David and Susan Corley decided to start DSC in 1962.  As motion picture producers, D and S had won many awards, including the Rose Bowl for best Canadian Commercial and the Bronze Medal at the International Film Festival in NYC.  Always perfectionists, David commented to the CBC that DSC was not happy with the way its film was being reproduced on television.  He was told that the industry desperately needed good test patterns for telecine alignment and, in so many words, "if you are so damn smart, why not make us some". 

Not wanting to back away from a challenge, Dave and Sue worked with CBC Engineering Headquarters in Montreal to design suitable patterns.  Because of the Callier factor (B/W film scatters more short wavelengths of light than the long), the crossed grayscale test patterns had to be produced on color film.  To achieve this took two years during which time D and S patented and built sophisticated optical printers and modified densitometers and processing equipment to previously unattainable levels of precision.

The test patterns that resulted from this work were widely used throughout North America and became the national standard of the Canadian Telecasting Practices Committee.

The specialized equipment developed to make the test patterns also enabled DSC to make landmark advances in the AV industry.  The hardware they designed and patented included CAMI, a $750,000.00 Computer Aided Multi Imager.  CAMI was an aerial imaging, additive optical printer with an unprecedented gamut of 540,000,000 colors.  CAMI's unique optical path enabled slide duplicates to be printed with the emulsion the same way round as originals.  This technology eliminated the need for auto-focusing projectors, which along with another DSC development, Soft-Edged Masking,  enabled the rapid development of Multi-Image as it came to be known.

DSC became "the Lab" for "better than original" slide duplicates, filmstrip transfers, film processing and other precision lab services - clients even flew in from Europe with important jobs on the Concord.  DSC Fuzzies, soft-edged-masks, became the world standard as did the TC-2 projector alignment grid.  These products were sold through DSC distributors and dealers from Helsinki to Auckland.

	In its 25th anniversary year, DSC received the coveted Canada Award for Business Excellence.
	In 1994, DSC's President Dave Corley received the prestigious Fuji Gold Medal for outstanding engineering achievement in the television industry.

During the 1980's, while AV provided the "Bread & Butter", broadcast test patterns stretched the company's technical capabilities with projects such as Test Card 60 (TC-60).  DSC made this milestone sine wave resolution test pattern for the BBC and ITVA - probably one of the few projects in which the public and private broadcasters ever collaborated. 

In 1990, DSC moved into its present custom-built, environmentally-friendly facility.  Anticipating the explosive growth of video, DSC introduced the rear-lit Ambi/Combi System and, later that decade, CamAlign front-lit Test Charts.  Responding to strong market demand, the company continues to develop premium test charts, expanding its existing product lines for HD production.

High dynamic range CamAligns were an important development in the production of optimum image quality in HD TV and Digital Cinema.  Over the past four years, ChromaDuMonde, "The impossible test chart", has become the Hollywood "standard" used in digital cinema and HD/SD television production.  With ever-increasing sales, DSC test charts are now in widespread use on all continents, in space exploration and in the oceans of the world.

We invite you to browse the various options available in DSC front and rear-lit test systems.