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Test and measurement in a multiformat world

The evolution of television technology since the days of 525-line and 625-line standard definition has left a large legacy of standards which modern broadcast systems now have to recognise and process. In today's video and audio business, creatives and technical staff have to be ready to handle a multiplicity of signal types. In its standard form,...

Submitted by Kevin Salvidge

Published 24 August 2016

Intimate and Extreme

It's the intimate views and unusual angles that make the difference to the viewers' enjoyment of any event, and specialist RF cameras can turn a Director's vision into a production that's as gripping as being at the game - or almostThe Aviva Rugby Premiership Final at Twickenham was not just a high profile 4K event, it was a multi-camera event usin...

Submitted by Tony Valentino

Published 22 July 2016

Ask the experts - Transitioning to IP

1) What has been the broadcast industry's feeling about the move to an all IP workflow?Transitioning from conventional signal transport to an all-IP environment in broadcast or content production operations seems to be a matter of "when\" rather than "if,\" as it brings a great number of advantages with it. IP is touted as offering numerous benefit...

Submitted by Craig Newbury

Published 22 July 2016

The Challenges of Streaming

The purpose of this article to highlight the challenges facing small and medium streaming services. It is intended to look at how to achieve successful live and pre recorded content by means of streaming. In this article I would like to share the knowledge and the experience I have gained so far. I will also talk about the kit I use, how it is used...

Submitted by Joseph Ail

Published 14 June 2016

Breakthrough

By Julia Belle Issue 113 - May 2016 How do you become a Hollywood Film Producer? Or a Second Assistant Director? Or a Gaffer?Truth is, they’re not particularly straight-forward questions to answer. But that doesn’t mean you should give up there and start working in a jam factory as your school careers advisor recommended. (Not that there’s anythin...

Submitted by Julia Belle

Published 20 May 2016

Audio

by Pieter Schillebeeckx Issue 113 - May 2016 Audio monitoring has come a long way since its humble beginnings of a box with a speaker, a volume control and an analogue input. Today\'s high-end audio monitoring units boast an impressive array of I/O such as SDI, MADI, AES-3 and Analogue while offering a large amount of functionality such as accurate...

Submitted by Pieter Schillebeeckx

Published 13 May 2016

Waveform Monitors in 4K Production

by Alan Wheable Issue 112-April 2016 Waveforms have always been one of the essential tools for anyone working in the video industry and are used for level alignment, grading and quality control to touch on just a few areas. Working with HD and 3G-SDI waveform technology may have been a solution in the early days of UHD/4k to display the waveforms f...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 25 April 2016

The importance of maintaining digital audio paths

A portable, handheld, digital audio stream analyzer/generator is an essential piece of test equipment in the broadcast environment. It allows engineers and system integrators to quickly monitor and verify the composition, and integrity of, audio signals at any point from production all the way through the distribution chain. While the process of te...

Submitted by Larry Schindel

Published 01 April 2016

IP for live production

The production and transmission of a live sporting event is one of the most technically challenging assignments for any crew. After all, you can't ask to take the shot again at a live event! Multiple signals in a variety of formats need to be transmitted around the sporting venue, as well as being seamlessly integrated with feeds from a studio or o...

Submitted by John Smith

Published 01 April 2016

Square-division versus two-sample interleave

by Kevin Salvidge Issue 110 - February 2016 Square-division versus two-sample interleaveFollowing on from a very successful IBC2015 in Amsterdam, we have been travelling across Europe to hold follow-on discussions with production companies and outside broadcast facility-providers. This series of customer meetings, product demonstrations and evaluat...

Submitted by Kevin Salvidge

Published 16 March 2016

Staying within a recognisable landscape

by Alan Wheable Issue 110 - February 2016 2015 saw the maturing development of UHDTV 4K signal technologies and a growing agreement that both SDI and IP will exist in their respective strong application areas, as a solid engineering solution to the differing requirements of live signal handling and programme contribution. While the apparent panacea...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 16 March 2016

The 4K Conundrum

by Eric Achtmann Issue 108 - December 2015 2015 has confirmed once more that 4K remains the TV industrys Holy Grail. While 4K TV screens are becoming more affordable and Netflix, Amazon Prime and even YouTube are beginning to offer some 4K content, mass adoption is still sluggish as the increases in bandwidth required for distribution make 4K busin...

Submitted by Eric Achtmann

Published 17 December 2015

Law Enforcement - Live, Mobile Video Surveillance

by Eric Chang Issue 108 - December 2015 Law enforcement, homeland security, surveillance, emergency response and military operations may span a range of operations, but they all share a crucial need for a detailed, real-time picture of rapidly changing events from various field locations. Leading law enforcement agencies have learned that there\'s...

Submitted by Eric Chang

Published 15 December 2015

Making remote production over IP a reality

by John Smith Issue 107 - November 2015 Live sports broadcasting is one of the most technically challenging tasks for any production team. Multiple signals in multiple formats need to be transmitted around the sports facility. In addition, signals need to be integrated with feeds from other locations to create a complete broadcast stream. As a resu...

Submitted by John Smith

Published 01 December 2015

Test & Measurement: Ask the expert

by Alan Wheable Issue 107 - November 2015 What should an Eye diagram look like?There are basically two different approaches to capturing the Eye Diagram from an SDI signal. These are real-time capture (employed by Real Time oscilloscopes) and signal subsampling (employed by Sampling oscilloscopes such as the Omnitek Ultra 4k Tool Box). All broadcas...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 01 December 2015