Faking the big-screen look

Movie footage looks much better than straight video, even when it’s been transferred to videotape format. But shooting a conventional film costs five times as much as using a video camera. Now Glenn Przyborski and seven co-inventors from Philadelphia (EP 1175091) have developed a video camera that makes footage look like film. The trick? Simulating the characteristic swirling grain effect caused by the ever-changing pattern of silver halide crystals in film emulsion. The new video camera temporarily stores each image frame in its memory where it superimposes a faint, pseudorandom mosaic pattern onto the picture. When you play it back, the footage looks like film that’s…