Cinema Products Corp. automates bar code reading on motion picture film using WinWedge.

Cinema Products manufactures equipment for the motion picture industry, including the Oscar and Emmy award winning Steadicam. They have been in business for 25 years, with approximately 50 employees. They sell to all areas of film and video production, from camera operators to post production and consumer video.

Film scenes are tracked directly from bar codes on the film into a computer database using WinWedge

Cinema Products developed a system that utilizes a special bar code scanner for reading bar-coded key numbers from the edge of motion picture film. These numbers are used to keep track of specific scenes and takes selected during editing. A common application is to transfer film to video, edit in video, and then cut the film to match the video edit. The key numbers are read during the film to video transfer and stored on the video for extraction during editing. WinWedge Standard is used when logging bar code data from edited film rolls into a computer database.

Before learning of WinWedge, Cinema Products customers were typing the visually read data into the keyboard of their PCs. Other customers had developed their own custom application programs to solve the problem of getting the data from the RS232 scanner into their PC applications.

WinWedge Benefits

The major advantage of the WinWedge is that it eliminated the need for custom software since it is completely compatible with ALL Windows programs and it can transfer the RS232 data to an application while remaining transparent to the user. Hence the customers are able to use their existing application programs, including databases.

"I feel the WinWedge greatly enhances the desirability of our equipment" said Jim Bartell, an engineer at Cinema Products Corp., "I would absolutely recommend it to others with a similar application."

He also said he was especially happy with the WinWedge’s "ability to ‘edit’ the incoming data to match existing software requirements", and he adds, "I wish I had thought of it!".

Benefits

• Transparent to user
• Eliminated need for custom software
• Compatibility with any Windows platform
• Ability to parse and filter data

TAL Technologies, Inc.
2101 Brandywine Street,
Suite 102,
Philadelphia, PA 19130, USA
Tel: 800-722-6004
Tel: 215-496-0222
Fax: 215-496-0322