KitPlus | Articles

Revolutionary Rotolight Anova Shoot at BBC Studios

The Worlds Most Advanced LED Floodlight the Rotolight Anova (www.rotolight.com) was recently the light of choice for a shoot at the home of British Television, with Philip Nash, Multi-Award Winning Photographer and Videographer(www.nash.net) shooting both Video and stills with one of the worlds leading models. The shoot was both indoors against pho...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 October 2012

Pointing out the right colours

In the old days of PAL and NTSC analogue television, a vectorscope was an essential tool for examining chroma at every part for the programme production and transmission chain. This was because the colour information was carried as a phase and amplitude modulation which could be sensitive to a variety of transmission or recording non-linearities an...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

Summer of 3D

Having put 3D to one side for a few months it was very interesting to jump back into the third dimension. With 3D not making the headlines much, if at all, you might be lulled into thinking it has faded away, but that’s not the case. Many events are being shot in 3D, including the Olympics and, although there has been nothing happening that could b...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

A credit to whom?

Just over 40 years ago I was involved in the formation of the Guild of Television Cameramen as an independent non-profit-making international organisation that cares about television camerawork and the people who make it their craft. The GTC today has over 1,000 members, in the UK, Europe, Australia, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and the USA. The...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

Watch out for dead pixels

A dead pixel in a camera imaging sensor can manifest itself in a number of ways. Implying black, 'dead' is not necessarily the correct term for a pixel failure. This is because imager defects include hot pixels, sparkles, noisy or lazy pixels. These problems usually arise during the chip manufacturing process. Defective pixels can appear as unusual...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

Will 2012 be remembered as the first year of complete dig...

The BBC claims that London 2012 will be the first truly digital games, as the public service broadcaster delivers unprecedented coverage across multiples platforms and allowing audiences to watch every single event live. Of course it wasn’t just the Olympics this year, the BBC and ITV succeeded in dusting off the country’s football aspirations once...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2012

Handheld T and M the broadcast emergency service

“Test and Measurement”. Shudder. Like “Health and Safety”, “Bus” and “Replacement Service” or “Keith and Orville” it’s a collocation of words that fills me with dread. Seriously, who wants to read about “Test and Measurement”? Well, as it turns out, the answer is: quite a lot of people. Because, despite its lack of glamour, it is hugely important....

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 August 2012

Evolving Test and Measurement

Time and accuracy are vital when producing content for broadcast. All broadcasters have strict schedules to work to, as well as visual and audio standards that need to be met. Effective testing and measurement (T&M) of any material that is to be transmitted is key to ensuring these parameters are adhered to, for both producer and broadcaster; get t...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2012

PHABRIX hand held SxE solution for Quantel

PHABRIX recently visited UK based Quantel, developers of innovative, world-leading content creation systems for broadcast, post and DI to find out how the company are deploying their six PHABRIX hand held SxE in its test department. Quantel is well known in the broadcast industry for creating powerful and efficient tools for the digital age within...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2012

Automating intelligence across the signal flow

Back when broadcasters maintained small channel lineups, monitoring was a simple task that could be performed cost-effectively by station staff. The manual system-wide monitoring of critical audio and video parameters required dedicated staff all along the broadcast chain, but the investment typically could be justified. However, even with dedicate...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2012

Here is the news

Here is the newsIn mid-May the EBU and SMPTE brought together many of the great and the good of the television industry – and me – to a forum on emerging media technologies. Held in Geneva, in a hotel expensive even by Swiss standards, it was supposed to set the agenda for the future, to share solutions so the future will be bright. As is always th...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2012

Id Hide You.......

I’d Hide You....... The 8,000 mile journey of the Olympics torch has been the surprise hit of the games so far. Each step and every handover is filmed and beamed live to connected viewers over the Internet. Easy enough for an organisation as large and technically astute as the BBC, with its wealth of resources, but in this age of new technology, su...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 July 2012

Sport Pushes the Limits of Wireless Transmission

Sport Pushes the Limits of Wireless TransmissionBy Mark Anderson, Marketing Operations Manager, VislinkWith the London 2012 Games and the UEFA EURO 2012 European Football championships just around the corner, physical and mental endurance will be pushed to the limits. Those pressures also apply to the technology used to cover these events for the w...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 July 2012

Gamut errors: Who cares?

Gamut errors are the most common video signal problems. This is because colour television or cinematography depends on being able to represent every pixel on the screen in terms of red, green and blue. We want to deliver perfect RGB signals representing all the possible colours in our pictures. Virtually all display technologies use RGB primary col...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012

Waste not, want not

One of the most interesting comments I heard at NAB this year was from Gary Greenfield, the CEO of Avid. Picking up the topic of making the most of content across multiple platforms, he said “nothing is left on the cutting room floor any more”. That started me thinking about how technology has allowed us to get profligate, and whether we are now at...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2012