Tim Burbank

Just Another

2025-02-14T12:00:00+05:00

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Live looping on Akai Force. Recorded to Tascam 4-track. Digital synthesizers in Zynthian.

Produced by	Tim Burbank
Director of Photography	Michael Viveiros

Geospatial Data in Blender

2024-03-10T00:00:00+04:00

There's a set of scripts and processes I use for bringing geospatial data into Blender for visualization. They can be found at gitlab.com/timburbank/blender_gis_scripts

By bringing the data into the Blender scene with known georeferencing we can match up different data sources, like in this animation of an ROV dive path with the surrounding bathymetry maps.

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All the geospatial heavy lifting happens in QGIS, which I use to translate the geographic coordinates of the source data into local coordinates for Blender. I have a collection of scripts in Blender that creates meshes or places objects based on that data. This can also be used alongside the BlenderGIS Blender plugin, or Terragen's procedural landscape rendering.

Something Spooky

2023-11-14T12:00:00+05:00

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Just something spooky

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Sheet Music

Recorded with an Akai Force, Tascam 4-track, JVC camcorder and Toshiba VCR.

Synth sounds from Zynthian

BTS photos from a Nikon FM10 (above) and Kodak KE40 (bellow).

Finally, this "HD version" was shot on a phone next to the camcorder

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Reverse Engineering a Video Router Panel

2022-10-15T00:00:00+04:00

This is a teardown of a late 90s video router panel, which I use as a pomodoro timer. Because I think it's neat.

While decommissioning an old ROV control van, a coworker saved a pair of these keypanels, and flew across the country with them to say "Tim, do you want these?" (I mean, yes of course. Video routers, as a general rule, have the Best Buttons Ever.) That, of course, left me with no choice but to take them appart and see if I could talk to them.

What's Outside

The front of the panel has 21 of the aforementioned Best Buttons Ever. The caps are removable so you can add transparency labels, and they light up yellow or red. The only identifying feature is the label: "AUX BUS REMOTE PANEL BKDS-8062".

Front Panel

The back of it has two 15 pin D-sub connectors labeled "CASCADE OUT" and "CASCADE IN". (According to the D-subminiature Wikipedia article when the D-sub connectors were first made they were some of the smallest computer connectors which, in retrospect, is kind of adorable.)

Back Panel

What's Inside

The case comes apart with a few screws, and we see the answer to those wonderful buttons is some really chonky switches. They take up most of the internal space. Shoutout to the designers who were like "These buttons are important. Take as much space for them as you need"

Internal switches

The switches are on one long Printed Circuit Board. All the other electronics are on a second, smaller PCB.

Secondary PCB

The electronics PCB has a whole bunch of resistors, a few capacitors, and a handful of ICS. Which is to say, it looks like every PCB ever.

Secondary PCB

Resistors are boring and just there to make the math work out. We'll ignore those. Capacitors are usually something to do with power management, but also don't tell us much. The good stuff is in the Integrated Circuits, so it's time to start looking up model numbers.

The little one next to the capacitors is a MAX660CSA+ Charge Pump Switching Regulator which sounds like some sort of voltage converter. That section is probably all power management. Good to know. We'll just assume the power is managed and move on.

MAX660CSA+ Charge Pump Switching Regulator

Moving to the right we have these two large ones which appear to be M54977P Serial-Input Latched Drivers. They receive a serial sequence of on and off signals, along with a clock pulse, and turn the output pins on and off accordingly.

M54977P Serial-Input Latched Drivers

The pinout also shows a Latch Input. That prevents the output pins from changing while you're sending it data. A Serial Out lets you daisy chain multiple identical chips together.

Pinout for M54977P Serial-Input Latched Driver

These Serial-Input Latched Drivers are used to drive all the LEDs in the buttons. The two chips give 24 total outputs, for the 21 buttons with orange and red LEDs in each of them. They were clever/lazy about changing the colors. The first 21 pins just turn the LEDs on and off. The last three change the colors for either the first button, the last button, or all the buttons in the middle at once. I think this means, under normal use, only one button would be lit at a time - except for the end buttons which can act as shift keys to change the others between multiple banks.

