Video synthesizer
Encyclopedia
A Video Synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video
signal.
A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown above. It can also accept and "clean up and enhance" or "distort" live television camera imagery. The synthesizer creates a wide range of imagery through purely electronic manipulations. This imagery is visible within the output video signal when this signal is displayed. The output video signal can be viewed on a wide range of conventional video equipment, such as TV monitors, theater video projectors, computer displays, etc.
Video pattern generators may produce static or moving or evolving imagery. Examples include geometric patterns ( in 2D or 3D ), subtitle text characters in a particular font, or weather maps.
Imagery from TV cameras can be altered in color or geometrically scaled, tilted, wrapped around objects, and otherwise manipulated.
A particular video synthesizer will offer a subset of possible effects.
, video synthesizers were designed with the expectation they would be played in live concert theatrical situations or set up in a studio ready to process a videotape from a playback VCR in real time while recording the results on a second VCR. Venues of these performances included "Electronic Visualization Events" in Chicago, The Kitchen in NYC, and museum installations. Video artist/performer Don Slepian http://DonSlepian.com designed, built and performed a foot-controlled Visual Instrument at the Centre Pompideau in Paris (1983) and the NY Open Center that combined genlocked Genlocking early micro-computers Apple II Plus
with the Chromaton 14 Video Synthesizer
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vidsynth/chroma14/chroma14.htm and channels of colorized video feedback.
Analog and early real time digital synthesizers existed before modern computer 3D modeling. Typical 3D renderers are not real time, as they concentrate on computing each frame from, for example, a recursive ray tracing algorithm, however long it takes. This distinguishes them from video synthesizers, which MUST deliver a new output frame by the time the last one has been shown, and repeat this performance continuously ( typically delivering a new frame regularly every 1/30 or 1/25 of a second ) . The real time constraint results in a difference in design philosophy between these two classes of systems.
Video synthesizers overlap with video special effects equipment used in real time network television broadcast and post-production situations. Many innovations in television broadcast equipment as well as computer graphics displays evolved from synthesizers developed in the video artists' community
and these industries often support "electronic art projects" in this area to show appreciation of this history.
For example, Rutt
& Etra
and Sandin
carried forward as an essential principle ideas of Robert Moog
that standardized signal ranges so that any module's output could be connected to "voltage control" any other module's input. The consequence of this in a machine like the Rutt-Etra was that position, brightness, and color were completely interchangeable and could be used to modulate each other during the processing that led to the final image. Videotapes by Louise and Bill Etra
and Steina and Woody Vasulka
dramatized this new class of effects. This led to various interpretations of the multi-modal synthesesia of these aspects of the image in dialogues that extended the McLuhanesque language of film criticism of the time.
In the UK Richard Monkhouse working for EMS developed a hybrid video synthesiser - Spectre - later renamed 'Spectron' which used the EMS patchboard system to allow completely flexible connections between module inputs and outputs. The video signals were digital, but they were controlled by analog voltages. There was a digital patchboard for image composition and an analog patchboard for motion control.
's Video Weavings used digital oscillators optionally linked to horizontal, vertical, or frame resets to generate timing ramps. These ramps could be gated to create the video image itself and were responsible for its underlying geometric texture. Schier and Vasulka advanced the state of the art from address counters to programmable (microcodable) AMD Am2901 bit slice based address generators. On the data path, they used 74S181 arithmetic and logic units, previously thought of as a component for doing arithmetic instructions in minicomputers, to process real time video signals, creating new signals representing the sum, difference, AND, XOR, and so on, of two input signals. These two elements, the address generator, and the video data pipeline, recur as core features of digital video architecture.
The address generator supplied read and write addresses to a real time video memory, which can be thought of as evolution into the most flexible form of gating the address bits together to produce the video. While the video frame buffer is now present in every computer's graphics card, it has not carried forward a number of features of the early video synths. The address generator counts in a fixed rectangular pattern from the upper left hand corner of the screen, across each line, to the bottom. This discarded a whole technology of modifying the image by variations in the read and write addressing sequence provided by the hardware address generators as the image passed through the memory. Today, address based distortions are more often accomplished by blitter
operations moving data in the memory, rather than changes in video hardware addressing patterns.
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
signal.
A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown above. It can also accept and "clean up and enhance" or "distort" live television camera imagery. The synthesizer creates a wide range of imagery through purely electronic manipulations. This imagery is visible within the output video signal when this signal is displayed. The output video signal can be viewed on a wide range of conventional video equipment, such as TV monitors, theater video projectors, computer displays, etc.
