Sorry for the lack of updates. Our school semester starts on Tuesday, so it’s been a push to get everything squared away for the return of students. I’ll get back in to regular updates next week.

Commenting is broken right now. Apparently they’ll be fixed before too long. Thanks for your patience!

Update: Comments work now. Hoorah!

Welcome to DiscreteCosine, a blog and discussion site about video technology. This site specifically caters to the use of video in education, particularly higher education. It is maintained by Colin McFadden from the CLA-TV Studios at the University of Minnesota.

The aim of this site is to fill a few gaps that I perceive in online coverage of video technology. First off, there are very limited reviews of studio equipment, and the reviews that do exist tend to be incomplete. The CLA-TV Studios maintain two all-digital 3-camera studios, and I intend to add reviews of some of the equipment we use. In the future this may include obtaining outside units for review.

Additionally, I’d like to focus on the real world use of video equipment, when placed in the hands of non-professionals. When we pick a camera for the University, we have to focus not only on the quality of the video it records, but also on its ease of use, durability and service life. These issues are sometimes ignored when reviews are written with professional users in mind.

Finally, this site is intended to serve as a discussion site for assorted news and information regarding the video industry and video technology. I’m particularly interested in compression systems and signaling protocols, so expect a focus on those topics.

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