My name is Mark Schubin, and I have sung at many of the great opera houses of the world.
The sentence above is true. It’s also misleading. I’m not an opera singer, let alone a great one. But whenever I newly visit an opera house (which happens often) I sing a little something just so I can make that statement. I’ve included it here to try to get you to read critically.
Except for that opera-house statement above, I do not intend to mislead, and others have written that I can make technical matters clear even to non-technical people, but I’m also human. I can’t promise you won’t find mistakes here, but I can promise they will be corrected (with correction notices featured prominently) once I find out about and verify them.
My credentials for writing what you’ll find here are related largely to longevity. I’ve been working professionally in television technology since 1967 (starting as a cable puller). If you count the text of some pop-up cards of New York landmarks, I’ve been writing professionally even longer. I have a degree in chemical engineering; I leave you to decide for yourself how much that has to do with television.
I have been extremely fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, however, and to have worked with some of the most brilliant and talented people in the TV industry. I’ve also been doing research long enough to become at least somewhat proficient at it, and I do not refer to merely using Internet search engines. My research sometimes takes me to dusty documents in unusual archives. According to a researcher there, I recently became the first person to read some engineering-committee proceedings that the Library of Congress acquired in 1941.
Thanks to my many clients, I’ve dabbled in just about every aspect of television technology, from design and manufacturing to program distribution. I’ve worked on children’s television, music, news, sports, comedy, drama, events, and documentaries. I’ve worked in studios and remote trucks and with “fly packs,” “load-ins,” and single-camera shooting. I’ve worked on television projects on every continent (including Antarctica). I’ve worked on subtitling and multi-language dubbing. I’ve dabbled in lighting, sound, camera, editing, and even appearing on screen. I’ve worked on broadcast, cable, satellite, fiber, tape, disks, solid-state memories, film, and cinema. I’ve taught forensic analysis of video and have testified as an expert witness on cinema and television technologies and their histories. I’ve written about those subjects since 1972.
If you’d like to find out more about me, feel free to look me up. If you spell my first and last names correctly, you’ll almost certainly find something about me. Here’s one site:
http://www.hpaonline.com/mc/page.do?sitePageId=100891
None of that means what I say is correct, or, even if it is, that it will be correct forever. I strive for accuracy and clarity, but, like all of the rest of us, I’m human.
It’s a nice species.