Video pattern generators may produce static or moving or evolving imagery. Examples include geometric patterns ( in 2D or 3D ), subtitle text characters in a particular font, or weather maps.
Imagery from TV cameras can be altered in color or geometrically scaled, tilted, wrapped around objects, and otherwise manipulated.
A particular video synthesizer will offer a subset of possible effects.
Video Synthesizers as Real Time performance instruments
The history of video synthesis is tied in to a "real time performance" ethic. The equipment is usually expected to function on input camera signals the machine has never seen before, delivering a processed signal continuously and with a minimum of delay in response to the ever changing live video inputs. Following in the tradition of performance instruments of the audio synthesis world such as the ThereminTheremin
The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
, video synthesizers were designed with the expectation they would be played in live concert theatrical situations or set up in a studio ready to process a videotape from a playback VCR in real time while recording the results on a second VCR. Venues of these performances included "Electronic Visualization Events" in Chicago, The Kitchen in NYC, and museum installations. Video artist/performer Don Slepian http://DonSlepian.com designed, built and performed a foot-controlled Visual Instrument at the Centre Pompideau in Paris (1983) and the NY Open Center that combined genlocked Genlocking early micro-computers Apple II Plus
Apple II Plus
The Apple II Plus was the second model of the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer, Inc. It was sold new from June 1979 to December 1982.-Features:...
with the Chromaton 14 Video Synthesizer
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vidsynth/chroma14/chroma14.htm and channels of colorized video feedback.
Analog and early real time digital synthesizers existed before modern computer 3D modeling. Typical 3D renderers are not real time, as they concentrate on computing each frame from, for example, a recursive ray tracing algorithm, however long it takes. This distinguishes them from video synthesizers, which MUST deliver a new output frame by the time the last one has been shown, and repeat this performance continuously ( typically delivering a new frame regularly every 1/30 or 1/25 of a second ) . The real time constraint results in a difference in design philosophy between these two classes of systems.
Video synthesizers overlap with video special effects equipment used in real time network television broadcast and post-production situations. Many innovations in television broadcast equipment as well as computer graphics displays evolved from synthesizers developed in the video artists' community
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
and these industries often support "electronic art projects" in this area to show appreciation of this history.
Confluence of ideas of Electronics and Arts
Many principles used in the construction of early video synthesizers reflected a healthy and dynamic interplay between electronic requirements and traditional interpretations of artistic forms.For example, Rutt
Steve Rutt
Steven Alexander Rutt was a American engineer who in 1972, along with Bill Etra co-created an early video animation synthesizer, the Rutt/Etra synthesizer...
& Etra
Bill Etra
Bill Etra is a live video pioneer and the co-inventor of the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer. Bill is a founding member of The Kitchen. He is currently developing a video synthesizer plug-in that emulates the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer.Mr...
and Sandin
Daniel J. Sandin
Daniel J. Sandin is a video and computer graphics artist/researcher. He is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Art & Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Co-director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago...
carried forward as an essential principle ideas of Robert Moog
Robert Moog
Robert Arthur Moog , commonly called Bob Moog was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.-Life:...
that standardized signal ranges so that any module's output could be connected to "voltage control" any other module's input. The consequence of this in a machine like the Rutt-Etra was that position, brightness, and color were completely interchangeable and could be used to modulate each other during the processing that led to the final image. Videotapes by Louise and Bill Etra
Bill Etra
Bill Etra is a live video pioneer and the co-inventor of the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer. Bill is a founding member of The Kitchen. He is currently developing a video synthesizer plug-in that emulates the Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer.Mr...
and Steina and Woody Vasulka
Steina and Woody Vasulka
Steina Vasulka and Woody Vasulka are pioneers of video art, having practiced in the genre since its early days in the late 1960s....
dramatized this new class of effects. This led to various interpretations of the multi-modal synthesesia of these aspects of the image in dialogues that extended the McLuhanesque language of film criticism of the time.
Evolution into Frame Buffers
Video synthesizers moved from analog to the precision control of digital. The first digital effects as exemplified by Stephen BeckStephen Beck
Stephen Beck is an American artist, writer, toy designer and inventor who pioneered video synthesis and interactive video art.Examples of his work have appeared in collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Whitney Museum of American...
's Video Weavings used digital oscillators optionally linked to horizontal, vertical, or frame resets to generate timing ramps. These ramps could be gated to create the video image itself and were responsible for its underlying geometric texture. Schier and Vasulka advanced the state of the art from address counters to programmable (microcodable) AMD Am2901 bit slice based address generators. On the data path, they used 74S181 arithmetic and logic units, previously thought of as a component for doing arithmetic instructions in minicomputers, to process real time video signals, creating new signals representing the sum, difference, AND, XOR, and so on, of two input signals. These two elements, the address generator, and the video data pipeline, recur as core features of digital video architecture.
