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tv-bay questions

Name & Title?Barrie Williams, owner and founder of Pixelfantastic, a boutique post production facility 13 miles east of SohoWho are you? (about yourself and who you work for)?I started my career in front of the lens as a musician, touring Europe for several years playing Jazz violin. We did a lot of TV work, so I became very familiar with the insid...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

How do you prepare for a curved ball

Peter Savage looks at the effect of the Japanese tsunami and considers whether it has changed our perception of acquisition formats and how we could have planned for itI was sitting with a client in Camden having a quiet lunch in a small Spanish caf. Very nice, very authentic and, as with all good cafs, Sky news was rolling (because no one was play...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Game, Set and Match

It was only three months ago that this column hailed featured the new DVB-3DTV standard. But already there’s talk of a second version, or rather ‘phase’, as described by David Wood of the EBU in the new 3D Roundabout newsletter. In a way this is healthy. It shows just how fast 3DTV is moving and, whereas phase 1 is designed to work with existing 2D...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2011

Meeting the Demands Of The Market

Much has been said about audio loudness and there can be few people in broadcast who are unaware of the new legislation being introduced by various countries to control this problem. The UK and Italy have already set limits on loudness levels and in 2010 the US introduced the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM), making it illega...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

Whats new in broadcast test and measurement

The test and measurement product category continues to expand as the broadcast business itself diversifies. Notable recent developments include higher resolution displays and a gradually increasing number of analysers which, having detected a fault, endeavour to fix it. No sign at NAB 2011 of any tablet-based test and measurement equipment but perh...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

Test and measurement in digital television

Do we need to worry about test and measurement in digital television?Let’s be clear about this. Test and measurement tools are not there to make life difficult for you, they are there to ensure that we get the best quality pictures and sound through the long path to the home within a required technical specification. So yes, simply put, checking th...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

The New ITU-R BS1770-2 Loudness Standard

HistoryThe ITU-R standard BS1770-1, released in 2006, describes a fundamental loudness measurement algorithm. The basic technique was validated through listening tests on varied program material, performed in labs around the world. In late 2010 the ITU committee which maintains BS1770 accepted (after much negotiation) changes submitted by the EBU....

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

tv-bay questions

Name & Title?Eugene McCrystal, owner of EMC Post Production in DublinWho are you? (about yourself and who you work for)?I have been working in the broadcast and film industry for over 20 years. I started my career as an engineer with Carlton Television but quickly transitioned within Carlton to online editor. In 2004, I co-founded EGG Post Producti...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Navigating uncharted waters

I’m home again from the annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas. It must be something to do with getting older, but this year both key performance indicators (good dinners versus greasy hamburgers, and early nights versus late night carousing) fell on the conservative side. And my flight home landed 45 minutes early, rather than a week or so late. I was hea...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Whats new in audio

The NAB show is not the first event that comes to mind for pro-audio kit but in fact rivals any audio-specific exhibition on the planet. The following is a summary of significant new sound equipment seen during a tour of this year's exhibits. AKG's C 544 L head-worn microphone is designed to be worn by gymnastics or (almost the same thing in some c...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Loudness Whats All The Noise About

Anyone involved in our industry can’t have failed to notice the amount of noise broadcasters, manufacturers and legislators are making about audio loudness. As topics go, this one is currently red hot. Broadcast audio that comes with annoying loudness differences can result in complaints from viewers and, in some territories, these complaints can t...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 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 Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Working With Audio Signals

For most of the past century, working with audio signals was a very straightforward process. The audio information was converted to electrical signals in the form of a varying voltage between the two conductors in a pair (balanced) or between a conductor and the ground reference (unbalanced). The bandwidth, frequency response, distortion and noise...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Its a MADI World

At this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas, 3D solutions were still a hot topic — but one emerging technology threatened to steal the show. In fact, the rapid growth of devices that support the Multichannel Audio Digital Interface (MADI) has more potential for simplifying broadcasting operations than perhaps anything else. But what exactly is MADI and wh...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Post Production Ask The Experts

IntroductionIt’s a familiar scenario: A client calls with an urgent transfer request. It may be a movie sourced at 23.98PsF that needs conversion for broadcast, and the client needs an HD version at 1080 50i with Dolby E audio and an SD program at 625 50i with PCM audio, as well. Or perhaps the content was shot at 1080 59.94i, but the client needs...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011