EQUIPMENT

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Subtitling Equipment:

The Titra Laser Subtitling Technology is environmentally friendly, offering 100% safety for the picture and sound tracks of the film and the best results on Polyester stock. The Solid State lasers do not require water cooling and consume little electricity. The Titra laser subtitling equipment is delivered with editing, spotting and engraving software and the necessary equipment for polyester subtitling.

For more information, please contact:
Titra Film Laboratorium B.V
Kollenbergweg 80
1101 AV AMSTERDAM
The Netherlands
Telephone: ++31 20 6 930 950
Telefax: ++31 20 665 00 43

 

TITRA LASER SUBTITLING SYSTEMS

There are two systems, A and B available.
(A fully automatic System C is under development.)

 

SYSTEM 'A'

Compact Closed System

Construction

All parts of the system are placed in a compact cabinet to achieve a modern industrial production machine. The compact design guarantees optimal protection of the optics and all other components of the system.

The system is easily movable to other places.

The laser part of the system is placed on an optical table, the mechanism isolated from the other parts. This prevents vibrations to the very sensitive engraving part of the machine.

Because of the open construction, all parts of the system can be accessed very easily for maintenance and optical adjustments if necessary.

The Film-winding / rewinding part is constructed in the cabinet located at the side of the table, only connected to the optical table via the - to be subtitled - film.

For visual inspection of the subtitling process, the engraved frames are projected on a screen at the front of the machine, making it easy to observe the results of engraving.

 

Figure 1.02 shows a picture of the cabinet.

 

Functional description

The laser beam from the laser head is first fed into an Acoustic Optical Modulator (AOM), which modulates the laser beam in such a way that the beam is switched to the film when a character of the subtitle is to be engraved on the film and switched to a so called "beam dump", in between two characters or inside a character when a character consists of different parts as in the character "H" for example (two vertical and one horizontal line).

After the AOM, the beam diameter is expanded in a "beam expander" consisting of one negative and one positive lens. A third lens is used to focus the beam on the film via the two (X-Y) mirrors in a scan head.

The scan head is a very precise instrument and will position the laser beam on the film with an accuracy of less then a few micrometer (one thousands of a millimeter).

The Film Positioning System positions a new frame in the engraving window each time a frame is engraved. The frames are fed by a "Winding - Rewinding" system.

The whole system is controlled by a MicroSoft Windows based personal computer (PC) program, (Ledit10), which can be operated in a very simple way by a mouse or a touch-screen monitor combined with a keyboard.

The program is adapted to all languages in the world.

Figure 1.01 shows a diagram of the functional construction of the machine.

 

Performance

The performance of the system can be characterized by the following criteria

- the "whiteness" of the characters in the subtitle
- the "shape" of the characters in the subtitle
- the speed of the subtitling process expressed in "subtitles per hour"

These performance criteria depend on the following properties and settings

- Laser power
- Laser beam shape
- Engraving speed (speed of the laser beam, "writing" in he film emulsion)
- Film emulsion material
- Maximum speed of the scan head mirrors
- Speed of the Film Positioning System

It is difficult, not to say impossible, to characterize the speed of the subtitling process in "subtitles per hour" without defining:

- the average number of characters in a subtitle expressed in characters
- the average size of the characters
- the font used.
- the average time duration of a subtitle expressed in number of frames
- the average time space between subtitles expressed in number of frames.

The following figures were measured with an average character size of 0.9 mm, a laser font with a Helvetica shape and a laser power of 4.5 watt

Example 1
Text: "Titra Titra"
average length of subtitle = 10 characters + 1 space
average time duration of subtitle = 24 frames
average time between subtitles = 16 frames
Engraving time of one frame = 0.109 Sec
Subtitling speed = 1200 Subtitles / Hour

Example 2
Text: "Toegangsvisa voor Kaunas."
average length of subtitle = 23 characters + 2 spaces
average time duration of subtitle = 64 frames
average time between subtitles = 16 frames
Engraving time of one frame = 0.250 Sec
Subtitling speed = 220 Subtitles / Hour

Example 3
Text: "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" + "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
average length of subtitle = 52 characters (two lines)
average time duration of subtitle = 128 frames
average time between subtitles = 16 frames
Engraving time of one frame = 0.375 Sec
Subtitling speed = 75 Subtitles / Hour

In the examples the average time duration of a subtitle is taken longer as the subtitle length increases (it takes more time to read a longer subtitle).
As can be seen from the above figures: the subtitling speed varies over a large range of values (from 1200 to 75 subtitles per hour) depending on the size and duration of the subtitle.

For two regular reels the measured figures are:
Reel 1: Reel length=1473 feet with 271 titles: Subtitling Time=1:05:53
Subtitling speed = 246 Subtitles / Hour
Reel 2: Reel length=1850 feet with 295 titles: Subtitling Time=1:27:10
Subtitling speed = 203 Subtitles / Hour

 

SYSTEM 'B'

High Speed Compact Closed System

Construction

The only difference with system A is the implemented laser, which is a high power pulsed laser.

Functional description

System B is functionally equal to system A

Performance

The performance of System B is far superior to the performance of system A

The following figures were measured in analogy with the measurements for the A system.

Example 1
Text: "Titra Titra"
average length of subtitle = 10 characters + 1 space
average time duration of subtitle = 24 frames
average time between subtitles = 16 frames
Engraving time of one frame = 0.078 Sec
Subtitling speed = 1585 Subtitles / Hour

Example 2
Text: "Toegangsvisa voor Kaunas."
average length of subtitle = 23 characters + 2 spaces
average time duration of subtitle = 64 frames
average time between subtitles = 16 frames
Engraving time of one frame = 0.109 Sec
Subtitling speed = 488 Subtitles / Hour

Example 3
Text: "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" + "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
average length of subtitle = 52 characters (two lines)
average time duration of subtitle = 128 frames
average time between subtitles = 16 frames
Engraving time of one frame = 0.203 Sec
Subtitling speed = 137 Subtitles / Hour

 

For subtitles with an average length of 10 characters, the gain in speed is relatively small (about 32%). For larger subtitles however the speed gain is dramatically, ranging from 80% for a subtitle with a length of 50 characters to 120% for subtitles with a length of 25 characters.

For the same regular reels as for system A, the figures are:
Reel 1: Reel length=1473 feet with 271 titles: Subtitling Time=00:38:54
Subtitling speed = 416 Subtitles / Hour
Compared with system A: Gain = 70 %
Reel 2: Reel length=1850 feet with 295 titles: Subtitling Time=00:42:13
Subtitling speed = 419 Subtitles / Hour
Compared with system A: Gain = 106%

 

SYSTEM 'C'

Fully Automatic System

A new concept to fully automate the existing laser engraving systems is under development.

With this automation it is possible to operate the system without any human interaction for at least 16 hours.

The automation consists in principle of the following parts

- container in which a certain number of un-subtitled reels are placed
- "robotic arm" to manipulate the reels
- mechanism to join/cut the end-frames of reels and intermediate film
- take-up module in film-transport (winding of reel)
- feed-on module in film-transport (rewinding of reel)
- software module in Ledit10 to control the robot

The reels are to be placed, side-by-side, in the container close to the laser system.

The size (number of reels) of the container can be calculated roughly by assuming an average subtitling time per reel for a Type C laser system of 40 minutes.
This results in a container for 24 reels for a production time of 16 hours.

If a longer production time is required, a container with more places has to be implemented.

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