KitPlus | Articles

What are the challenges of AoIP

At the setup of a recent Outside Broadcast (OB), I was privy to an attempt to pass a signal across two independent Audio over IP (AoIP) enabled trucks. In an SDI world, this bridge would have been as simple as coupling two BNC cables together, but here the engineers quipped about the additional and sometimes challenging processes of connecting one...

Submitted by Craig Newbury

Published 15 March 2017

How to illuminate a better shot

LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology built for the general lighting market is designed to meet very different criteria than the critical lighting requirements for image capture. While LEDs may be a suitable lighting option for some photography and videography, critical applications, such as feature film, production requires users to understand the...

Submitted by Chuck Edwards

Published 15 March 2017

Mixing console displays - central to usability

Since the introduction of assignable controls on mixing consoles, it has been essential to provide sound engineers with a clear picture of what the function and status is of each fader and other associated controls. Consoles can have over 100 faders. To allow the sound operator to keep track of the function of each panel and its current settings, c...

Submitted by Paul Hooper

Published 15 February 2017

Challenges for MAM with varying production types

Many media asset management platforms are designed to handle the immense number of assets needed for today\'s fast-moving, content-heavy productions. Since every production is unique, each has its own set of asset management requirements and workflow needs. While the unique workflows vary, a common necessity for an easy-to-use interface with the ab...

Submitted by Jonathan Aroesty

Published 15 February 2017

Mr MXF thinks the future is bright

I have had the good fortune to spend some time with students at Southampton Solent, The University of Surrey, Ravensbourne and Godalming College in the last few weeks. Although student numbers are down on the technology courses, enthusiasm is high and the passion for the broadcast and media industry is evident in the eyes of the stars of tomorrow....

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 13 January 2017

Diversify or Die

This headline of this article is a simple fact, diversify or die! It is necessary for survival as well as interest of mind to do this within business. "If a farmer can no longer produce crops because no-one wants them he must diversify or die.\" Caravans, glamping, corporate days in the country with hunting, fishing and shooting; these are just som...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 13 January 2017

Trends in IP based broadcast

The momentum behind moving media operations to IP-based environments is unstoppable and to stay ahead of the competition these days, companies need to be migrating operations away from rigid, single-purpose components and towards software-based common computing resources. The good news is a well-architected IP-based production facility is now able...

Submitted by Glodina Lostanlen

Published 13 January 2017

The eye in the sky

EVENT360 specialises in production and delivery of sport presentation, entertainment and stadium ceremonies, and, as such, we\'re always looking for new, interesting, and innovative crowd engagement tools. One of those engagement tools that we\'d been using for many years was a crowd-surfing ball - basically a sponsor-branded beach ball thrown into...

Submitted by Julian Marks

Published 13 January 2017

Rethinking standards in the media world

It\'s actually a more difficult question than you think. When I ask the majority of engineers this question, I will get a technical answer. It will be something like "to be sure we meet the specification\" or "to be sure we don\'t put bad signals on air\" or "so that I don\'t get fired for getting loudness wrong\" The reality of course is that moni...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 07 December 2016

Cause and effect of jitter in an operational IP video net...

What are the advantages of moving to an IP infrastructure? The most commonly cited advantage of deploying IP Video networks in production and other operational applications is the ability to use Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) IT-based infrastructure, which takes advantage of the economies of scale of the IT industry when compared with the relative...

Submitted by Paul Robinson

Published 07 December 2016

Smart audio - the way foward for live broadcast productio...

Today\'s broadcast facilities are facing ever-increasing demands on their resources as they strive to keep up with consumers who expect more content on more devices, both where and when they want it. Amongst all the various elements broadcasters have to handle (including video, graphics, data, captions and subtitles), the importance of audio should...

Submitted by Anthony Wilkins

Published 07 December 2016

Taking a hybrid approach to the SDI/IP transistion

Broadcasters are not newcomers to technological transitions. As an industry, we\'ve survived analogue to digital, baseband to file-based workflows, SDTV to HDTV and now 4KUHD resolution, not to mention weathering a barrage of new compression formats. Today, we\'re facing one of the most dramatic transformations we\'ve ever undergone: SDI to IP. Unl...

Submitted by Matthew Coleman

Published 07 December 2016

Space lights and a man called Bill

The Space Light has become one of those universally used fixtures which inhabit many film sound stages, as well as finding employment within studio-based broadcast productions. Its history, not completely lost in the sands of time, is very much part of the evolution of the British film industry, whilst its use extends now to Hollywood and beyond. F...

Submitted by Ian Muir

Published 07 December 2016

Hacking Hell

There was a really scary story in the news a week or two ago. In the words of Yves Bigot, director-general of TV5 Monde, "we were a couple of hours from having the whole station gone for good". What happened to this highly respected broadcaster was that malicious hackers set out to destroy the network\'s systems. That has to be an alarm call for al...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 07 December 2016

TVFutures - The Battle of the Flowers

Studying on the BSc Television and Broadcasting course at the University of Portsmouth had given me some experience working as a camera operator, but this summer I had the chance to put what I\'d learned over the last two years into practice. Back home in the sunny island of Jersey, in what newsrooms would usually call the \'silly season\', an even...

Submitted by Alex Watson

Published 10 November 2016