KitPlus | Articles

Bob Pank looks at shooting 4K TV

by Bob PankIssue 82 - October 2013 Not unexpectedly IBC was full of buzz and products for 4K the new image format for television. This is generally taken to be a 2x2 version of HDTVs 1920 x 1080, i.e. defining a 3840 x 2160 pixel picture. But there is nothing new about big pictures like this. Back in late 2004 a draft of the Digital Cinema Initiati...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2013

A flys view of IBC

by Robin PalmerIssue 82 - October 2013 At IBC 2013 there were a number of new technologies to be seen amongst all the hype of 4K this and all that. You may know the name of the Fraunhofer Institute as the people who brought us MP3. At this years exhibition they showed their work in many different fields of advanced video and audio. One project from...

Submitted by Robin Palmer

Published 01 November 2013

KFX Aurora LT remote head

Issue 81 - September 2013 Released just over one year ago the KFX Aurora LT remote head has rapidly become a very popular on set tool for long run shows and day playing alike. Camera Operators and grips love how easy it is to get ready and rental houses love the ease of maintenance and the quick return on investment that they are getting. The key t...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 October 2013

Sportsnet stays ahead of the game with Quantel

by Roger ThorntonIssue 81 - September 2013 Over the last 15 years, Sportsnet has risen to become one of Canadas leading sports media operations. The Sportsnet and Sportsnet One TV channels are complemented by Sportsnet Radio, Sportsnet Magazine and its premium international sports channel, Sportsnet World. In May 2013, parent company Rogers Media a...

Submitted by Roger Thornton

Published 01 October 2013

Powering a richer media experience on set-top boxes

by Achim BosseIssue 80 - August 2013 Todays television viewers are increasingly using the Internet to download, share, and consume media on a variety of devices. Traditionally, DTV and IPTV service providers have relied on DVB MPEG-based technologies to deliver linear television services and IP technologies like multicasting or RTSP for VOD. Howeve...

Submitted by Achim Bosse

Published 01 September 2013

Addressing challenges in multiformat signal management an...

by Brian PeterssonIssue 79 - July 2013 One of the many demands broadcasters face today is establishing effective multiformat signal management and confidence monitoring, which have become critically required capabilities, and there are several reasons behind this. The first is the broadcast industrys progressive evolution slow at first, but acceler...

Submitted by Brian Petersson

Published 01 August 2013

Multiviewers come along for the ride with Matrox

Mobile production truck converts to HD and Matrox MicroQuad multiviewers come along for the ride. Jones Mobile Television (JMTV) is a full-service location video production company located in Arkansas, USA, which serves a wide range of national sports, corporate, and entertainment clients. Recently they completed a $3 million USD conversion of thei...

Submitted by Catherine Overbury

Published 01 July 2013

Changing the art of Chroma Key

ChromaKey technology has been used for decades in TV and film studios to composite images or footage into a shot using green and blue screen backdrops. Although used on multi-million dollar movies, such as AVATAR and used all around the world in News rooms, conventional ‘Fabric’ ChromaKey technology requires Kilowatts of lighting, hours of setup ti...

Submitted by Rod Aaron Gammons

Published 01 June 2013

Evolving the industry audio monitoring systems

With respect to monitoring, particularly for multiplatform content delivery, how can our facility straddle the divide between baseband and file-based signals?The media industry as a whole is moving toward multiplatform content delivery. This shift includes and affects not only traditional broadcasters and new media outlets, but the content creators...

Submitted by Don Bird

Published 01 June 2013

Back to basics: MPEG Dash

by David Springall, CTO & Founder, YospaceJust when you thought that you had got your head around the different flavours of MPEG, another one comes along. What on earth is MPEG-DASH, and why do we need to care about it?The DASH part stands for dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP. MPEG-DASH is an attempt to create a standardised approach to deliver...

Submitted by David Springall

Published 01 May 2013

4K at NAB with Bob Pank

As we head once more to NAB you may wonder what this year’s big thing will be. I put my money on 4K. As I write there must be many exhibitors polishing up their ‘4K solution’ message, ready for their customers at the show. With the extraordinary situation of screens costing more than cameras, a viable business model clearly remains far off. But, to...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2013

Rock steady support for Duran Duran

When Den Lennie was asked to be DP for a Duran Duran live concert in the Manchester MEN Arena last year, he was looking for some solid heavy duty camera support. His choice fell on a range of 2575 and 2060 fluid heads by OConnor. The team shot the two-hour gig very unconventionally with 14 Sony PMW-F3 manned, five fixed camera positions and another...

Submitted by Den Lennie

Published 01 April 2013

Getting to grip with it with Mark Scotton

By Mark Scotton, sales manager for Cameragrip. Getting the right equipment to ensure you add value to your production can be difficult, especially when there are so many products available that all seem to be offering different solutions. Creating moving shots can be done in a variety of ways by using products such as jibs, cranes, tracking dollies...

Submitted by Mark Scotton

Published 01 March 2013

Bob Pank busts the cloud!

Too may of us can remember the Eyjafjallajokull volcano incident that stopped thousands of Europeans travelling back from NAB 2010. After a long show in the desert many were looking forward to home, real beer and green green grass. But the transport system that had always worked so well was out of commission, and suddenly it was clear that nothing...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2013

An unexpected debate

At the end of last year I went to a screening of The Hobbit, or rather the first volume of The Hobbit, as An Unexpected Journey is the first part of a trilogy. I say I went to a “screening” not because that is the way that we trendy media types talk, but because it was a private showing to some of the great and good of the industry in the UK, organ...

Submitted by Robert Howard

Published 01 March 2013