KitPlus | Articles

Ooh ahh.. just a little DIT with Will Strauss

by Will Strauss Issue 84 - December 2013 Issue 84 - December 2013 Like the Offshore Windfarm Engineer or the Waste Management Consultant, the Digital Imaging Technician (DIT) is very much a 21st Century profession and one that didnt exist 10 years ago. Generally recruited for a digitally-shot feature film, commercial or TV drama, the role was initi...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 January 2014

A testing 4K future...

by Steve NunneyIssue 83 - November 2013 We have only recently started to get HDTV transmitted to our homes with all the headaches of getting 1920 x 1080 50 or 60 fps down cables and compressed over the airways. Then there was the suggestion we could be sitting at home wearing glasses watching 3D however on 13th June 2013, ESPN announced an end to b...

Submitted by Steve Nunney

Published 01 December 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

Ensuring online video revenue in the face of piracy

by Helge HoibraatenIssue 80 - August 2013 When it comes to distributing video online, broadcasters and other content distributors have seen a substantial viewing time amongst certain demographics move from traditional channels to piracy. Numerous debaters have tried to give a definite answer to whether this hurt sales and current business models, o...

Submitted by Helge Hoibraaten

Published 01 September 2013

Do you have firmware deficiency syndrome?

For 5 days in June 2013 we did a survey on Facebook and our own website and asked how often camera users had gone online to check for firmware updates…Checked online for a firmware upgrade….. …within last 30 days 18%…within last 90 days 9%…within last 12 months 3%…never checked online 70%We could have gone further to see which users used what camer...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 July 2013

A very useful tool: Atomos Samurai reviewed

By Stephen J. BrandInternational cameraman Stephen J. Brand’s work takes him to some far-flung places. As well as work for BBC Channel 5, ITV and Channel 4, Stephen recently spent 6 weeks in the Middle East filming a wildlife commercial for Qatar TV using a Sony EX3 and an Atomos Samurai, which he describes as a ‘‘very useful little tool”. Here, he...

Submitted by Stephen J. Brand

Published 01 April 2013

Professional Video Editing Just Got Better

Endorsed by twenty five thousand Facebook fans, six industry awards and thousands of new users through the trial download and active forum communities, Autodesk, Inc.,announced that the new Autodesk Smoke 2013, professional video editing software is now shipping. “The anticipation for Smoke, since its thrilling announcement at the National Associat...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 February 2013

Bob Pank looks at Editing and the Cloud

By Bob PankHistorically video editing has been one of those operations shaped by technology. For decades it depended on VTRs to play and record. You had to go to an edit room, usually darkened and with loads of buttons and winking lights, to get your edit done by a video editor. It was not cheap. Then, with video stored on computer discs, editing w...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2013

Why does my project look different on every screen I watc...

By Thomas UrbyeThe age old question, asked by so many people who’ve come through my suite: “I’ve downloaded it to my laptop and it looks different?”Then there is the inevitable panic:“Thomas, how can we make sure that everyone who watches it, watches it ‘properly’?”This issue recently came to light with a campaign backed by moviemakers launched to...

Submitted by Thomas Urbye

Published 01 February 2013

To cloud, or not to cloud

Almost ever since it began, there have been two parameters that have played a big part in shaping broadcast television – bandwidth and storage. Admittedly, storage was not an issue at the start because there was no way to do it, but Ampex changed that in 1956. Bandwidth dictates many aspects of infrastructure and broadcast picture quality, the amou...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2013

The cushion quotient

I have just been to a conference organised by the Mobile Data Association. I was very grateful to the organisers for the invitation, as it is the sort of thing that appeals to me: some of the top analysts in the industry throwing out statistics and predictions. Of course, at this sort of conference you get a lot more about where we are than where w...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2012

Understanding and Managing the Piracy Continuum

Content owners, content distributors and security vendors have traditionally characterized digital “pirates” as a single malicious group with ill intentions. This, however, is seriously short-sighted because it is an overgeneralization that not only overshadows true consumer behavior, but results in misguided piracy mitigation tactics and missed re...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2012

OTT Monitoring: keeping it simple and useful

IntroductionOTT is generally understood to mean a technique where the transmission of video to the subscriber is based on the same underlying methods as those currently being used to serve out web pages on the internet today. The Over-the-Top name refers to the potential of this technology for bypassing existing traditional television distribution...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

New Solutions for Accelerated and Secure Movement of High...

For broadcasters and media enterprises of all shapes and sizes, the ability to move critical content rapidly and securely from point A to point B has always been important – but it’s never been so complex and rife with risk as in today’s multiformat, multiscreen content delivery environment. Today’s broadcasters and content owners are often require...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

Metadata rules

Regular readers of this column will know that I am frequently tasked with covering the sexiest of broadcast industry subjects. Indeed, just two months ago I got to discuss test and measurement (T&M). Well, if you thought that was intense, just wait for this month's topic. Not only is it potentially even less glamorous than T&M, it has the potential...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 October 2012