A film recorder is a graphical output device for transferring digital images to photographic film.
All film recorders typically work in the same manner. The image is fed from a host computer as a raster stream over a digital interface. A film recorder exposes film through various mechanisms; flying spot (early recorders); photographing a high resolution video monitor; electron beam recorder (Sony HDVS); a CRT scanning dot (Celco); focused beam of light from a light valve technology (LVT) recorder; a scanning laser beam (Arrilaser); or recently, full-frame LCD array chips.
For color image recording on a CRT film recorder, the red, green, and blue channels are separately displayed on the same gray scale CRT, and exposed to the same piece of film through a filter of the appropriate color. (This approach yields better resolution and color quality than one could obtain with a color CRT.) The three filters are usually mounted on a motor-driven wheel. The filter wheel, as well as the camera's shutter, aperture, and film motion mechanism are usually controlled by the recorder's electronics and/or the driving software.
Higher-quality LVT film recorders use a focused beam of light to write the image directly onto a film loaded spinning drum, one pixel at a time. The LVT will record pixel beyond grain. Some machines can burn 120-res or 120 lines per millimeter. The LVT is basically a reverse drum scanner. The exposed film is developed and printed by regular photographic chemical processing.
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Famous quotes containing the word film:
“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. Its another part of the twentieth-century mind. Its the world seen from inside. Weve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if theres anything about us more important than the fact that were constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)