdpi.net/sensors/papers/s20200050.pdf

This is a complete paper from the University of Limerick in Ireland describing a relative humidity sensor, based on the thick film deposition of a ferrite on an alumina substrate. What is interesting is that the ferrite is not used for its magnetic properties but as an n-type semiconductor with an affinity to adsorb water.

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/eee/eee6/sensor/pro4.htm

Singapore is, of course, known as one of the South East Asia “Tigers”. No exception to this rule, Nanyang Technological University conducts many research projects. One of these is the development of thick film gas sensors. This page describes one such project, by the Division of Microelectronics. This Division is important, as can be seen by the total staff strength standing at 131, including 47 academic staff, 2 visiting staff, 1 adjunct staff, 1 administrative staff, 34 postdoctoral/research fellows, 14 research associates and project officers, and 32 technical staff. There are also about 60 (full-time) postgraduate research students who have registered for MEng and Phd degrees. There are ten research and teaching laboratories grouped into four clusters. The lab activities are supported by a team of technical staff members.

www.ias.ac.in/matersci/bmsnov2002/497.pdf

It is obviously important in plants using natural gas to ensure the safety of the personnel against the risk of explosions. Conventional methane sensors employ metal oxide semiconductor techniques. Unfortunately, such sensors can give false readings in the presence of other organic gases or vapours. This paper describes a project, in India, to overcome this problem by applying a layer which is reactive to the pollutants but which allows the methane to penetrate to the metal oxide semiconductor underneath. Of course, this is done with thick film technology.

From this mini-catalogue of Web sites, it can be seen that thick film technology is being used for the development and manufacture of an enormous range of different types of sensors. Of course, this list is far from exhaustive and there are many types that are just too experimental to have any publications at this time. What is equally important is that the development of thick film sensors is not confined to the developed countries. In fact, it is probable that at least 30 countries were represented in the 34,000 or so Web sites, which Google suggested I may look at by putting in the words thick film sensors. In the ones which I chose to mention, because they offered something which was slightly out of the ordinary, some were from nations which one would not normally associate with cutting edge technology.

Brian EllisCyprusb_ellis@protonique.com

Note1 The medium is the message - Chapter title in Understanding Media (Marshall McLuhan, 1964)