KitPlus | Articles

True Colours Shine Through With CCS

When you are a broadcast engineer working in front of a stack of LCD monitors, seeing a significant difference between the brightness and colour of each monitor can be both annoying and tiring on the eyes. Worse still, if you in a Master Control Room and the pictures have taken on a sickly green hue, how do you know that it is just the monitors at...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

NFTS, the future of digital visionaries

The Confession, a film from The National Film and Television School (NFTS), has recently been nominated for an Academy Award, in the Live Action Short Film category - the second nomination for an NFTS graduation film in this category in the last five years. The success of the film comes days after more than 40 NFTS graduates worked on nominated fil...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Tape goes West at UWE

Three years ago a convoy of white vans arrived at the Faculty of Arts at the University of West of England in Bristol. An hour later its entire stock of SVHS camcorders, linear editing decks and analog tape were history. In came Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and Panasonic digital camcorders. Now 20 professional tapeless HD camcorders have taken up...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

The 3D titling tango

The further you look into 3D, the more it diverges from 2D. Titling, including lower thirds, on-screen ‘burnt-in’ text and subtitles (aka closed captions) are common features of 2D TV and film presentations and so it’s not unreasonable to expect it to be used in 3D. Placing titles at a suitable position on a 2D display is rarely problematical. Usua...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

tv-bay questions

Name & Title?Ben Holmes, Owner and Senior EditorWho are you? (about yourself and EditOut)We're a specialist edit company focusing on editing for Outside Broadcast, as well as some corporate work. What do you do? What does EditOut do?My day-to-day work is as a VT and edit supervisor, producing packages for live TV broadcasts. Edit Out supplies Final...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Television, the limits of the possible

When I was a young scribbler in 1970, my then employers allowed me to launch and run on their behalf a magazine called Studio Sound. It was one of my better career moves and survived (mainly thanks to me leaving it in 1974) for about 35 years. Fairly good going for a trade publication. The upside of editing Studio Sound was being invited to a bean-...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Synchronising the Shelf Stackers

The six-episode BBC Series “Shelf Stackers” brings audiences lots of laughs with its witty teenage commentary. Dom Bridges directed and helped edit the popular show as well as automating the synchronisation of audio clips for its dual-system sound productionBridges began his career as a graphic designer, which eventually led him to commercial desig...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

TV Bay Questions

Who are you? (about yourself and Online Creative)I am the owner of Brighton based post production facility, Online Creative Ltd. I started the company in 1999 primarily as an edit facility which has since developed further into a production company and training facility. We have recently invested in a fully equipped grading suite to add to the serv...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2011

Lighting up Yorkshire

The Yorkshire town of Rawmarsh looks like an easy target. Its trolley buses have come and gone and its two train stations were both wrapped up more than 40 years ago. For many years, it was the home of potters and steel workers; it was a mining town from the 15th century, an industry that survived over 500 years until it was closed by a certain rut...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 January 2011

Launching Call of Duty Black Ops

So, how do you get the feed from 8 full HD camera's, games console screen captures, and a remote camera feed from 6 miles away to over 180,000 live game junkies all waiting to see the release of what is likely to be the world’s fastest selling and most anticipated Console/PC Game to date?That was the question posed to us at Mediakinetic by the digi...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 January 2011

Expanding Arqiva into HD playout

ATG Broadcast recently completed a major SD to HD upgrade for Arqiva broadcast transmission centre at Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. The expanded system enables Arqiva to process and transmit four fully-operational 1080i HD channels as well as six new SD channels. It includes the installation and equipping of a server-based ingest suite, playout...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Deskilling or reskilling

I recently went to a demonstration of some really terrific new technology. This is not a technology column so I do not propose to go into too much detail about why I was impressed. I mention it because it started me thinking about a more fundamental issue about our industry today. The demonstration was at the offices of Ibis, a company which has al...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

TV Bay Questions Editor and Technical Manager at Astley B...

Who are you? (about yourself and Astley Baker Davies)I am Taig McNab, editor and technical manager at Astley Baker Davies. We are a small, multi-award winning animation studio based in central London. What do you do? What does Astley Baker Davies do?We are most famous for our involvement with the Peppa Pig series. Our other shows include Ben & Holl...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Redefining Mobile, High Definition Recording With Cinedec...

IBC 2010 saw the official European launch of Cinedeck EXTREME v2.0, an ultra-portable cinema grade integrated High Definition monitoring, recording and playback device that has already won numerous awards and accolades since making its first public appearance at this year’s NAB Convention in Las Vegas. Cinedeck EXTREME v2.0 incorporates a number of...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

TV Bay Questions

Who are you? (about yourself and Sequence)My name is Ben Foakes,29 years old and founder/ majority owner of Sequence. I work as an editor and post-supervisor as well as jointly running Sequence with my co-manager Kevin Chapman and our fantastic team of staff. The company was setup in June 2004, starting as a single home FCP suite and rapidly growin...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010