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Red One Hit or Myth

So – after having arrived a year ago to these shores the Red is starting to settle into everyday living here in the UK. Possibly being American and designed by an iconic trendy sunglasses designer, we shouldn’t be surprised by its many foibles. The Red started life in the UK as whispered conversations about a piece of equipment being developed that...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2009

The SxS vs MxT Debate

We are all probably already tired of hearing the phrase ‘cutting costs’ but the reality is that ways have to be continuously found to reduce our production costs in order to stay competitive. The question is – are some savings a false economy or are they really worth it?We have been hiring out Sony’s XDCAM EX cameras for over a year and they are no...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2009

HD Camera Measurements Getting the most out of your camer...

Recap Part 1:In part 1 of this knowledge series we discussed the requirements for making correct white shading measurements in terms of the equipment used. Part 2 now will focus on performing the actual measurements and making sure that we achieve optimum linearity and dynamic range. White shading measurementPower up the camera, waveform monitor an...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2009

HD Camera Measurements and getting the most out of your c...

IntroductionImage quality all starts with the correct alignment of the camera which is used to capture the scene either on location or in the studio. The conversion of light into electrical signals involves many processes which can affect the quality of the image. Understanding these various adjustments that are necessary, using a suitable camera c...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

HD camera market

With the low cost HD market taking an ever firmer grip on the industry, we asked for Hireacamera Managing Director Guy Thatcher’s opinion on the changes taking place. So is anyone still hiring DV/DVCAM equipment anymore?Certainly in the area we specialise in, since the arrival of the Sony HVR-Z1E nearly four years ago, we have slowly watched the ma...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 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

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

The future of Audio

Total audio has been around for 12 years now and I worked for the BBC for 13 years prior to that, I resigned in 1996 as a senior sound supervisor based at Pebble Mill. I firmly believe that sound is only noticed twice, the first time it was distorted and the second time it wasn’t there. When it all goes swimmingly it’s rarely mentioned. In the last...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

Audio Technology Spotlight

In the ever changing world of TV technology, formats, standards and delivery, it’s always been reassuring to think that audio equipment for sound gathering on location hasn’t changed too much. That is, until the last couple of years when the emergence of the now widely used digital solid state recorders, digital transmission radio mic systems, high...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

Choosing the right tripod

Camera support equipment is constantly changing as technological advances influence what can be created in the viewfinder. New generations of ultra compact cameras are enabling the camera operator to explore and get into the action as never before and longer lenses allow close-up views previously unobtainable. But with so much choice, how do you se...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Camera rigs and lighting

The biggest single story at IBC this year, apart from the usual company-eats-company rumours, was the continuing progress of stereoscopy or '3D' as it is currently undersold. A stereoscopic snapshot may well be 3D (displaying length, width and height) but a stereoscopic movie is in fact 4D as it includes a timeline. John Logie Baird set the stereos...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

How we lit Mick

Shine a lightLets start at the beginning with the most fundamental, basic of questions – what’s the point of lighting anything, let alone a living legend like Sir Mick Jagger? The answer is simple – because lighting is the most important part of the whole process. Not the filming. Not the fiddly edit. Not the chin-scratching pre-production. The lig...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

New developments in mobile HD production

When widescreen HDTV was first demonstrated back in the 1980s, the pictures were great but the size and price of the kit left much to be desired. Two decades on, broadcast-quality 1080i/720p HD cameras and recorders have reached levels of compactness and affordability that would have seemed impossible in those early days. When I designed the origin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Behind the scenes at Big Brother 9

Working 94 days with no day off is a hard task. It’s even harder for the TV equipment that has to keep going round the clock, every day, to keep all the viewing ‘addicts’ supplied with live footage and highlight editions. This is the situation that the Big Brother 9 team finds itself in. For those inside the house, there is actually a means of esca...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

London to Capetown, by bike Part 3

Brazzaville was still five hundred kilometers away and the road was still a little on the rough side but not as sandy. What it lacked in sand however, it made up for in water. The road had developed the particularly unattractive habit of having huge water-filled mud-holes at any place where it was impossible to pass on either side. So there was no...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008