KitPlus | Articles

Television is dead, long live television

After decades of operating within the same fundamental model, the walls around our world - what was the broadcast world, or "vertical", in marketing terms - are crumbling. NAB 2016 clearly showed this and IBC 2016 took it one step further: momentum is strengthening as we push towards an IP future. The TVB2020 conference earlier this year also refle...

Submitted by Ephraim Barrett

Published 07 December 2016

Streamlining operations at BFBS

British Armed Forces around the world rely on British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) to provide them with entertainment and information via their TVs and radios. Operating from studios in Buckinghamshire, BFBS is part of Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), a not-for-profit charitable organization that makes a considerable contribution...

Submitted by Adrian Richmond

Published 07 December 2016

Smart audio - the way foward for live broadcast productio...

Today\'s broadcast facilities are facing ever-increasing demands on their resources as they strive to keep up with consumers who expect more content on more devices, both where and when they want it. Amongst all the various elements broadcasters have to handle (including video, graphics, data, captions and subtitles), the importance of audio should...

Submitted by Anthony Wilkins

Published 07 December 2016

Hacking Hell

There was a really scary story in the news a week or two ago. In the words of Yves Bigot, director-general of TV5 Monde, "we were a couple of hours from having the whole station gone for good". What happened to this highly respected broadcaster was that malicious hackers set out to destroy the network\'s systems. That has to be an alarm call for al...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 07 December 2016

Highlighting YouTube Space

Video, by definition, requires space and light. However, the right space, with the right light, can make or break a production. YouTube parent company Google\'s new London HQ in Pancras Square at King\'s Cross is certainly the right space. In fact, it\'s so right they\'ve called it YouTube Space London, a 20,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facili...

Submitted by Peter Daffarn

Published 10 November 2016

TVFutures - The Battle of the Flowers

Studying on the BSc Television and Broadcasting course at the University of Portsmouth had given me some experience working as a camera operator, but this summer I had the chance to put what I\'d learned over the last two years into practice. Back home in the sunny island of Jersey, in what newsrooms would usually call the \'silly season\', an even...

Submitted by Alex Watson

Published 10 November 2016

Heading towards brightness regulations

I like IBC in the same way that I find NAB grating. Maybe I have been living in the UK for too long, but the bright morning Amsterdam sun breaking through clouds and reflecting off the canal while fit young things on bicycles pedal to college; snapchatting with their friends and avoiding collisions with practised ease has a certain charm. You just...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 10 November 2016

IBC - how was it you

IBC 2016 was very much a launching show, with more new products and updates than in many recent IBC\'s or NAB\'s. With so many of these announcements directly in the remit of a cameraman, blink and you\'d miss the next big thing in camera and lenses news. With this in mind, this review focuses on camera and lenses only. One consistent factor among...

Submitted by Duncan Payne

Published 10 November 2016

The vital role of communications in live production

Live event production is extremely challenging under the best of circumstances. Whether it be sports, concerts, theater or some other event, live production only gives you one chance to get it right. Staging, sound, lighting, cameras, video, special effects, costume, makeup and more, can all go into making a successful live production. Starting hou...

Submitted by Tom Turkington

Published 26 September 2016

Self contained and expandable commentary systems

Adopting innovative technologies and techniques is always fundamental to the control of capital and operational costs - the key to broadcast facilities or technology providers gaining competitive advantage. Sports commentary has continually suffered from high operational costs, whether at the sports venue itself or "off-glass", due to the need for...

Submitted by Chris Collings

Published 26 September 2016

Shooting the WRC Rally

Mark bites the dust for his art and lives to tell the tale... A look at my website will confirm I don\'t just shoot cars, I cover a wide range of genres. But I have shot in and around cars through my career. Early on I joined a facilities company specialising in the design and build of onboard camera systems for F1 and Motorcycle GP live TV coverag...

Submitted by Mark Sallaway

Published 25 August 2016

The FAQs on automated quality assurance

The transition from tape-based to file-based video and audio recording allowed a completely new approach to the business of checking that programmes and interstitials conform to broad-cast industry standards prior to transmission. The Vidcheck team designed the world\'s first au-tomated broadcast quality control product. We have been working on fil...

Submitted by Thomas Dove

Published 25 August 2016

Test and measurement in a multiformat world

The evolution of television technology since the days of 525-line and 625-line standard definition has left a large legacy of standards which modern broadcast systems now have to recognise and process. In today's video and audio business, creatives and technical staff have to be ready to handle a multiplicity of signal types. In its standard form,...

Submitted by Kevin Salvidge

Published 24 August 2016

The true benefits of the media factory ideal

As an industry we know that to be successful in the new multi-platform, multi-format environment there are hurdles that broadcasters and other content owners must overcome. These include: the introduction of non-linear offerings, which require different services to be managed in parallel; the reduction of revenues from conventional linear channels,...

Submitted by Julian Fernandez-Campon

Published 22 July 2016

Making OTT monitoring and compliance manageable and econo...

Consumers today regularly use their smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices to view Internet-delivered content. While their widespread embrace of over-the-top (OTT) services via an array of distribution outlets present today's video program owners and distributors with tremendous opportunity, it also presents new challenges in ensuring no...

Submitted by Gary Learner

Published 22 July 2016