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Eye to Eye: Video Post-production

This column’s previous excursion into video post-production was just before the 2011 NAB Spring Convention, always a dangerous time to talk about new hardware or software when a deluge of upgrades, lookalikes and lite-editions are about to hit the aisles of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Quite a lot has happened in this category over the past 12...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012

Managing Media

Looking after the media for a television production used to be a relatively simple task. The footage would be shot and captured on tape. The tapes would be delivered to the post-production facility for editing. They would be ingested into the edit system, the editor would construct the final program and it would be recorded back to tape. All the ta...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012

Eye-to-eye: 2011 highlights

“Broadcasters must climb up the ladder into high definition or they’ll get their ankles chewed by the computer industry”. Memorable quote from a manufacturer of video standards converters nearly 30 years ago when NHK was trying to establish its original 1125-line (1080-active) 5:3 aspect-ratio ‘Hi-Vision’. Well it happened. 2011 was the year ‘high-...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

3D Five years on

For me, IBC2006 was the beginning of the modern 3D era. At an invitation-only presentation, 3ality’s CEO Steve Schklair described what his company was achieving with S3D. Suddenly it all made sense. With the accuracy of digital shoots and computer technology replacing difficulties and expense of working with film, 3D could now be viable. Unlike the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Getting Social

There are, apparently, 200 million tweets a day. Given that Twitter claims 200 million active users that seems a modest output, it is true, but the Twitterati have a disproportionate reach because large numbers of people – many of them lazy journalists – follow other people’s trending topics without contributing themselves. YouTube users download c...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Navigating uncharted waters

I’m home again from the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas. It must be something to do with getting older, but this year both key performance indicators (good dinners versus greasy hamburgers, and early nights versus late night carousing) fell on the conservative side. And my flight home landed 45 minutes early, rather than a week or so late. I was hea...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Back to basics asset management

There are two things you should know before I start. One is that the strapline for my company’s product, Mediaflex, is “Beyond Media Asset Management”. And the second is that I hate the term “Media Asset Management” because it has come to be meaningless. Too many people have used it to mean too many different things. So what is Media Asset Manageme...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

3D Post at NAB, Wimbledon, and more

You may recall that last time 3D Diaries tackled the subject of post production in August 2010, it warned that the ‘fix it in post’ habit was definitely to be avoided. This means shoot it correctly in the first place, as trying to fix errors, especially the 3D ones, in post can get very tricky and, may be expensive. This remains the case even thoug...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

BBC Academy

Today’s broadcast industry depends on a mobile workforce of skilled professionals. And in the YouTube age where anyone can upload a film, what distinguishes the professional from the amateur? In short - great training!A recent survey of industry freelancers reveals that more than half rank training as one of the most important factors in developing...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Neither a borrower nor a lender be....

Much has been written in the press recently about access to, or more frequently, the absence of funding for small businesses, otherwise known as SMEs (small and medium enterprises). But how do we define a small enterprise and when does a company transition from a small to medium enterprise?The official definitions are as follows: a small company ha...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Production Spotlight

On Friday 10th September, Fluidmoves Video Productions, filmed a new outfall pipe leaving Shoreham Harbour on the Sussex coast. The 1.8 kilometre pipe was towed out to sea through the open lock gates round to Newhaven Harbour, a distance of 15 nautical miles, on behalf of Southern Water and its contractor 4Delivery. The outfall is part of Southern...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Name-Brand Batteries, Always the Best Choice

In today’s turbulent economy, it can be tempting to cut corners with lower-cost, generic batteries. All too often, however, this comes at the expense of quality, reliability and safety. Though they may incur a higher price, name-brand batteries’ superior capacity, load carrying, charger options and safety mechanisms ultimately make them the best in...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Expert battery advice

1. Why do some manufacturers sell NiMH batteries?NiMH batteries have a number of clear advantages versus other cell chemistries and we believe and see that this cell chemistry complements the standard Li-Ion range. Indeed some customers choose to use only NiMH. The main areas of benefit are weight and balance. A strong minority of cameramen see cam...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Camp, ash, irritation and embarrassment

I am writing these words in the last days of December and you are reading them in the first days of January, so it seems like a good opportunity to look back on 2010 and see what we toilers in television have learnt. Against the odds there were some good programmes on the box. Astoundingly, ITV delivered a drama series that was just like the good o...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Truth Lies and LEDs

As an emergent technology within film and broadcast over the last six years, LEDs have generated strong opinions for and against, adjudging their capabilities and relative merits, when compared to traditional light sources. Development has seen them grow from the small coloured pinpoints of light on your stereo or TV, to a level where they can prod...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2011