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Autocue is a UK-based manufacturer of teleprompter systems. The company was founded in 1955 [1] and licensed its first on-camera teleprompter, based on a patent by Jess Oppenheimer, in 1962. Its products are used by journalists, presenters, politicians and video production staff in almost every country in the world. In Dutch, "autocue" became a genericized trademark as there is no Dutch word for teleprompter. [2] [3]
Prompting began with Jess Oppenheimer, a writer, producer and director on the TV show I Love Lucy in the early 1950s. To solve the problem of the actors forgetting their lines, he developed the teleprompter system. Oppenheimer took out a patent on the system. He licensed the patent to the teleprompting company Autocue in 1955. Meanwhile, a separate entity, QTV, was established in the US. Both companies started by renting teleprompting equipment to studios and these were the first "on-camera" teleprompters in the world.
Oppenheimer's paper-roll system survived until 1969 when Autocue introduced the first closed-circuit prompter. This used a closed-circuit camera system to screen a live video of a scrolling paper script, and display the image on a monitor attached to the front of the camera. The use of a two-way mirror system allowed the script image to be reflected onto a sheet of glass in front of the camera lens, meaning that the presenters were able to read their lines straight from the script while looking directly into the camera. The mirror system meant that the image of the script was not visible to the main camera lens, and indeed this is still the way that most teleprompting systems operate. QTV followed shortly afterwards with similar technology. In the 1970s both companies started selling hardware in addition to maintaining their rental operations.
In 1984, QTV acquired Autocue and retained the two brands in their respective regions. The following year, the newly formed Autocue Group released a computer-driven prompting system, ScriptNet. At the same time the first newsroom computer systems were beginning to appear in television stations.
Autocue and QTV were also interested in digital prompting, leading to the development of their own scriptwriting and running order package. This package is used by many newsrooms, conferences, sitcoms, major drama productions, and more. This system worked on an early version[ specify ] of Microsoft Windows, and was named WinCue.
In 1994, the Autocue Group created the first flatscreen prompters.
The ability to receive, index and process stories from news agency wires was an early addition. Another requirement was the ability to control multiple playout devices, such as videotape machines and character generators, from a central running order. The Autocue Group accordingly developed its own automation system, as applicable to programme playout as to news. This was followed by the ability to handle media as well as words. Following a project with CNN, a wireless tablet PC-based system to effect and share script changes using ‘digital ink’ was added.
In 1998, a newsroom application company, DCM, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, was acquired to complement the existing newsroom product range.
Autocue have since introduced an IP-based prompting system, QMaster/QBox, which allows prompting over a network over any distance.
A single-lens reflex camera (SLR) is a camera that typically uses a mirror and prism system that permits the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured. With twin lens reflex and rangefinder cameras, the viewed image could be significantly different from the final image. When the shutter button is pressed on most SLRs, the mirror flips out of the light path, allowing light to pass through to the light receptor and the image to be captured.
A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras. High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs.
Canon Inc. is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, specializing in optical, imaging, and industrial products, such as lenses, cameras, medical equipment, scanners, printers, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
An overhead projector, like a film or slide projector, uses light to project an enlarged image on a screen, allowing the view of a small document or picture to be shared with a large audience.
Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.
Jessurun James Oppenheimer was an American radio and television writer, producer, and director. He was the producer and head writer of the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.
A teleprompter, also known as an autocue, is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script.
Automatix Inc., founded in January 1980, was the first company to market industrial robots with built-in machine vision. Its founders were Victor Scheinman, inventor of the Stanford arm; Phillippe Villers, Michael Cronin, and Arnold Reinhold of Computervision; Jake Dias and Dan Nigro of Data General; Gordon VanderBrug, of NBS, Donald L. Pieper of General Electric and Norman Wittels of Clark University.
A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor.
A catadioptric optical system is one where refraction and reflection are combined in an optical system, usually via lenses (dioptrics) and curved mirrors (catoptrics). Catadioptric combinations are used in focusing systems such as searchlights, headlamps, early lighthouse focusing systems, optical telescopes, microscopes, and telephoto lenses. Other optical systems that use lenses and mirrors are also referred to as "catadioptric", such as surveillance catadioptric sensors.
The Maksutov is a catadioptric telescope design that combines a spherical mirror with a weakly negative meniscus lens in a design that takes advantage of all the surfaces being nearly "spherically symmetrical". The negative lens is usually full diameter and placed at the entrance pupil of the telescope. The design corrects the problems of off-axis aberrations such as coma found in reflecting telescopes while also correcting chromatic aberration. It was patented in 1941 by Russian optician Dmitri Dmitrievich Maksutov. Maksutov based his design on the idea behind the Schmidt camera of using the spherical errors of a negative lens to correct the opposite errors in a spherical primary mirror. The design is most commonly seen in a Cassegrain variation, with an integrated secondary, that can use all-spherical elements, thereby simplifying fabrication. Maksutov telescopes have been sold on the amateur market since the 1950s.
Luther George Simjian was an Armenian-American inventor and entrepreneur. A prolific and professional inventor, he held over 200 patents, mostly related to optics and electronics. His most significant inventions were a pioneering flight simulator, arguably the first ATM and improvement to the teleprompter.
In photography, through-the-lens metering refers to a feature of cameras whereby the intensity of light reflected from the scene is measured through the lens; as opposed to using a separate metering window or external hand-held light meter. In some cameras various TTL metering modes can be selected. This information can then be used to set the optimal film or image sensor exposure, it can also be used to control the amount of light emitted by a flash unit connected to the camera.
The Olympus E-500 is an 8-megapixel digital SLR camera manufactured by Olympus of Japan and based on the Four Thirds System. It was announced on 26 September 2005. Like the E-300 launched the previous year, it uses a Full Frame Transfer Kodak KAF-8300CE CCD imaging chip.
High-speed photography is the science of taking pictures of very fast phenomena. In 1948, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) defined high-speed photography as any set of photographs captured by a camera capable of 69 frames per second or greater, and of at least three consecutive frames. High-speed photography can be considered to be the opposite of time-lapse photography.
A timeline of United States inventions encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Contemporary era to the present day, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Patent protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 was the first digital mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera (MILC) adhering to the Micro Four Thirds system design standard. The G1 camera is similar to the larger Four Thirds system format DSLR cameras, but replaces the complex optical path needed for the optical viewfinder with an electronic viewfinder EVF displaying a live view image directly from the sensor. Eliminating the mirror box and optical viewfinder allows for smaller and lighter camera bodies, while the less complex optical path also allows for smaller, lighter lens designs.
Biogon is the brand name of Carl Zeiss for a series of photographic camera lenses, first introduced in 1934. Biogons are typically wide-angle lenses.
VIEW Engineering was one of the first manufacturers of commercial machine vision systems. These systems provided automated dimensional measurement, defect detection, alignment and quality control capabilities. They were used primarily in the Semiconductor device fabrication, Integrated circuit packaging, Printed circuit board, Computer data storage and Precision assembly / fabrication industries. VIEW's systems used video and laser technologies to perform their functions without touching the parts being examined.
An optical head-mounted display (OHMD) is a wearable device that has the capability of reflecting projected images as well as allowing the user to see through it. In some cases, this may qualify as augmented reality (AR) technology. OHMD technology has existed since 1997 in various forms, but despite a number of attempts from industry, has yet to have had major commercial success.
