KitPlus | Articles

So why bother with training?

Joseph Turner, the famous British painter (1775 to 1851) studied at the Royal College of Art from 1789 until his first exhibition at the Academy in 1793. Rembrandt (1606 to 1669) studied first with the famous painter Jacob van Swanenburgh and then with Pieter Lastman. Young talented artists need guidance from experienced and talented teachers to he...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012

Reaching for 3D

From the opening shot of the Ryder Cup to the Champions League final when Manchester United played Barcelona this year, a stately homes documentary to a Derren Brown magic show, cameraman Chris Taber has been there, filmed it and got the T-shirt. And the reason the camera crane operator has been in demand for so many high-profile jobs? In a word: 3...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Without training will there be future for the TV Industry...

It might come as a surprise to you but do you know that there in the UK 80,000 people working in the TV industry. That's 10% of the work force. And some more facts:The UK has overseas programme sales of £980 million. Non-terrestrial TV spends £193 millions on content whilst terrestrial TV spends £2.6 billion on content. Independent producers in the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Innovation, harmonisation, simplification

You could reasonably argue that “innovation, harmonisation and simplification” is a good motto for designers of any product to bear in mind. It is certainly true for mission critical monitoring, and it is what TSL has tried to do with its range of rack-mounted professional digital audio monitors. Checking audio quality, and particularly levels, at...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

COUNTING DOWN TO BVE NORTH

The engines are revving in the countdown to BVE North, the new event that is designed to serve the needs of the rapidly growing broadcast and production industry in the North. The exhibition and seminar program will address the myriad challenges facing broadcast professionals, from multi-platform broadcasting to the realities of 3D for television,...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2011

Ask the Experts - Integrating Social Media

Why should I care about integrating social media into my broadcast operations?Viewers are the lifeblood of any broadcaster, whether public service or commercial, major national broadcaster or special interest, free-to-air or pay TV, RF or IP delivery, fundamentally it's all about getting, and keeping, as many viewers as possible. Social media provi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

Avid solutions create a stellar workflow for Mwnci Post P...

The ChallengeTo ensure that the thousands of hours of HD footage which pass through busy Welsh post-production house, Mwnci, each year are efficiently managed, stored and archived. The SolutionTo implement Avid ISIS 5000, a scalable shared storage system that collaborates with third-party applications, as the backbone of the facility to manage digi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

A grand boy

I am smiling a particularly content smile while writing this month’s column, as just a couple of days ago I met one of my great heroes, and a giant amongst broadcasters: Sir David Attenborough. He is the recipient of the IBC International Honour for Excellence this year, and I was directing a video interview with him to use as part of the awards ce...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

3D a Geographic Thing

It may just be coincidence but, in the last week, two stories about 3D in Scandinavia have landed on the 3D Diaries desk. Of course two swallows do not a summer make but maybe there is a trend here, with some nations embracing the third dimension more than others. Sony Professional is currently building what they claim is Scandinavia’s first 3D-rea...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

The Red Epic has landed

Finally the Red Epic has started to appear in facilities companies around the world, S+O Media is one of the first in the UK to receive a handmade Epic-M. I’ve taken the camera out on a couple of shoots and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. I’m sure everyone is aware of the Red One, the first camera from Red. Billionaire Jim Jannard decided he co...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Using Panasonic AG-AF101 HD Camera

Introduction When award winning film maker and photojournalist Fiona Lloyd-Davies announced her latest project to embark on a journey to The Democratic Republic of Congo, she described the place as “probably one of the toughest environments that a camera can work in - very hot and very, very dusty” but, this was to be just one rigor amongst many du...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2011

Game, Set and Match

It was only three months ago that this column hailed featured the new DVB-3DTV standard. But already there’s talk of a second version, or rather ‘phase’, as described by David Wood of the EBU in the new 3D Roundabout newsletter. In a way this is healthy. It shows just how fast 3DTV is moving and, whereas phase 1 is designed to work with existing 2D...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2011

Robert Llewellyn

Many of you will have heard of the TV show on the "Dave\" Channel called "Carpool". You know the one, Red Dwarf and Scrap heap Challenge star Robert Llewellyn picks up someone in his car, drives him or her around a bit and has a chat. It’s a great series and you feel like your spying on a private conversation between two people on their way to work...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

HTML5 and H.264. Friends United....

H.264 - The Success StorySome technologies like DVD, CD, TV and the PC prove themselves over time. They are practical, flexible, reliable - even universal. Is H.264 one of those magic bullet technologies?H.264, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC, is the video codec that has taken the broadcast and consumer world by storm. In 2008, Anthony Rose, fo...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

The Space Race

You would have thought that the Royal Wedding, with its forecast record global viewing, would be available in 3D. Reports in the Guardian newspaper say that Sky 3D was keen to provide a complete 3D service, and indeed they did have cameras to shoot the outside scenes but access inside the Abby was denied. The paper also reports reasons given as ‘ca...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011