George Walkley
Service Manager
Z Systems
Minnetonka, MN

Jeffrey T. Happ
HD/SD Cinematographer and Engineer
Pasadena, CA

World Poker Tour
Las Vegas, NV
It was a real pleasure meeting you and everyone @ the DSC booth during the recent NAB in Las Vegas... gosh, was it almost 6 months ago..? Ouch! Also many thanks for the picture of DC and yours truly on your website.

Been a great year so far. I LOVE my chart! ... so wishing I had your 'Fiddleheads BF' chart on the flip side but then it wasn't available when I ordered was it?  I put it to use right away. I've just flown with it for the 5th or 6th time.

My chart also now has a hard anvil case for when it travels with other production gear. That will happen next week, going to Las Vegas again. Right after that, my/your chart goes back on the truck off to poker at the Fallsview Casino Resort, Niagara Falls, Ontario around the end of October.

Season 5 of World Poker Tour is well underway. Last month in Atlantic City, I was working the most recent installment when I got hold of a fellow co-worker to breakout his camera to shoot a couple of snaps of my chart working. (It's so hard for me to disengage from engineering to break out my own damn camera!)

Yours truly retrieving the chart ... Most of the time I get so busy, that the camera crew returns it to me. Together, we make sure the 7 cameras are back-focused. (whew) They love it too! The gent next to me is a local hire from the Atlantic City area. My call sheet had no info on him. He's a good guy, I've worked with him before.
I want to thank our tape operator from the show, Scott Halver for taking these pictures.

Best regards to everyone at DSC.

Jeffrey T. Happ

Crew shown is as follows: Back Row left to right - DP Lawrence Schweich, 1st AC Jeremiah Jones, Camera Operator Bradford Whitaker - Front Row: Camera Operator Adam Walderman, Camera Operator Anka Malatynska, Lead Actor John Lehr, 1st AC Ana Saldana, Not Pictured 1st AC Tiffany Auge - Bottom Front: Digital Imaging Tech Joseph T. McDonnell III with his ChromaDumonde Chart

Joseph T. McDonnell III
HD Cinematographer
TV Series, "10 Items or Less"
New Orleans, LO

Hi Dave,

Here's something for your website. A new TBS series I worked on called "10 Items Or Less".  We used a DSC ChromaDuMonde Chart on the Pilot Episode to help get the show off to a great start. It helped tremendously with camera matching on set.  The show is shot with three Sony PDW-530WS XDCAM cameras and recorded in Sony's IMX50 format at 24p, composed for 16x9.

Thank you DSC for a wonderful tool.

It was a wonderful experience working on the pilot episode with such a talented director Nancy Hower, DP and fantastic camera dept. Also my thanks to Grip Paul Lambiase, Best Boy Brian Gilbert and Gaffer Justin Duval who helped me constantly with setups and keeping video village happy!

Joseph T. McDonnell III - Cinematography/High Definition
IATSE 600 - New Orleans, La - Los Angeles, Ca - 818-675-1501

B. Sean Fairburn, SOC
HD Cinematographer 
rolemodel@earthlink.net  
Ponchatoula, LA

Having had the opportunity to use the DSC Labs CamAlign charts on every HD project I have ever done, I would say that I can't do a job without them.

I take my images very seriously, and "tuning or tweaking" the camera is always necessary to create and maintain consistent performance.

 DSC Labs' charts give me that consistency.  I regularly use the Gray Scale and Color Bar chart now with the Cavity Black.

It's a great reference device for not just me in the field but all the way through post and to film out.

I liked DSC Labs charts' durability so much I had them build 2 complete sets for a feature in Mexico.

David Corley was also gracious enough to create a custom Back Focus chart that has a pattern specifically designed to help me see what I need to see for critical focus using the Peaking knob on the HD camera.  If you get nothing else from DSC, you must get a Back Focus chart.

Just because I'm shooting HD doesn't always mean I'm shooting a 16x9 aspect ratio, so with the 1.85 framing lines inside the 90% safe area I can use it as a frame and focus chart as well as a color reference tool.  1.77, 1.85, 2.35, are now available, and on all my charts.

As a High Definition DP, there is too much that can go wrong for me to take chances in the field. "It's better to insure success rather than hope for it".  That's why I use DSC Labs' charts.

Mel Gargus
Senior Video Engineer / Tech Manager
A & E and CBC
Edmonton, Canada

I was recently in Doha (Qatar) working the Asian Games and the DSC chart was a hit with all the video engineers here. Some European engineers had never seen a chart like yours before and were very interested. The opera "Filumena" (Picture Sent earlier this year) has now won the Alberta Motion Picture Industry Association (AMPIA) AWARD ! I used my DSC chart to attain a FILM LOOK from SONY Video Cameras. Production wanted a "film" look and I was able to attain this with my DSC chart.

