Did You Know

Did you know that Apple's commercial for their retina display features video captured with NAC's Memrecam Digital High Speed Cameras? See the video here... More...

Did you know that the NAC Memrecam GX-1 was used by a film crew in central America filming wildlife for a new nature series on BBC, The Dark: Nature's Nighttime World. NAC's GX-1 was used to capture high speed footage of a net-casting spider's hunting technique. More...

According to Lotta Jakobsson, Technical Leader Safety at Volvo, ‘We need all these high-speed cameras in order to capture the whole crash event. From all the different angles. Because the crash is over in less than a 10th of a second, shorter time than one can blink . So we need to have it all on film in order to do a proper analysis afterwards.’ For an inside view of the Volvo Test Lab in Gothenburg, Sweden and see NAC cameras in action, please click here…

NAC’s UK business partner for applications involving entertainment and broadcasting, ARRI Media, sent their Digital High Speed Manager Andy Hayford to Beijing in April with a single camera for a test shoot of a marathon. “We filmed a real race, but for us it was primarily a practical, logistical and communications rehearsal to see if various things would work, including having a high-speed camera on a vehicle,” explains Hayford. “The Hi-Motion was on a gyro- head mounted on a car and was one of up to seven separate cameras – some on motorbikes and helicopters – that were all transmitting digital HD to antennas on the camera car. In the front footwell was a camera operator who operated the two gyro-heads on the car. In the back was the Hi-Motion technician and a director with a small vision mixer who was cutting between all those different feeds. No-one’s done it quite like that before, but it worked really well.”

The client, BOB (Beijing Olympic Broadcasting), was ecstatic with the results of the test run and confirmed their booking of seven Hi- Motion cameras for the games. The cameras were scheduled for use in the marathon, the triathlon, cycle road racing, indoor velodrome cycle racing, mountain biking, fencing, table tennis, athletic field events, badminton and gymnastics. According to Hayford, “ For a lot of those events audiences will not have previously seen footage any slower than the 3x slow-motion typical of sports coverage.”

The Hi-Motion (from NAC and distributed by ARRI Media) is capable of recording true 1920x1080 HD images at up to 300fps. The Hi-Motion is gaining popularity with sports broadcasters for the incredibly detailed slow-motion images it delivers. The cameras can be seamlessly integrated with standard outside broadcast (OB) systems and are frequently used for technical analysis during live action and breaks in action, as well as for dramatic highlight montages. Hi- Motion cameras continuously record a 22-second loop to an integrated RAM recorder while simultaneously providing a live feed. As soon as that live feed is cut by an operator, the preceding 22 seconds of footage are available for instant replay, slowed down by a factor of 6x or 12x.

For photos, click here

Soon after the production of commercial automobiles, the need arose to develop a means of gathering and analyzing information on the effects of automobile accidents on human bodies. Most sources agree that “Sierra Sam” was the first crash test dummy. The idea for studying the effects of a crash on the human body originated in the late 1940s when the U.S. Air Force studied the safety of the aircraft ejection seats. A 200-pound male dummy developed by Sierra Engineering was used to evaluate the ejection seats in tests, but he was not much more than a mannequin and the researchers were not able to gather all the data they wanted. As a result, the Air Force sought human volunteers.

Crash test dummies are full scale replicas of human beings. Read more on the history of crash test dummies……and the crash test dummy “family”…

High-Speed Cameras (such as those manufactured by NAC Image Technology) play an important role in safety testing.

NAC Cameras have seen a lot of action in Europe during the last three months. Some major highlights:
Sky Sports:
- Rugby Internationals
- Heineken Cup Final (International Club Rugby)
- Premiership Football (Soccer)…currently 2 matches a week
- International Cricket Test Matches
- International Show Jumping at Hickstead
- Polo Gold Cup Final
- International Boxing
International Motor Racing:
- Malaysian Grand Prix
- Spanish Grand Prix
- European Grand Prix
UEFA:
- UEFA Under 21 Championships (Soccer) 8 matches in the Netherlands
BBC Sport:
- FA Cup Final at the new Wembley Stadium
- Football (Soccer) Internationals
ITV Sport:
- UEFA Champions League Final in Athens
- International Boxing from Cardiff

The UK has been inundated with rain recently - see the rain in slow motion as it hits against the window (taken with a NAC High-Speed Camera at 1,000 fps.).

As seen on MSN Fox News, a future home run hitter takes aim at NAC High-Speed Camera.

See additional photos on MSN Fox Sports

Have you ever “researched” television sets and made up your mind which TV “sounds” like the best deal – only to get to the store and look at the pictures of different sets side-by-side…and then decided on a totally different television set based on the quality of the picture? Why? You have to SEE the difference!

Data Sheets and specifications do not tell the entire story when describing something that requires the use of one of our five “senses”. Words cannot fully describe the smell of a rose, the feel of baby’s skin, the sound of coyote’s “scream”, the taste of freshly baked bread, or the picture of fireworks exploding in the night sky.

When you are in the market for a high-speed camera – the same philosophy holds true. A wise shopper compares (sees) the quality of the image(s) produced prior to making a purchase decision. Specifications alone can be misleading – different camera manufacturers may use the same sensor, but the images from these cameras look different from each other. One camera may boast of a higher resolution – but when you look at the image, the picture appears “grainy” or “blurry” or “too dark” or the colors are not as vivid.

Before making a major investment in a high-speed camera – compare the images from different cameras on YOUR application! Just because one manufacturer may “show” you a great image taken from their camera – ask for a demo! See the visible difference!

In 1980 NAC developed the first High Speed Video Camera utilizing commercial off-the-shelf VHS Recording Tape - it was the NAC HSV-200! Read more…

The tongue is actually made up of 16 muscles. It assists in forming the sounds of speech. Have you ever tried co-ordinating all of those muscles in reciting a “tongue-twister“? Would you like to view others fumbling over their words?

View the tongue movement in slow motion as captured with a NAC High Speed Camera.

Take-off can be one of the most energetically demanding aspects of flight, as the bird needs to generate enough airflow under the wing to create lift. More

See a bird’s take-off captured with a NAC High-Speed Camera:

Continue reading …The fundamentals of bird flight are similar to those of aircraft….

The story of the White House Easter Egg Roll, which begins at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue and continues at the other, is one of the oldest and most unique traditions in presidential history.

Rolling eggs on the Monday after Easter was a tradition observed by many Washington families, including those of the President. Some historians believe Dolley Madison first suggested the idea of a public egg roll, while others tell stories of informal egg-rolling parties at the White House dating back to President Lincoln’s Day. More…

See an egg dropping and breaking in slow motion at the NAC Image Gallery