PRESENT TELEVISION AND VIDEO TECHNIQUE – MULTIMEDIA TEXTBOOK AND INTERNET PRESENTATION Tomáš Kratochvíl, Václav Říčný Institute of Radio Electronics, Brno University of Technology Purkyňova 118, Brno 612 00, Czech Republic, Tel.: +420541149113, Fax: +420541149244, E-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] Abstract: The contribution deals with the multimedia textbook and internet presentation used for the University of the Third Age course “Present Television and Video Technique” that is lectured on IREL BUT. The textbook and presentation contain all information that is needed for students (seniors) and their study in the course (syllabus, schedule, presentation and version used for print, lecturers CV, photo gallery etc.). Furthermore, all is available via internet for all other interested people. The course overview and contents of mentioned multimedia textbook and internet presentation is presented in the contribution too. 1 INTRODUCTION The number of seniors in European region and its countries increases in time. Technical universities offer several types of lectures and practically oriented courses for people of various ages that are interested in further self-culture and self-education. The reason is the opening of the university environment to society, the popularization of the new scientific discoveries and state-of the-art technologies in branch of the technical engineering. The other point of view of this type of further education concerns the life style improvement of people who finished their professional career and they are still forced to study. It is known about the mental and physical condition of man in senior age that the activity is the key-point of their future life for them. 2 THE COURSE: OVERVIEW The Institute of Radio Electronics of Brno University of Technology (IREL BUT) joined to the University of the Third Age programme in 2002 with the course “Present Television and Video Technique” (STTV - abbreviated in Czech). The course covers the selected topics of the present technologies in area of analog and digital video cameras, record of the analog and digital video signal, the standards for digital satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasting etc. The seniors obtain the brief theoretical overview to each topic and subsequently the practical demonstration lecture including the final discussion. Senior’s acceptance to this type of education is very positive. The aim of the course is to make a presentation of present state and developments of television and video technique area, especially the digital solutions that become very topical today because of the terrestrial digital television broadcasting (DVB-T) development in the Czech Republic. The syllabus consists of several selected topics of present and modern technologies in area of television and video technique. Each topic contains the opening lecture presented by the lecturer (approx. 30 minutes, see Fig. 1a). This presentation introduces the basic principles and the students (seniors) become very comprehensibly acquainted with the technical phenomena. The short discussion may follow after or coincides with the lecture. The practical demonstration (approx. 45 minutes, see Fig. 1b) is the second part of each
seminar and is held in Laboratory of television technique and video technique (IREL BUT). This type of education is limited with the number of seniors in each study group (up to 15 seniors is usually sufficient). Presented basic principles of most topics are demonstrated directly and it is frequent to answer immediate questions. The interest of the seniors is enormous in comparison with standard bachelor and master degree students interest. The last part of each seminar is final discussion (remaining 15 minutes) that could be utilized for the short test too. The test contains 10 simple questions that were discussed during the lecture. The test is more entertaining than serious and it is not necessary to pass it. After all lectures the seniors are asked to evaluate anonymously or personally the course quality. The feedback for lecturers gives back very good results and high rates.