Further to the right, we have these three smaller chips, which appear to be HC165A Parallel-Input/Serial-Output Shift Registers

HC165A Parallel-Input/Serial-Output Shift Registers

The data sheet pinout and associated function table show this chip works pretty much as the reverse of the above serial-to-parallel IC. It reads the on/off state of eight input pins, and outputs their state in serial sequence when it receives clock pulses. It also has a serial input, so you can daisy chain multiple chips together. With 24 input pins between the three chips, it has enough to read whether any of the 21 buttons are pressed, with a few pins left over.

Pinout for HC165A Parallel-Input/Serial-Output Shift Registers

Function Table for HC165A Parallel-Input/Serial-Output Shift Registers. I love the "X = don't care"

The rest of the ICs aren't all that interesting. There's an HC74A Dual D-Type Flip-Flop which saves the state of the input pin every time it gets a clock signal. There's a pair of HC240A Octal 3-State Inverting Buffer/Line Driver/Line Receivers which is a lot of words to say it inverts the input pins and gives the opposite state to the output pins. Like resistors, these are mostly just there to make the math work out.

Other, less important, IC chips

I've been ignoring the manual to the router itself thus far, but it's actually kind of great. It gives the following pinout for the BKDS-8062 router panel. Shoutouts to good tech docs.

BKDS-8062 pinout from DVS-7200 video router manual

10 of the 15 pins are either power or ground. The remaining pins pretty much match up with the pins that appear on the shift register ICs. We have a clock, LED data, switch data, reset, and data latch. One might assume these are just direct wires to the IC pins. From experimentation I can confirm that is, in fact, what's happening. This thing is remarkably straightforward. I love it.

Talking to the BKDS

Talking to the router panels is pretty straightforward, with the assorted data sheets to help. All you need to do is set the latch pin update mode, then back to data-transfer mode. Then send clock pulses, and with each pulse read a switch state from the switch data pin, and send an LED status to the LED data pin. I wrote some Python code that uses the GPIO pins of a Raspberry Pi to send the correct signals.

The initial code was just a proof of concept, turning on lights or reading buttons. It stayed like that for a while, until the pandemic reached North America. Working from home I realized I needed any possible tool to help track the passage of time, so I added some code to use the lights in the buttons as a visual pomodoro timer.

So that's how a piece of a 20+ year old video router became an important part of my workflow.

Note: If you enjoy reverse engineering old TV production equipment (and who doesn't?) I highly recommend Glen Akins blog. He's taken it much further than I have, and it's honestly wonderful.

Starboard Larboard Songs

2022-01-09T00:00:00+04:00

Some oceanographic musical nonsense.

"Known" for such numbers as The Sound of Sonars, Roll, Pitch, and HEAVE and Nautilus? (inspired by the Jim Salestrom ballad, Nautilus), Starboard Larboard began, as many things do, poorly.

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No Song

Unknown Artist

Oh Billy

Starboard Larboard
Marine Technica

Starboard Larboard
Pig-Butt Worm of Mine

Starboard Larboard
The Sound of Sonars

Starboard Larboard
Pitch, Roll, and Heave (a.k.a Get on the Ship)

Starboard Larboard
House of the Multibeam Pun

Starboard Larboard
The Evergiven(green)

Starboard Larboard (lyrics @JezebelKat on Twitter)
Amelia

Starboard Larboard
Nautilus?

Starboard Larboard

The Robot's Heart Covers

2021-01-01T03:00:00+04:00

Assorted music shenanigans.

No Song

Unknown Artist

The Dawn Will Come

The Robot's Heart
Andraste's Mabari

The Robot's Heart
Reignite

The Robot's Heart ft. Siobhán Slavin
Who Knew

The Robot's Heart
Cara Mia Adio

The Robot's Heart

The Dawn Will Come

2021-01-01T02:00:00+05:00

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A beautiful song, written by Trevor Morris for Dragon Age: Inquisition

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Arranged and Performed by	Lin Taylor & Tim Burbank twitter.com/ElevatorLich
Post Production	Tim Burbank

Andraste's Mabari

2019-11-17T00:00:00+04:00

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It's not a real Dragon Age tavern night until someone karaokes "Andraste's Mabari" to Garth Brooks' "The River".

