KitPlus | Articles

Flipping the Switch to Wireless Lighting Control

Despite the fact that the wider world is increasingly adopting multiple forms of wireless control and communication, the professional lighting industry continues to, by and large, be dominated by the wired link to carry the universal DMX512 control standard. There’s no question that wired DMX512 offers simplicity for point-to-point links to large b...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 January 2011

Commonwealth Games Will Be All Right On The Night

Fans of Bollywood films will be familiar with the classic Indian wedding storyline in which complete chaos usually engulfs the event right up to the moment when the groom arrives, at which point everything comes together and everyone has a whale of a time and puts behind them the dramas that preceded the ceremony. The XIX Commonwealth Games (CWG) i...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Around the globe with Q-Ball

The bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin was celebrated during 2009 by a variety of TV programmes studying the background to his 1859 book 'On the Origin of Species'. One of the most ambitious tributes was a 35-part series planned and produced by Dutch broadcaster VPRO. Rather than hire a studio, they commissioned the three-masted clipper Sta...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Rotolight Interview Kit Review

This month we decide to surprise Jim in his cage and see if we could illuminate him with the new Rotolight Interview Kit. Highly portable and extremely user friendly, Jim was beaming all over – pardon the pun. The Rotolight has already been around for a while with many cheaper copies trying to emulate the brand. This new package is good. It’s a com...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Eye to Eye: Sports Production

I was somewhat crestfallen to receive the advice 'Lay off 3D' when I rang TV Bay for guidance on the theme for this month's Eye to Eye. For better or worse, 3D looks set to be a major part of sports television in the coming years. But I picked up my crest, closed one eye and carried on running. Long-range opticsIt is by now quite widely appreciated...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2010

Ask the experts on cable

Digital, server-based systems in production, post-production, news gathering and playout bring increased efficiencies and productivity. Nonlinear editing and news gathering allow users to access the same material across a data network. Digits are here and are now dictating the form of cables and connectors, from camera through to playout. What qual...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2010

Filming Underwater

Filming underwater remains one of the toughest assignments for any professional production, whether documentary or drama. There are safety concerns involved in having crew and, possibly talent, working underwater. Documentary filmmakers often operate in remote locations, far from medical aid and, especially, decompression chambers needed to treat b...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2010

Im a celebrity get me out of here

Gearhouse Broadcast was awarded the contract to supply broadcast equipment and some crew for Granada Productions “I Celebrity Get Me Out of Here” in 2008. Since that time we have been involved in two UK shows and one German show in Australia plus a USA show in Costa Rica. Planning for these shows is an all year round exercise as the UK show is Dece...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2010

Location test equipment

What to look for…. SizeRuggedFast switch on timeLight weightMultiple applications from one unitDaylight readable displayLong Battery lifeSound monitoring as well as videoMountings (when you need both hands!)A number of years ago Hamlet gave itself the impossible task of developing the world’s first 3G, HD and SD capable, video and audio measurement...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2010

Ask the experts. Eye & Jitter

Why should TV broadcast engineers be interested in adding Eye and Jitter measurement to their T & M facilities?The call for Eye and Jitter as part of overall video test and measurement lies in the widespread adoption of serial digital interface (SDI) standards for broadcast. Unlike analog transmission in which the image quality gradually degrades a...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Eye to eye on Broadcast content management 2009

Content asset management is one of the fastest developing areas of the entire broadcast business. Its advantages over old-style film and videotape libraries are so widely recognised that they hardly need repeating. NAB provided an opportunity to look at new advances from some of the key players. AP introduced a new module for its ENPS 6.0 and 7.0....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

Brand New School Makes the Move to Uncompressed HD

What did you do over Christmas 2008? I spent the whole two-week break rebuilding the post production workflow at Brand New School, the prestigious commercial production and design firm in Santa Monica, CA, and the experience let me stretch every technology muscle I had built up in 10 years as a video engineer. At the time, Brand New School was usin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

Mixing with the wildlife on Big Cat Live

A crew of 73 travelled out from the UK for 6 days of BBC’s ‘Big Cat Live’ programmes from Kenya early in October. Most of us were flown in on single engine cessnas which took us from Nairobi across the great Rift valley & down towards Tanzania. From the moment we touched down on the rough dirt & asphalt landing strip in the middle of the Masai Mara...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

Fibre Optics......the past, present and future

Although there were some discoveries in the late 19th century that were related to light and its propagation though a medium, it was not until the latter half of the 20th century when technological breakthroughs occurred which has led to modern day fibre optics. It was the development of the Fiberscope during the 1950’s, becoming the first image-tr...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

How The SADiE LRX2 Is Making Location Multitrack Recordin...

Nearly twenty years ago I saw one of the first SADiE Digital Audio Workstations, which were just starting to make their mark as the first cost effective computer sound editor. I was so impressed with the concept that I immediately wanted one, even though I had no professional use for it whatsoever. Most of my work (particularly then) was in TV docu...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009