I used my chart on the Figure skating production for the host broadcaster during the Torino Olympics and again when the Edmonton Oilers made a run for the Stanley Cup. Summer brought the World Cup Soccer in Munich and I also did some custom line ups to a SONY memory stick on a XD CAM for an Edmonton DOP. I recently used my chart for a NBC production called "Elite" Curling which was recorded in Whistler BC. I'm currently using the chart in Doha and getting exposure for DSC on the world stage once again!

Kind Regards, Mel Gargus

Dana Liman
President
Liman Video Rental Co.
New York, New York

Roger Macie
President
Macie Video Service
Dedham, Massachusetts

Our company services field cameras for nearly a thousand network shooters across the US.  DSC's Ambi/Combi has contributed greatly to our business success over the past decade.  It enables us to improve the quality of our clients' video images, match cameras, and achieve film and other special looks for them.

During three years of testing, we used Ambi/Combi to develop the "Macie Uniform Standard", our unique procedure for camera set-ups.  It enables us to match and improve the look of nearly every camera we set-up, and has a true 100% client satisfaction rate.  The Ambi/Combi has allowed us to set the standard for network news and magazine shows in the US.

Dateline is an important account for us, and NBC's Susan Franks ranks optimizing the show's visual quality as a top priority.  "We want good looking pictures for Dateline and we want the show to have a cohesive quality, and consistent 'look'.  High production value is our mandate.  When a freelancer buys a new camera I always recommend they call Roger and have him set it up, thereby ensuring me that a: the camera is in good condition and it will run well, and b: when I send the shooter into the field, matching pictures with another crew will not be an issue."

"Roger is a genius, and a real pro.  I trust him implicitly and my policy, if someone has had a camera problem, is that they must send their rig to Roger and have him look at it before they work for Dateline again.  It's for all of our protection."  

"When there is breaking news, I can have any two or three crews on a story, and if their cameras are set up by Roger, I know the pictures will be "Dateline standard".  I know that we will save time and manpower in the field because we won't, necessarily, need an engineer to tweak the pictures.  On a breaking news story we can't always take the time to play with the pictures, and it's precisely in this situation that we need to be insured against any problems that need fixing in post because the air date is almost immediate.  Macie servicing saves us time in post and manpower in the field."

Jay Ballard
Senior Video Engineer
American Broadcasting Corporation
New York, NY

I have been using Ambi/Combi since the early 90s, and have found it to be a time saving tool in camera preparation and service.  Because grayscale, flare and colorimetry are combined, only one chart is needed for general alignment.  Ambi/Combi is a time-saver and offers consistent and accurate results. 

I have been affiliated for many years with major US networks based in New York, where Ambi/Combi is used in daily alignment of studio cameras.  Initially, we began using Ambi/Combi in the laboratory, where earlier illuminators had greater shading errors than any of the lens/camera combinations under evaluation.  This non-uniformity could result in the cameras being misadjusted.  When demonstrated in studio operations, the Ambi/Combi System was embraced by some of the most critical users and placed into service on major network programs.

We've been using DSC test materials for 10 years - and we love 'em.  We've looked at everything else for our Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver facilities - but nothing compares.  DSC charts are the standard of the broadcast industry.

My engineering team has been using DSC's Combi-1 test transparency since 1994.  We service and repair a variety of Sony cameras at Sony's Western Regional Service Center.  Many of our clients are high-end shooters for TV news, news magazines and documentaries - working in Los Angeles, Burbank and Hollywood.  Amongst many user applications, we use Combi-1 to align HD cameras for shooting space shuttle takeoffs and landings.

Combi-1's true reference vector color values provide a de facto standard for making our clients' images accurate and consistent, either to SMPTE or the user's preference.  The chart is a time and cost saver, too - our engineers do a color alignment in under 10 minutes.  We have satisfied customers and excellent repeat business.  The big challenge is trying to explain the benefits of color alignment to new clients.  Many shooters aren't aware of what their cameras can do.  They're surprised at how much better their cameras look than everyone else's after we've aligned them.

Steve Lucas
Quality Control Manager
Burbank, California

We need charts that are accurate, readily available and ruggedly constructed - and CamAligns fit the bill.  We use CamAligns to service HD and SD cameras.  Necessary tests - gain, gamma, flare comps, black level, colorimetry, detail level and white shading - are completed quickly and precisely with the charts.