ANIMATION NC II

LESSON 1: CONVERSIONS AND CALCULATIONS

TECHNICAL TERMS
Computer applications – computer program used for a particular type of job or problem
Digital – recording or storing information as series of the numbers 1 and 0 to show that a signal is present or
absent
COMPUTER STORAGE
In the previous chapter, it was mentioned how most people in the animation industry today have gone
digital on media and rely on computers to store volume of data and for tasks that need more speed and storage.
Many computer programs and applications such as coloring, video editing, and film making require more disk
space and faster computer. The capacity and speed of which your computer runs programs or completes tasks is
determined in great measure by the processor's speed and data storage.
CALCULATING DATA STORAGE CAPACITY
A byte is one character of information and is equal to 8 bits or eight digital 1's or 0's. It is the smallest unit
of measurement used to represent storage capacity. Data storage capacity is measured in terms of bytes,
kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes
TABLE 5. COUNTING BYTES
A thousand bytes is known as a kilobyte (KB).
1,000 B=1KB
A million bytes is known as a megabyte (MB).
1,000,000 B = 1MB
A billion bytes is called a gigabyte (GB).
1,000,000,000 B = 1GB
A trillion bytes is called a terabyte (TB).
1,000,000,000,000 B = 1TB
Other components and devices that use byte storage are RAM, hard disk space, CDs, DVDs, and MP3 players. The
table below is a list of standard units of measurement used for data storage.
TABLE 6. STANDARD UNITS OF MEASUREMENT USED FOR DATA STORAGE
Unit Value Size
bit (b) 0 or 1 1/8 of a byte
byte (B) 8 bits 1 byte
kilobyte (KB) 10001 bytes 1,000 bytes
megabyte (MB) 10002 bytes 1,000,000 bytes
gigabyte (GB) 10003 bytes 1,000,000,000 bytes
terabyte (TB) 10004 bytes 1,000,000,000,000 bytes
For example:
1. Convert 100KB to B
Since there are 1,000B in 1KB, simply multiply the given quantity 100KB by 1,000B
Solution: 100KB = 100 (1,000B) = 100,000B
Answer: Therefore, there are 10,000 B for every 100KB.
2. Convert 5MB to GB
From the reference table, there are 1,000,000B for every MB.
5MB = 5,000,000B
For every gigabyte, there are 1,000,000,000B.
5,000,000B = 0.005GB
Therefore, for every 5MB, there is 0.005GB.
3. Convert 0.5GB to KB
There are 1,000,000,000 B for every GB.
0.5GB = 500,000,000B
So 500,000,000B = 500,000KB
Therefore, there are 500,000KB for every 0.5GB.
 EMPLOYING DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES IN CHECKING THE ACCURACY OF COMPUTATION

Computer systems use many different units of measurement. The units of data measurement were
introduced to manage and operate digital information. Computers store information in the form of 1 and o in
different types of storages such as memory, hard disk, and USB drives.
As discussed in the previous lesson, most animation studios rely on workstations with vast amounts of
processing power to render large digital information during the production process. For example, if a 4-minute
animation film has 7.500 frames, then each frame has approximately 150-200MB. To sum up, it equates to about
1.5TB of data. It is essential for animators to know the different techniques in measuring digital information.

UNITS OF MEASURE FOR DIGITAL INFORMATION

Data Measurement Size
bit single binary digit (1 or 0)
byte 8 bits
kilobyte (KB) 1,024 bytes
megabyte (MB) 1,024 kilobytes
gigabyte (GB) 1,024 megabytes
terabyte (TB) 1,024 gigabytes
petabyte (PB) 1,024 terabytes
exabyte (EB) 1,024 petabytes
In digital information, MB and GB are often used to measure computer storage and memory. For example,
one unit of this book is about 1MB in size. The equivalent of 1MB is 1,024KB, or 1,048,576B. If all the books in a
large library contain 1TB of information, then its equivalent is 1,024GB, and this is roughly 1,610 CDs worth of data.
Example:
1. The Portable Document Format (PDF) file size of the Animation Curriculum Guide is 476KB. How many 476KB
files can be stored in a Zip disk? (Zip disk = 750MB)
1KB=1,024B
476KB X 1,024 = 487,424B
1 MB=1,048,576B
750MB X 1,048,576 = 786,432,000B of space
786,432,000/487,424 = 1,613.45
There are 1,613.45 files of 476KB files that can be stored in a Zip disk.

2. How many 20KB files can be stored in a 1MB folder?

1KB = 1,024B
10X1,024 = 20,480B in a 20KB file
1MB = 1,048,576B
1,048,576/20,480 = 51.2
There are 51.2 files stored in a 1MB folder.