KitPlus | Articles

Capture and Produce

Issue 94 - October 2014One of the hot topics at this year’s IBC was undoubtedly the growing adoption of end-to-end IP production and the imminent death of SDI. During a panel session, hosted by Mediasmiths and Cognizant, and including representatives from BBC, Sony and more, the key point made was that the adoption of IP production technology and w...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 November 2014

Training Tomorrows Technicians

by Tony Cahalane Issue 94 - October 2014 Ours is a hungry and demanding industry. It requires a constant supply of highly skilled and dedicated technicians who are willing to work hard, under often difficult circumstances, to help deliver the environment for production teams to thrive, in an ever-evolving media landscape and one where insecurity is...

Submitted by Tony Cahalane

Published 01 November 2014

Exposed to ideas

by Dick Hobbs Issue 94 - October 2014 I did not get the chance to attend much of the IBC conference this year. But I did make sure I was there for the interview with Professor Brian Cox, which was excellent. He is witty, charismatic and exceptionally clever. Once a keyboard player in a rock band, Cox is now a particle physicist and one of the leade...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 November 2014

The evolution of Wired Intercom

by Simon Browne & Ed Fitzgerald Issue 93 - September 2014 Early Beginnings What do you think was the fi rst DIGITAL communications system devised? Of course you could think of the evolution in standardised parallel data backplanes and digital ICs in the 1980s and the swathe of multi-rack Time Division Multiplexed switching systems that it enabled,...

Submitted by Simon Browne

Published 01 October 2014

Product Spotlighting

Issue 93 - September 2014The changing face of on-camera LED LightingIBC 2014, Europe’s largest and most anticipated Broadcast show will see the launch of the latest evolution of on-camera LED Lighting systems, in the form of the ROTOLIGHT NEO. IBC has previously seen the launch of the Multi-Award winning Rotolight RL48 Ring light, Rotolight ANOVA a...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 October 2014

Keeping it real

by Will Strauss Issue 92 - August 2014 With Sky buying into an immersive video start-up, and the BBC trialling content on an Oculus Rift headset, virtual reality could be about to move from simply sets and studios to a whole new realm. Once residing purely in the realms of science fiction and, latterly, video gaming, it appears that virtual reality...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 September 2014

What Directors do and dont do

by David Crossman Issue 92 - August 2014 Piers Haggard the BAFTA award-winning Director for his BBC TV work - says you can\'t teach Directing any more than you can teach Art. Piers may be right but I believe there are some directorial skills which can be passed on. Like many crew members and actors I have suffered at the hands of inexperienced Dire...

Submitted by David Crossman

Published 01 September 2014

A new age of teleprompting?

by Jon Hilton Issue 92 - August 2014 Whilst it may not be the first thing on the production agenda, one could argue it is an essential production tool today delivering at least two fundamental production values. Firstly it can save you money by reducing the time required to get that perfect take and secondly it means that your presenter will be wor...

Submitted by Jon Hilton#

Published 01 September 2014

Is bingeing the new black?

by Dick Hobbs Issue 92 - August 2014 Recently BBC4 has been showing the classic 1985 television drama Edge of Darkness. Troy Kennedy Martin masterfully captured the nuclear paranoia of the era, at a time when the Thatcher government was making a virtue out of secrecy. The idea that global forces were casually trading in weapons-grade material and w...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 September 2014

Vision for the future of TV

Issue 92 - August 2014During the Commonwealth Games BBC Research and Development took the opportunity to unveil a range of new trials and public demonstrations as part of its Games showcase. These experiments brought together a wide range of industry partners and are helping to shape BBC R&D’s vision for the future of TV, and included a number of b...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 September 2014

Green storage Fat wallets

by Ben Pearce Issue 91 - July 2014 Its not just eco campaigners that want to reduce their carbon footprint. Its also the financial director. Whether youre a small company or a transnational enterprise, you run the risk of losing control of your data and buying more and more disk space. You may be storing many copies of each file on multiple externa...

Submitted by Ben Pearce

Published 01 August 2014

Internet streaming the greatest challenges

by Simon Homent Issue 91 - July 2014 What is Wuaki.tv and who do you target?Wuaki.tv is a leading movie and TV series streaming service, dedicated to providing consumers with a wide selection of high quality content through a la carte rental and purchase or subscription services. The goal is to become Europes best way of watching and experiencing h...

Submitted by Simon Homent

Published 01 August 2014

#TVFUTURES

by Joe WatsonIssue 91 - July 2014So what can I say about the last two years being at Uni? Ive made good friends, people who I hope to see again in the years to come. The experience has been incredible. I admit there have been ups and downs to it like deadlines creeping closer and closer but you work together as a team with the people you meet to me...

Submitted by Joe Watson

Published 01 August 2014

Big hands small head

by Graham Reed Issue 91 - July 2014 A long time ago, in a place that no longer exists, BBC Television Centre, we had large cameras E.M.I. 2001, They were often referred to as the cameramans camera, as at the time they gave what was considered excellent pictures in 625 lines (SD), but of course they suffered from many problems. They needed constant...

Submitted by graham reed

Published 01 August 2014

Take it to the bridge

by Will Strauss Issue 91 - July 2014 Since the late 1980s, studios, facilities, OB trucks and many other professional broadcast set-ups have relied on digital video standards such as SDI (Serial Digital Interface) to move audio and video around. Using SDI it has been possible to happily construct a reliable, error-free, plug-and-play, real-time ope...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 August 2014