KitPlus | Articles

Product update with Swit - travel safe power solutions

Swit Electronics is a high-tech enterprise that manufacture power solutions and accessories for the professional broadcast and video industry. Products include batteries and chargers, on-camera lights, monitors and more. Swit design and manufacture their products to the smallest detail and therefore the end result is a high performing, high quality...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 July 2013

Dick Hobbs remembers the BBC Television Centre

I am writing this column the day after the last news programme was transmitted from BBC Television Centre, and by the time you read it the place will be more or less moribund. Which is sad. My first experience of Television Centre was – frighteningly – 40 years ago when I went to a recording of Andr Previn’s Music Night in TC1. It was a Rachmaninov...

Submitted by Bogdan Frusina

Published 01 May 2013

Building a live linear streaming channel to reach multipl...

The market for live and on-demand streaming video has exploded in recent years thanks in part to broadband connections and the proliferation of connected devices. A recent survey by The Diffusion Group showed that some 50 percent of online video viewers watch some form of streaming live video at least once a month, and 64 percent said comprehensive...

Submitted by Jennifer Baisch

Published 01 May 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

Cue Systems, more important than ever in live OB producti...

An effective cue system performs a crucial role in coordinating broadcast activity, keeping directors, production crew and camera operators informed and in control. Data gathered from vision mixers, routers and other production path components generates tally information that can be displayed on under-monitor displays (UMDs) and multi-screen viewer...

Submitted by Bob Head

Published 01 April 2013

Sony cameras and Canon EF Lenses being used to great effe...

By Mike Tapa MTFWith the immanent introduction of the F5 and F55 from Sony, perhaps we should take look back on the fantastic work done by its predecessor the PMW-F3 in the past year. Interchangeable lenses is one of its main features, coupled with an extremely shallow lens register make this one of the most versatile tools in any cameraman's a kit...

Submitted by Mike Tapa

Published 01 March 2013

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

4k The New Gunslinger in Town

Just when you thought it was sufficient to declare yourself ‘HD Ready’, along comes 4k. But don’t panic. Here’s the lowdown on what it all means and what tools are currently available. By Will Strauss. As someone that works in (or near) the town named broadcasting I probably don’t need to tell you this but technology advances pretty quickly around...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

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

Wibbly Wobbly Waveforms

The very first analytical electronic instrument, developed in the late 1890s, was the oscilloscope. This used a cathode ray tube (CRT) to paint a graph of voltage on the Y axis versus time on the X axis. Once television became a practical reality in the 1930s, the same instrument was applied to the video output from the camera and became the very u...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 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

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

An Olympian Effort

For obvious reasons, the broadcasting world does not generally hold mass-murdering dictators in high esteem. But, in a small way, and despite his many, many faults, the world of television has one such tyrant to thank for the connection between technological innovation and the Olympic Games. And no, this is not a joke. The first handful of modern d...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 September 2012

TV-BAY Questions

Name & TitleJohn R Williams, Director Oscus Media in EdinburghWho are you (about yourself and who you work for)?This is a hobby that has got out of control! I was always keen of Tape recorders, and my son who is now 24, has followed the same pattern with an edit suite at aged 10. I have had no formal training and so I’ve have had to learn from the...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 August 2012

4KTV The next bigger thing?

4KTV – The next bigger thing?The history of 4K digital moving images goes way back to the mid 1990s. That was when film effects started to be processed digitally and produced amazing results – maybe a bit too amazing for some. Of course the effects had to be seamless and so the digitised effects images had to carry all the required detail of the 35...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2012