-- Patrick Weekes, 2015

We're not sorry

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Performed by	Lin Palmer & Tim Burbank twitter.com/ElevatorLich
Directed and Produced by	Tim Burbank
Director of Photography	Matt Heron Duranti mattheronduranti.com instagram.com
Editor	Eileen Slavin slavinproductions.com
VFX, Color	Tim Burbank

Science on a Sphere: Exploring the Unknown Ocean

2017-05-01T00:00:00+04:00

Exploring the Unknown Ocean is a film developed for NOAA's Science on a Sphere exhibits, showcasing the tools that scientists use to explore the deep ocean. The sphere is a six foot diameter digital globe, lit by four projectors. It can show spherical video or interactive datasets.

Honestly this was one of the coolest animation jobs I've ever had the chance to work on. The spherical display presents a lot of challenges for tools that expect flat rectangles, but also presents so many new ways for the imagery to interact with the audience.

Dataset available at: sos.noaa.gov/datasets/exploring-the-unknown-ocean

Produced by	The Inner Space Center
In Partnership with	42° North Media, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
Funding Provided by	National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
Editor	Alex DeCiccio
Animation	Tim Burbank
Music	Robert Neufeld
Narration	Drew Patterson
Special Thanks	Walter Smith David Sandwell Allan Adams Mashkoor Malik Jesse Varner Nicole Raineault NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research Ocean Exploration Trust Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Reignite

2015-01-21T00:00:00+04:00

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A slightly heavier cover of Malukah's beautiful Mass Effect inspired song Reignite.

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Performed by	Siobhán Slavin & Tim Burbank
Produced by	Tim Burbank
Directed and Shot by	Christian Williams (YouTube)
Editing, Color Grade	Eileen Slavin slavinproductions.com
VFX	Tim Burbank
Production Assistant	Blake Carpentier

Forever Alive

2014-12-05T12:00:00+04:00

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Marina Slavin passed away spontaneously on December 5, 2013. She was my friend's sister. She was one of the best people in the world. She was 20.

We made this for her

Produced, Directed, and Shot by	Eileen Slavin slavinproductions.com
Lyrics & Vocals	Siobhán Slavin
Piano	Danielle Slavin
Violin	Annie Hassen
Guitar, Additional Vocals	Abby Talone Colleen Winton
Music Production	Tim Burbank
Editor, Color, Music Recording	Eileen Slavin
Special Thanks	Chris Boylston Kyle Calise Fr. Andrew Cryans Debra Fitzgerald Kody Fraser David Jung Margot Popecki Maura Slavin Michael Slavin

Tim Burbank

Just Another

Geospatial Data in Blender

Something Spooky

Reverse Engineering a Video Router Panel

What's Outside

What's Inside

Talking to the BKDS

Starboard Larboard Songs

No Song

Unknown Artist

Oh Billy

Starboard Larboard

Marine Technica

Starboard Larboard

Pig-Butt Worm of Mine

Starboard Larboard

The Sound of Sonars

Starboard Larboard

Pitch, Roll, and Heave (a.k.a Get on the Ship)

Starboard Larboard

House of the Multibeam Pun

Starboard Larboard

The Evergiven(green)

Starboard Larboard (lyrics @JezebelKat on Twitter)

Amelia

Starboard Larboard

Nautilus?

Starboard Larboard

The Robot's Heart Covers

No Song

Unknown Artist

The Dawn Will Come

The Robot's Heart

Andraste's Mabari

The Robot's Heart

Reignite

The Robot's Heart ft. Siobhán Slavin

Who Knew

The Robot's Heart

Cara Mia Adio

The Robot's Heart

The Dawn Will Come

Andraste's Mabari

Science on a Sphere: Exploring the Unknown Ocean

Reignite

Forever Alive