KitPlus | Articles

NAB Intelligence

It\'s that time of year again. 06:30 on road bikes on the Las Vegas Strip with a merry bunch of folks who believe they look good in lycra. As we pedal West up the hill towards Red Rock there will be stories of the year just gone and questions about what to look for at the show. I, for one, will be attending the Devoncroft event to check up on who i...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin - new

Published 21 March 2019

Preserving the British Film Institute Archive

Today, the media and entertainment industry faces numerous challenges. To remain successful and competitive, these organisations must be ever innovative, agile and cost efficient in the way they produce, store, manage and distribute their digital assets. Content creators have traditionally relied upon outdated storage models, comprised of legacy in...

Submitted by David Feller

Published 21 March 2019

Streaming - Shut up and Sit Down

Twilight Imperium is a board game all about strategy and backstabbing. Known for its length of gameplay, the team behind Shut Up and Sit Down decided to deliver a mammoth 10-hour live broadcast, streamed to Twitch. Matt Lees is here to tell us how it went down. Having recently begun streaming live to Twitch, our audience naturally asked us to play...

Submitted by Matt Lees

Published 21 March 2019

Keeping Your Post Prodction on Track with Subclips and Se...

For my 2nd Kit Plus article I thought I’d try and build on the theme of my first, and that’s one of making sure things are organised at all levels of your post production projects. Last time I talked about trying as best as you can to stick to the ‘two week rule’, making sure that the names & locations of every asset you import, and every bin & seq...

Submitted by Alex Macleod

Published 21 March 2019

Your two week editing future

So here we are - January again! Usually a good time to reflect on the year just gone by, and a good time to look forward to the coming months as the new year begins. When I was reflecting on my 2018, and when thinking about what to write for my first article for Kit Plus - I kept coming back to one theme - organisation. As someone who gets hired to...

Submitted by Alex Macleod

Published 25 January 2019

21st Century Technology for 20th Century Content

A big challenge facing owners of legacy content is rationalising and archiving their tape and film-based media in cost effective and efficient ways, whilst also adding value. Normally the result of this is to find a low cost means of digitising the content – usually leaving them with a bunch of assets on HDD. But then what? How can content owners h...

Submitted by James Hall

Published 25 January 2019

Sony PWS-4500 Live Production Server Reviewed

Available since 2016, the Sony PWS-4500 is a solid-state UHD/HD live production server designed for use in applications such as sports, studio or stage events. The target applications are master recording and advanced replay operations for live production companies for whom the server's ability to record the output from high frame rate cameras and...

Submitted by Andy McKenzie

Published 24 January 2019

AI in Media and Entertainment

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a term appearing everywhere these days. What is happening in media and entertainment (M&E) that makes the industry ripe for AI? In other words, why does the M&E industry need AI?In virtually every industry, AI is claiming a growing stake in the supply chain, creating both operational enhancements and business efficie...

Submitted by David Candler

Published 09 November 2018

The Biggest Toy Shop in the World

When Nigel Woodford started his career at BBC Wood Norton in 1962, television was black and white and BBC Two had not yet been launched. In 2018 Nigel will retire, and Richmond Film Services, the pro-audio equipment rental company set up by Nigel in 1973, can count numerous contributions to iconic moments in British cultural, sporting and film hist...

Submitted by Emma Morrison

Published 08 September 2018

The Pitfalls of Online File Sharing and Sending Services

Easy-to-use, readily-accessible, and consumer-oriented, online file sharing platforms such as Dropbox and Google Drive are, to end users, a pleasant replacement to older file transfer methods such as FTP. FTP is complex to use and requires IT intervention to make almost any change. The pain associated with FTP, which was developed in the 1970s, is...

Submitted by Mike Nash

Published 07 June 2018

Transforming asset management and monetization

FremantleMedia is one of the largest global television-production companies in the world — with one of the biggest and most valuable catalogs. We operate in 36 markets, creating, producing, and distributing content across traditional TV and digital platforms at a rate of more than 10,000 hours of programming per year. Besides producing some of the...

Submitted by Chad Hamilton

Published 26 March 2018

Interview with Peter Rowsell, Polar Graphics

If you don’t recognise the name Peter Rowsell instantly you no doubt would recognise him in person, from the famous ‘Pink Coconut’ parties during IBC (Brighton) in the 80s or the name ‘Polar Video or Polar Graphics’ both companies which he’s built up over the years. Entering his 43rd NAB (yes 43rd, that is NOT a typo!) who better to catch up with t...

Submitted by Polar

Published 26 March 2018

Grand slam IPTV and digital signage platform

Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, is home to major league baseball’s Kansas City Royals. Built in 1973, “The K” has a proud baseball legacy, and goes down in history for winning two World Series championship titles; one in 1985 and another in 2015 — exactly 20 years apart. The most recent win brought a resurgence of baseball fever to the s...

Submitted by Joe Walsh

Published 26 March 2018

Video Tape recorders cannnot die.

In its simplest form, Tape Archiving requires:- 1) Playback decks 2) Tape Cleaning Facilities 3) Tape Baking Incubator/Oven 4) Ingest Platforms 5) Storage This article concentrates on what is often described as the weakest link, namely 1) above i.e. the Playback Decks and what could be another weak link, namely 2) i.e. Tape Cleaning Facilities. I h...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 02 November 2017

How the Cloud can be enabled as traditional broadcast wor...

The Cloud itself is fairly simple, but for broadcasters it can be difficult to leverage. It isnt technically complex but broadcast still overlaps requirements that need real time, high resolution and quick turnaround solutions. Plus, this is coupled with the need to connect with dispersed geographic locations, reduce costs and access multi-format a...

Submitted by David Schleifer

Published 02 November 2017