The address generator supplied read and write addresses to a real time video memory, which can be thought of as evolution into the most flexible form of gating the address bits together to produce the video. While the video frame buffer is now present in every computer's graphics card, it has not carried forward a number of features of the early video synths. The address generator counts in a fixed rectangular pattern from the upper left hand corner of the screen, across each line, to the bottom. This discarded a whole technology of modifying the image by variations in the read and write addressing sequence provided by the hardware address generators as the image passed through the memory. Today, address based distortions are more often accomplished by blitter
Blitter
In a computer system, a blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, that is dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within that computer's memory...
operations moving data in the memory, rather than changes in video hardware addressing patterns.
1960s
- 1962, Lee Harrison iii's ANIMAC: (Hybrid graphic animation computer) - predecessor to the Scanimate
- 1966, Dan Slater's custom vsynths: Dan Slater has built a number of custom homebrew vsynths over the years, & worked with Douglas Trumbull on various films.
- 1968, Eric Siegel's PCS (Processing Chrominance Synthesizer)
- 1969, Paik/Abe synthesizer
- Built at WGBH Boston Experimental TV Center envisioned by Nam June Paik, designed by artist/engineer Shuya Abe
- Several built at CalArts, and Experimental TV Center SUNY Binghamton, WNET NYC, Jim Wiseman has one still operational
- Click on the heading for a dedicated page, w/extensive Real Video Clips
- 1969, Bill Hearn's VIDIUM: (Analog XYZ driver/sequencer)
- 1969, Glen Southworth's CVI Quantizer & CVI Data Camera
1970-1974
- 1970, Eric Siegel's EVS Electronic Video Synthesizer & Dual Colorizer (Analog)
- 1970, groove & VAmpire
- (Generated Real-time Output Operations on Voltage-controlled Equipment)
- (Video And Music Program for Interactive Realtime Exploration/Experimentation).
- 1970, Lear Siegler's vsynth: Unique Hi-Rez video processor used in the film "Andromeda Strain" and by Douglas Trumbull & Dan Slater
- Stephen BeckStephen BeckStephen Beck is an American artist, writer, toy designer and inventor who pioneered video synthesis and interactive video art.Examples of his work have appeared in collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Whitney Museum of American...
's Direct Video Synth & Beck Video Weaver- The ever-versatile hardware genius, Stephen BeckStephen BeckStephen Beck is an American artist, writer, toy designer and inventor who pioneered video synthesis and interactive video art.Examples of his work have appeared in collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Whitney Museum of American...
created some early 70's synths that had no video inputs. They made video purely from oscillations. - He also modified a few Paik/Abe units.
- The ever-versatile hardware genius, Stephen Beck
- Sherman WALTER WRIGHT: One of the first video animators, he worked at Computer Image Corp in the early 70's, and later at Dolphin Productions, where he operated a Scanimate. While at Dolphin, Ed Emshwiller and him worked on Thermogenisis and Scapemates together, and he also made several tapes on his own. In 1973-76, as artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center, NY, he pioneered video performance touring public access centers, colleges and galleries with the Paik/Abe video synthesizer. He also worked with the David Jones colorizer & Rich Brewsters sequencing modules. These various modules were based on David's design for voltage controlled video amps and became the basis for the ETC studio. He was there when Don McArthur built the SAID. Woody Vasulka and Jeff Schier were close at hand building computer based modules in Buffalo including a frame buffer with ALUs built in, mixers, keyers and colorizers. Wright also worked with Gary Hill at Woodstock Community Video, where they had a weekly cable show of live video/audio synthesis. Wright has developed his own performance video system, the Video Shredder, and uses it to mesmerize audiences wherever and whenever he can. He's getting quite good at it. His mission is to create a new music of sound and image. He has performed throughout the east coast of the USA and Canada at art galleries and museums, schools and colleges, media centers, conferences and festivals.
- 1971, Sandin Image ProcessorSandin Image ProcessorThe Sandin Image Processor is a video synthesizer, usually introduced as the "video equivalent of a Moog audio synthesizer," invented by Dan Sandin. That is, it accepted basic video signals and mixed and modified them in a fashion similar to what a Moog synthesizer did with audio...
: Very early video synth....DIY modular, Built by Dan Sandin of Chicago.
