KitPlus | Articles

Will Youview and IPTV change the face of TV Broadcasting

Youview, and the evolution of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), are set to have a major impact on the UK broadcasting industry. Youview is the latest evolution of Freeview and Freesat, the Set Top Boxes (STB) that give access to additional channels without a monthly subscription. Freeview gives viewers access to terrestrial broadcasts, while Freesat ena...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

Realising the full benefits of hybrid broadcast and broad...

We are all clear that there is a great deal of momentum in pay television at the moment. Alongside that driver, though, there are others which are dramatically changing the way consumers watch television. These include the desire to watch programmes at a time of their choice not that of the broadcaster (and in the room of their choice), and the use...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

The #BVEXPO Great Experiment

NAB, IBC and Broadcast Video Expo share one thing - they play to a global audience for TV and film production, post-production and distribution. It’s not practical to get along to all the shows so there is an increasing trend to report for that global audience. BV Expo is currently the only show without a dedicated multimedia channel. With somethin...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

3D in 2011

Another year and it’s time for a fresh look at the S3D market. Each year the CES Show that occupies the Las Vegas Convention Center with, in 2011, an unexpectedly high number of attendees (140,000) keen to see what’s new. At CES 2010 S3D was THE thing, but a year later the excitement had moved on to the nebulous market of mobile devices OTT and, pr...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Ask the experts - Monitoring

What are the latest innovations in monitoring?For both film and broadcast work, in addition to the fact that the picture must be true, without motion artifacts or aliasing, for a lot of applications you can also add that the picture must be processed in real time - less than one frame or one picture in progressive mode – so the main innovations are...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Watching Television

The pictures on this page give you a small insight into my life. The first is a picture of the television in my living room. At the time of taking the picture I was watching the English cricket team losing in high definition. The second picture is of my desk. Again you will see that it is dominated by a large screen (I’m afraid I still have a sneak...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Eye to eye: The changing face of video displays

Video display technology is progressing so fast that the phrase 'More revolutions than a banana republic' inevitably comes to mind. No offence intended if you have just taken over as president. From the 1930s to the present century, television display was dominated almost entirely by cathode ray tubes. Competition then arrived in the form of plasma...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

True Colours Shine Through With CCS

When you are a broadcast engineer working in front of a stack of LCD monitors, seeing a significant difference between the brightness and colour of each monitor can be both annoying and tiring on the eyes. Worse still, if you in a Master Control Room and the pictures have taken on a sickly green hue, how do you know that it is just the monitors at...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Tape goes West at UWE

Three years ago a convoy of white vans arrived at the Faculty of Arts at the University of West of England in Bristol. An hour later its entire stock of SVHS camcorders, linear editing decks and analog tape were history. In came Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and Panasonic digital camcorders. Now 20 professional tapeless HD camcorders have taken up...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

The revolutionary PHABRIX SxA.

The revolution in screen technology has seen a massive miniaturisation of most test equipment in the last ten years, and this coupled with a large increase in the amount that can be fitted into a small package courtesy of VLSI has meant that a new breed of hand held test and measurement devices have come onto the market. The PHABRIX Sx range is jus...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Control and Monitoring with Snell

For broadcasters and content origination facilities, a single issue with content or within the transmission chain can have an impact on millions of viewers. In some cases this can even lead to large financial penalties and affect commercial contracts. To guarantee uptime, minimize disruption of broadcast services, and keep revenue streams flowing,...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Challenging Loudness

Numerous definitions of the word loudness exist but to understand the relevance of the word in relation to the world of broadcast sound perhaps the statement that loudness is “our perceived impression of the intensity, frequency, and duration of a sound” fits closest. We all watch TV with the remote control close at hand; not just to change channel...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Name-Brand Batteries, Always the Best Choice

In today’s turbulent economy, it can be tempting to cut corners with lower-cost, generic batteries. All too often, however, this comes at the expense of quality, reliability and safety. Though they may incur a higher price, name-brand batteries’ superior capacity, load carrying, charger options and safety mechanisms ultimately make them the best in...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Expert battery advice

1. Why do some manufacturers sell NiMH batteries?NiMH batteries have a number of clear advantages versus other cell chemistries and we believe and see that this cell chemistry complements the standard Li-Ion range. Indeed some customers choose to use only NiMH. The main areas of benefit are weight and balance. A strong minority of cameramen see cam...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Camp, ash, irritation and embarrassment

I am writing these words in the last days of December and you are reading them in the first days of January, so it seems like a good opportunity to look back on 2010 and see what we toilers in television have learnt. Against the odds there were some good programmes on the box. Astoundingly, ITV delivered a drama series that was just like the good o...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011