KitPlus | Articles

Singularity - QA and compliance monitoring in one box

by Martin DysterIssue 79 - July 2013 The task of maintaining loudness-compliant, high-quality delivery for broadcast audio is no longer a question of simply using ones ears. Audio channels produced for todays fast-paced productions come in embedded SDI workflow with streaming signals containing a mix of mono, stereo, surround, Dolby encoded and des...

Submitted by Martin Dyster

Published 01 August 2013

Managing Loudness for Broadcast TV

Often viewed as the “ugly sister” when compared to its more glamorous rival video, audio is finally receiving some much deserved attention in broadcast circles. The trigger for this realisation is an increasing shift in awareness that viewers are interested in not just the pictures they are seeing, but equally the sound they are hearing. In particu...

Submitted by Anothony Wilkins

Published 01 June 2013

Exceptional loudness control does not have to break the b...

by Oliver Masciarotte, Director of Customer Experience, Minnetonka Audio SoftwareThe industry is buzzing about loudness control. It is perhaps the most important audio issue facing broadcasters today because governments have mandated change. EBU R128 and other such legislation around the world attempts to provide some level of consistency in percei...

Submitted by Oliver Masciarotte

Published 01 June 2013

Live from the supermarket car park

What’s Cooking? is the new daily daytime TV show beamed from a temporary studio in the car park of a supermarket. As chefs prepare dishes live on air, a roving camera crew relays pictures from the aisles of the shop while Channel 4 viewers interact with the presenters and cooks via social media. Produced by Superhero TV, technical integration and i...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 May 2013

Mobile news gathering with Will Strauss

by Will StraussSo, here’s a scenario. You’re a TV news editor and a story breaks. Your reporter and cameraman (or reporter/cameraman) can get to the scene no bother. But all your satellite trucks are someplace else. What do you do? Umm…. Thanks to developments in transmission technology the ENG scenario described above is pretty much redundant thes...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 May 2013

Will Strauss gets a grip!

By Will StraussOf all the many areas of television technology that tv-bay Magazine covers, you might think that camera support is the one that appears, on the surface at least, to move the slowest. Take the tripod for example. Fundamentally, the design hasn’t changed for a hundred years. Or how about the dolly? The wheels and track device that Alfr...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 March 2013

Plan Bs Playing with Fire Gets the DaVinci Resolve Treatm...

London-born rapper, singer-songwriter, actor and film director Plan B first hit the hip hop scene with his critically acclaimed debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words in 2006. Since then Plan B has released a further two albums, made on-screen film appearances and picked up scores of industry accolades including Best Male Solo Artist at t...

Submitted by Dan Moran

Published 01 February 2013

Loudness measurement: One year on

By Jon Schorah, creative director, NUGEN Audio. With, much of Europe and the U.S. now producing broadcast audio to meet loudness standards, Jon Schorah, creative director of NUGEN Audio, reflects upon the current state of play, the lessons learned along the way, and what’s to come. Playout or Production Normalisation?Commonly there are two ways to...

Submitted by Jonathan Schorah

Published 01 February 2013

Metering in the age of loudness: Keeping things on the le...

By Martin DysterThe new age of production and post production for HD broadcast has gotten more complicated with the advent of legislation and guidelines concerning the relative loudness between different programs, channels and, especially, commercials. With ATSC A85 in place in the U.S., EBU R128 covering the members of the European Broadcasting Un...

Submitted by Martin Dyster

Published 01 February 2013

Meeting standards in 3D

It has been said that poor quality stereoscopic TV will ‘poison the water’ for everyone. This was because in the past 3D was made to quite poor and uncontrolled production and delivery standards. But since BSkyB’s “Technical Guidelines for Plano Stereoscopic 3D Programme Content” were published over two years ago programme makers have had specific...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2013

Loudness Monitoring: Complacent Wont Get You Compliant

Stricter regulations across the globe, the worldwide need for standardized audio level loudness processing, the need for logging and graphing mixed with long-term records maintenance for compliance verification, and the convergence of SDI/IP and ASI technologies all make for a challenging time in the broadcast industry. Identical and obligatory com...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2012

Issues in surround audio and new technologies to address...

Issues in surround audio and new technologies to address them. Surround audio and the encoding technologies, such as Dolbys AC-3 used to transmit it, have introduced new issues in maintaining audio quality. At a time when skilled audio personnel are getting scarce and budgets are shrinking new technologies hold the key to delivering top quality aud...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2012

Camera innovations from IBC

IBC 2012 – ‘Dam, that was a good showFresh from another trip to Amsterdam, Will Strauss picks his ‘best in show’ camera innovations from IBC. I know, I know. It’s October and the chances are that you’ve already had your fill of ‘round-ups’, ‘reviews’ and ‘what I saw in Amsterdam’ type articles. But with so much stuff to choose from at the show, hop...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 November 2012

An Epic Journey for the Summer Games

With the abundance of international sporting events taking place this summer, broadcast technologies and logistics are being put to the test across the board. Beyond the typical coordination and on site expertise required for broadcasts, many companies face not only longer engagements but aggressive turnaround times and long travel distances betwee...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

Ask the Experts - IT and Broadcast converge

Q. ‘Convergence’, specifically the convergence of IT and broadcast technology, appears to be one of those themes that endures. Why does the subject still garner so much attention in 2012? It must be 15-years since the term was first used in this context, are we not a fully converged industry?No, I don’t think we are fully ‘converged’, far from it;...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012