- 1972, Rutt/Etra Video Synthesizer: Co-invented by Steve Rutt & Bill Etra, this is an analog computer for video raster manipulation.
- 1973, Phil Morton publishes "NOTES ON THE AESTHETICS OF 'copying-an-Image Processor'". He "proudly referred to himself as the ‘first copier’ of Sandin’s Image Processor. The Sandin Image Processor offered artists unprecedented abilities to create, process and affect realtime video and audio, enabling performances that literally set the stage for current realtime audio-video New Media Art." (http://mgfest.com/09/Online/philmorton.php)
- 1974, VSYNTH's by David Jones: Many creations, the most famous being the Jones Colorizer, a four channel voltage controllable colorizer with gray level keyers.
- 1974, EMS Spectre: Innovative Video Synthesiser using analogue and digital techniques.
1974-1979
- 1975, Dave Jones Video Digitizer: an early digital video processor used for video art. It did real-time digitizing (no sample clock) and used a 4-bit ALU to create color effects
- 1975, Don McArthuR's SAID: Don McArthur developed the SAID (Spatial and Intensity Digitizer), an outgrowth of research on a black and white time base corrector with Dave Jones
- 1976, DENISE GALLANt's vsynth: Created a very advanced analogue video synthesizer in the late 70's.
- 1976, Chromaton 14
- A fairly small analog video synthesizer, w/color quantizers & can generate complex color images without any external inputs.
- Built by BJA Systems http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vidsynth/chroma14/chroma14.htm* Chromascope synthesizer, PAL and NTSC versions
- 1977, Jones Frame Buffer: Low resolution digital frame storage of video signals (higher resolution versions, and multi-frame versions were made in 1979 and the early 1980s)
- 1979, ScanimateScanimateScanimate is the name for an analog computer animation system developed from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.The Scanimate systems were used to produce much of the video-based animation seen on television between most of the 1970s and early 1980s in commercials, promotions, and show openings...
: Wicked huge thing for broadcast industry- Youtube of a Scanimate News Report
- 1979, Chromachron: One of the first DIGITAL VSynths. - Designed by Ed Tannenbaum.
1980s
- 1984, Fairlight CVI Computer Video Instrument: The Fairlight CVI was produced in the early 80's, and is a hybrid Analog Digital video processor.
2000s
- 2005, The Bob System - by Jesus H. - GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
- 2005 http://iknewthem.tripod.com/gear/bob.htm (analog)
Other Video Synthesizers
- Vasulka
- Spectron - Analog-Digital hybrid, Richard Monkhouse - EMS.
- Videokalos Video Synthesizer
- Image Articulator (Vasulka, Schier, Dosch) real time digital data ops by S181 addressing by Am2901AMD Am2900Am2900 is a family of integrated circuits created in 1975 by Advanced Micro Devices . They were constructed with bipolar devices, in a bit-slice topology, and were designed to be used as modular components each representing a different aspect of a computer control unit...
- Kangaroo Giant Box
- Fluidigeo
- Recollections (Ed Tannenbaum)
- Spectre/Spectron (Richard Monkhouse, Electronic Music Studios UK)
- Video ToasterVideo ToasterThe NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of standard-definition and high-definition video in NTSC, PAL, and resolution independent formats on Commodore Amiga computers and subsequently on computers running the Windows operating system...
for AmigaAmigaThe Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
Computer - Edirol CG-8
- Atari Video MusicAtari Video MusicThe Atari Video Music was introduced by Atari Inc. in 1976, and designed by the initiator of the home version of Pong, Robert Brown. The idea was to create a visual exploration that could be implemented into a Hi-Fi stereo system...
- MilkymistMilkymistThe Milkymist project is an informal organization of people and companies who develop, manufacture and sell a comprehensive open source solution for the live synthesis of interactive visual effects for VJs...
One - http://www.jonesvideo.com/ Jones Modular Video Synthesizer
- http://www.lzxindustries.net/ LZX Visionary
See also
- Audiovisualisers http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vsynths.htm]
- VJ (video performance artist)VJ (video performance artist)VJing is a broad designation for realtime visual performance. Characteristics of VJing are the creation or manipulation of imagery in realtime through technological mediation and for an audience, in synchronization to music. VJing often takes place at events such as concerts, nightclubs, music...
- Audiovisual artAudiovisual artThe exploration of kinetic abstract art and music set in relation to each other.Visual music, abstract film, audiovisual performances and installations.- See also :* Abstract film* Color organ* Experimental film* Sound art* Sound installation* Sound sculpture...
- Music visualizationMusic visualizationMusic visualization, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music...
- Video artVideo artVideo art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...