page_title: Video synthesizer
section_title: Confluence of ideas of Electronics and Arts
hierarchical_section_title: Video synthesizer / Confluence of ideas of Electronics and Arts
caption_attribution_description: English: Richard Monkhouse “Image produced by Spectre videosynthesizer In the UK Richard Monkhouse working for EMS developed a hybrid video synthesiser — Spectre — later renamed 'Spectron' which used the EMS patchboard system to allow completely flexible connections between module inputs and outputs. The video signals were digital, but they were controlled by analog voltages. There was a digital patchboard for image composition and an analog patchboard for motion control.” —“Video synthesizer on en.wikipedia Further reading SPECTRE Color Video Synthesizer. Video Synthesizers, Tool Shack. AudioVisualizers.com Inc..
context_page_description: A video synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal. A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators. It can also accept and "clean up and enhance" or "distort" live television camera imagery. The synthesizer creates a wide range of imagery through purely electronic manipulations. This imagery is visible within the output video signal when this signal is displayed. The output video signal can be viewed on a wide range of conventional video equipment, such as TV monitors, theater video projectors, computer displays, etc.
  Video pattern generators may produce static or moving or evolving imagery. Examples include geometric patterns, subtitle text characters in a particular font, or weather maps.
  Imagery from TV cameras can be altered in color or geometrically scaled, tilted, wrapped around objects, and otherwise manipulated.
  A particular video synthesizer will offer a subset of possible effects.
context_section_description: Many principles used in the construction of early video synthesizers reflected a healthy and dynamic interplay between electronic requirements and traditional interpretations of artistic forms.
  For example, Rutt & Etra and Sandin carried forward as an essential principle ideas of Robert Moog that standardized signal ranges so that any module's output could be connected to "voltage control" any other module's input.  The consequence of this in a machine like the Rutt-Etra was that position, brightness, and color were completely interchangeable and could be used to modulate each other during the processing that led to the final image.  Videotapes by Louise and Bill Etra and Steina and Woody Vasulka dramatized this new class of effects. This led to various interpretations of the multi-modal synthesesia of these aspects of the image in dialogues that extended the McLuhanesque language of film criticism of the time.
caption: Image produced by Spectre videosynthesizer
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