KitPlus | Articles

Making the second screen work

With little fuss, a major revolution has transformed the way that many – almost certainly the majority – consumers watch television. They now watch with a smartphone or a tablet in their hands. This is a genuine demand: consumers love the second screen. The key is for broadcasters to embrace it as an opportunity, and to ensure that, wherever possib...

Submitted by Mark Christie

Published 01 July 2013

Alice Chants final term: Following the Ravensbourne 3

The final term of a degree is going to be challenging, but what an amazing learning curve I have been on. I have had the opportunity to work with some great people on various projects and have been able to further develop my skills as a Director. My main project is an experimental film of which I wanted to showcase my ideas and a concept, without t...

Submitted by Alice Chant

Published 01 July 2013

The Cloud, a big hit at NAB with Bob Pank

NAB 2013 will go down in history as the event where the broadcast industry took to the Cloud in a big way. Perhaps it was the number of smaller companies and start-ups that have been successfully operating cloud services for a year or more that persuaded the big names to join in but, more likely, these moves have been in the pipeline for a while. T...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2013

Peter Savage declares what happens in Vegas should stay i...

Peter Savage enjoys Vegas, as do lots of people, and sometimes he enjoys it too much. However, this time he came away from the world’s largest broadcast trade show more disillusioned than up-beat. The annual trip to the Mecca of American partying is over for another year and tired and emotional UK broadcast workers have wearily made their ways back...

Submitted by Jon Schorah

Published 01 June 2013

Planning the digital marathon

Never one for New Year's resolutions, I made the 2013 Virgin London Marathon one to finally commit to. So once I'd put in the training and mentally prepared for the greatest marathon on Earth, I started to explore new ways in which I could share my experience with friends, family and the public in a different way. It's certainly inherent within the...

Submitted by Ben Darby

Published 01 June 2013

Jon Pratchett reviews the Matrox VS4 Capture Card

On many occasions it has been necessary to record ISO footage from the camera's on a multi camera live streaming job, normally just so we have that backup and can do any re-edits if needed. However it relies on either the camera operator having to remember to load the camera with storage media and then of course HIT RECORD!! In the heat of a live e...

Submitted by Jon Pratchett

Published 01 May 2013

Dick Hobbs remembers the BBC Television Centre

I am writing this column the day after the last news programme was transmitted from BBC Television Centre, and by the time you read it the place will be more or less moribund. Which is sad. My first experience of Television Centre was – frighteningly – 40 years ago when I went to a recording of Andr Previn’s Music Night in TC1. It was a Rachmaninov...

Submitted by Bogdan Frusina

Published 01 May 2013

Creating a feature-rich subscriber-based OTT entertainmen...

TV Everywhere has become a way of life in the Nordic market, where every major broadcaster has succeeded in taking its services over the top and into the online video space. One of those broadcasters – pan-Nordic pay-TV channel provider C More Entertainment – has offered Web TV services for years through its online video portal. Competition for vie...

Submitted by Helge Hoibraaten

Published 01 May 2013

Planetary scientists stream galaxy worldwide

Sky-live.tv is a website that broadcasts real-time astronomical occurrences. It is the result of collaboration between Ciclope Group, at the Technical University of Madrid’s Montegancedo Astronomical Observatory, and Shelios, a nonprofit organization aimed at promoting and disseminating lectures, courses, exhibitions, and the results of scientific...

Submitted by Raymond Burns

Published 01 May 2013

Getting to grip with it with Mark Scotton

By Mark Scotton, sales manager for Cameragrip. Getting the right equipment to ensure you add value to your production can be difficult, especially when there are so many products available that all seem to be offering different solutions. Creating moving shots can be done in a variety of ways by using products such as jibs, cranes, tracking dollies...

Submitted by Mark Scotton

Published 01 March 2013

Gekko Kelvin Tile LED REVIEW

By Jon PratchettI like LED lighting. I know there are a lot of people who tell us that it can't produce the wide colour gamut of Tungsten, and I agree. But it’s getting close and the shear ease at which you can set them up and control their brightness, not to mention the lack of heat and the ability to run them for hours off a battery for me out wa...

Submitted by Jon Pratchett

Published 01 March 2013

Alex Fine: Following the Ravensbourne 3

A lot of young people studying film production such as myself are always looking to set up as a film production company. We do little jobs where we make studio diaries for young (or old on the rare occasion) musicians; low budget music video’s, [very] short film’s about nothing in particular, or corporate video’s with clich dolly- moves and scratch...

Submitted by Alex Fine

Published 01 March 2013

Trends that could bring a much needed change to post-prod...

In my Christmas article I made the analogy that the post-production market was like high street shopping where the superpowers – Tesco, Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrison’s – have become ever larger at the expense of the poor, independent, high street retailers. With American venture-vultures circling the likes of HMV and Dreams, shoppers inc...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2013

Smart technology and local TV

We work with both marketing agencies and SME businesses across the UK and it is vital to our company to predict the digital marketing trends before they happen. Local TV and Smart televisions will have a great say in the way we communicate and throw in to the pot Social Media and we suddenly have the three core elements which will make up televisio...

Submitted by christopher walkey

Published 01 February 2013

Is it time to review your colour grading toolset?

One important step for all budget levels of post-production is the colour correction or grading tools you use to match the colour of different shots in your edit, to give a consistent look and feel. You may already be doing basic colour grading without really thinking of it as a separate process in your edit, or you may be sending off your edited t...

Submitted by Mark Brindle

Published 01 February 2013