NASA's myriad uses of digital video

Since its inception, NASA has created many of the most memorable images of the past century. From the fuzzy video of Neil Armstrong taking that first step on the moon to images of the Mars surface available to all on the inte rnet, it has provided visuals to inspire a generation, all because a scient ist or researcher had a requirement to see something unusual. Digital telev ision technology will give NASA unprecedented new tools for acquiring, anal yzing, and distributing video. This paper will explore its DTV future. The agency requires the realtime transfer of video between NASA centers. Specif ics will be provided relating to the video infrastructure, including video from the space shuttle and various centers. The pros and cons of interlace and progressive scanned images will be presented and compared. Film is a ma jor component of NASA's image acquisition for analysis usage. The future of film within the context of DTV will be explored.