KitPlus | Articles

Meeting the specification

A good technical specification will detail precisely what is required, from the equipment to the cables connecting it. Many specifications will give particular manufacturers and model numbers. On many occasions, this makes tendering simple and gives vendors a secure and fair way to bid. The challenge comes when specifications are not aligned with c...

Submitted by Chris Smeeton

Published 12 November 2021

REVIEW - Hollyland MARS 400S PRO Digital Wireless Transmi...

HOLLYLAND MARS 400S PRODigital Wireless Video Transmission SystemBuilt by Hollyland and costing around £600 the Mars 400S is an easy-to-use wireless video transmitter/receiver system – it will be right up the alley of anyone who, like me, considers an instruction manual to be nothing more than box padding. The body is made of metal as opposed to...

Submitted by Phil Vinter

Published 12 February 2021

Why MADI is Still Relevant

While the original idea for MADI was to cater to a very narrow recording studio application, the standard remains a viable go-to multichannel audio technology. Beginning as a standard in 1991, MADI was first introduced to the world as digital production was beginning to come of age. MADI was put together in 1988 by Solid State Logic, AMS-Neve, Sony...

Submitted by Stephen Brownsill

Published 10 September 2019

Keeping the Show on the Road

There is long-established saying in the media business that, if something goes wrong, at least nobody dies. It is almost true unless you happen to be a TV producer suffering a cardiac arrest because your primary video feed has gone blank during a high-budget programme. First-line maintenance is usually in the hands of the user. If a device malfunct...

Submitted by Andy McKenzie

Published 10 September 2019

Moving to an IP Platform Considerations

Audio transport methods have remained virtually unchanged in the broadcast industry for more than half a century. Common approaches to routing audio around large broadcast facilities have closely followed methodology employed in telco central offices, with the use of X-Y crossbar or crosspoint switching. This began to change with the arrival of sol...

Submitted by Stephen Brownsill

Published 07 June 2018

Out of the box: Sennheiser Ambeo VR microphone

The use of 360 video, especially on platforms like Facebook and YouTube is really starting to take off. Gone are the days when you needed to buy multiple GoPros and rigs in order to get something decent looking. Now players like Insta360 and even GoPro with their fusion 360 camera are providing single camera, high quality solutions, enabling the ma...

Submitted by Jon Pratchett

Published 26 March 2018

Tried and tested: DPA d:vice

KitPlus recently took delivery of an interesting piece of equipment for review. We like our iPhone gadgets here. For us, useful iPhone gadgets started when the Olloclip lens gave us a wide angle adaptor. This was a good start, finally evolving into a proper tool when Ziess produced the Exolens system for the 5,6 & 7 series iPhones. Around the same...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 26 March 2018

Marjan Television Network - a case study

Internet and Satellite content distribution now allows production companies and broadcasters to send targeted TV programmes and video to widely dispersed audiences all over world, whilst located where theres easy access to the technology, equipment and expertise to produce top quality programmes. Marjan Television Network, typical of this new breed...

Submitted by Ian Muir

Published 02 November 2017

6 Misapprehensions of MAM

Implementing a media management system is considered to be a risky business. The perceived complexity, upheaval and perception of failure can be so daunting that the risk may seem to outweigh the reward. But, like so many business technologies, MAM have been transformed in recent years and it\'s time to debunk some common MAM myths. Perception: MAM...

Submitted by Julian Wright

Published 15 February 2017

Space lights and a man called Bill

The Space Light has become one of those universally used fixtures which inhabit many film sound stages, as well as finding employment within studio-based broadcast productions. Its history, not completely lost in the sands of time, is very much part of the evolution of the British film industry, whilst its use extends now to Hollywood and beyond. F...

Submitted by Ian Muir

Published 07 December 2016

Dick puts it all together

Many of you will be reading this as you prepare for IBC. Some may even be reading it on the train/plane/ship to Amsterdam. I want to take a couple of minutes of your time to look at a last minute addition to IBC. It concerns IP, but trust me: this is good news so please do not stop reading just yet. For very, very many years we have connected video...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 26 September 2016

Wireless transformation contributes to IP future

The consumer appetite for content is driving broadcast manufacturers to explore every opportunity to make physical devices smaller, faster and more efficient - right from the ability to squeeze the business end of an OB truck into a single flight case to HD transmitters that can be held in a child's hand. Only a few years ago none of this would hav...

Submitted by JP Delport

Published 26 September 2016

The importance of maintaining digital audio paths

A portable, handheld, digital audio stream analyzer/generator is an essential piece of test equipment in the broadcast environment. It allows engineers and system integrators to quickly monitor and verify the composition, and integrity of, audio signals at any point from production all the way through the distribution chain. While the process of te...

Submitted by Larry Schindel

Published 01 April 2016

Square-division versus two-sample interleave

by Kevin Salvidge Issue 110 - February 2016 Square-division versus two-sample interleaveFollowing on from a very successful IBC2015 in Amsterdam, we have been travelling across Europe to hold follow-on discussions with production companies and outside broadcast facility-providers. This series of customer meetings, product demonstrations and evaluat...

Submitted by Kevin Salvidge

Published 16 March 2016

Preserving the Past is a Forlorn Task

by Larry Jordan Issue 109 - January 2016 This week I presented a webinar on how to protect your stuff using archiving. Why? Because hard disks are great for immediate storage, but inadequate for files that you want to keep for a long time. To help you understand my point of view, backup is something you do on a daily and/or weekly basis so you have...

Submitted by Larry Jordan#

Published 21 January 2016