a)
b)
Fig. 1 Pictures from the course: a) opening lecture, b) practical demonstration. The seniors are challenged to make an individual project or essay that is related to some topic of the lectures. They are encouraged to find serious and useful information on the internet, www pages and in technical books, magazines, operation manuals etc. especially in the University library. They are asked for technical information about some products from the area of television technique and its inclusion into their individual project. It is obvious that the sense of these projects is more sociable than technical. The idea is to present some knowledge that people from all kinds of professions (teachers, doctors, civil engineers, chemists etc.) gained during the education in our course. 3 THE COURSE: LECTURES There are recent topics of the course (each seminar contains mentioned lecture, practical demonstration, final discussion and test): •
Analog and digital satellite television broadcasting (GEO orbit and satellite services, receiving antenna, satellite receiver, standard DVB-S and packet Czech Link, comparison of analog and digital satellite transmission quality),
•
Digital photograph and digital cameras (B/W an color digital photography, digital camera block diagram, CCD sensor principle, digital image processing by using the PC and specialized software for editing, archiving and print of photographs),
•
Image scanners and television video cameras (1D and 2D image scanners principles, B/W and color analog video cameras, professional television cameras used in TV studios, digital camera block diagram, thermovision cameras and optical amplifiers),
•
Analog video-tape recording (helical recording, record speed, analog, professional and non-professional standards for analog tape records, VCR (video cassette recorder) block diagram, linear edit of analog records and special function of VCRs),
•
Digital video-tape recording (digital video signal, sampling formats, MPEG compression principles, compression principles, professional and non-professional standards for digital tape records, digital video non-linear edit on PC),
•
Optical record standard DVD and home cinema (DVD standard overview, capacity of DVD disc, copy protection, picture and sound formats used in the DVD record, authoring and production of DVD, home cinema systems, ITU-R recommendations),
•
Digital television DVB (digital television in the European region, advantages and disadvantages of digital video broadcasting, ITU-R recommendations, DVB-S, DVB-C and DVB-T standard overview, present DVB-T pilot projects in Czech Republic),
•
Modern projection and displays, 3D television (television set with background projection, projection with LCD panels and DPL projection principle, laser projection principle, plasma screen principle, 3D picture presentation principles and techniques).
•
Final seminar (discussion about the television and video technique development in future, discussion about the individual projects and essays and its evaluation, evaluation of the seniors course quality and feedback for lecturers).
4 THE COURSE: MULTIMEDIA TEXTBOOK AND INTERNET PRESENTATION Homepage of the course is available via internet on www pages of Institute of Radio Electronics, Brno University of Technology, http://www.feec.vutbr.cz/UREL/U3V/STTV (see Fig.2). This page contains all information about the course “Present Television and Video Technique” and basic philosophy of the University of the Third Age is introduced too. All documents are available as well arranged links to download appropriate files. There is a list of information that is available for free on internet via mentioned homepage: • • • • • • • • •
Syllabus of the course with the schedule and names of the lecture. Short CV of lecturers and e-mail and business contacts. MS Powerpoint presentation of the course in Czech and English language. Picture gallery from the course and previous lectures. Each topics annotation and short overview of demonstrations. Download link to the MS Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat color presentation. Download link to the B/W Adobe Acrobat presentation version for print. Download link to a test form including the answers. Information about individual projects and essays and its content.
Fig. 2 Homepage of the course.
The next figure presents a skin of some PPT slides of selected presentation (see Fig. 3). The emphasis of the presentation composition is to put on the comprehensibility of each topic.
Fig. 3 Example slide of selected topic „Digital photograph and cameras“ presented in Czech language [2].
5 CONCLUSION The course “Present television and video technique” that is taught for senior students of the University of the Third Age (U3V) at IREL BUT is an opportunity for active people in retirement age to get some knowledge about the area of television and video technique. The seniors obtain the brief theoretical overview to each topic and subsequently the practical demonstration lecture including the final discussion and test. The quality of the course increases after two years of experiences and lecturers created the comprehensive multimedia textbook and internet presentation used not only for seniors but available on internet to interested people from all kinds of professions concerned in their further self-education. Presented multimedia textbook and internet presentation in present state are results of development grant project. Although the project is finished, the presented homepage and created documents will be successively supplement towards the news and innovation in area of television and video technique, especially in digital solution area. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This contribution was supported by the grant project of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic “Multimedia textbook for the course Present television and video technique” no. 1585/2004 and Research programme of Brno University of Technology MSM0021630513 “Electronic Communication Systems and New Generation Technology (ELKOM)”. REFERENCES [1] [2]
[3]
Present Television and Video Technique – University of the Third Age Course Homepage. http://www.feec.vutbr.cz/UREL/U3V/STTV, FEEC BUT, 2004. KRATOCHVÍL, T. Multimedia textbook for the course Present television and video technique. Final report of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic development grant project no. 1585/2004, Brno, 2004. KRATOCHVÍL, T., ŘÍČNÝ, V. Present Television and Video Technique – Teaching of Seniors at University of the Third Age Course. In Proceedings of Applied Electronics 2004, University of West Bohemia, p. 121-123, Pilsen, 2004.
