KitPlus | Articles

The brave new world of software based production

In today’s rapidly evolving broadcast industry, the only constant media organizations can truly count on is change — and the need to adapt as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible. One of the biggest agents of change is the IP revolution, driving broadcasters to migrate their operations to all-software solutions running on commodity, IT-based te...

Submitted by Boromy Ung

Published 09 November 2018

The Pace of Change

The youngest human to stand on the moon (so far) was Charles Moss, the lunar module pilot of Apollo 16. Charlie had a wonderful claim: his father witnessed the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, and lived to see his son on the moon. Does anything capture the speed of technological advance better than that? The whole of the history of powe...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 08 September 2018

Smashing the WTA Tour

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) is the global leader in women’s professional sport with more than 2500 players representing nearly 100 nations competing for a record $146 million in prize money. The 2018 WTA competitive season includes 54 events and four Grand Slams in 30 countries. In 2017, the WTA was watched around the world by a total TV a...

Submitted by Danny Ridler

Published 08 September 2018

OB999 Accelerates Hill Climb Broadcast

Over the last century, The Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb has been attempted by some of the world’s most accomplished racing drivers striving to be the fastest up the 1,000 yard, 1 in 6 gradient track. Last month, in celebration of the motorsport venue’s 113th birthday, Formula E’s Mitch Evans not only added his name to that extensive list of driv...

Submitted by Nick Collier

Published 08 September 2018

Fast-moving productions need multi-cam RF reliability

Wireless acquisition creates a level of freedom not possible with any other form of filming yet only a decade ago the technique was barely possible. The technology enabling live real-time connections over radio frequencies has advanced leaps and bounds such that there is barely an entertainment, documentary, sports or news format today that doesn’t...

Submitted by Darren Bilton

Published 08 September 2018

League of Legends European Masters

ESL, the world’s largest esports company, relied on a full Blackmagic Design live production workflow at the inaugural League of Legends European Masters tournament. The new league launched this Spring, with the first split taking place in the UK, specifically, at the historic Haymarket Theatre in Leicester. The European Masters tournament is the p...

Submitted by Sam Deans

Published 18 July 2018

AoIP Solutions at Sky TV

Sky UK has recently moved the whole of its Sky News operation into new, state-of-the-art facilities in the Sky Studios building on the Sky TV campus in Osterley, West London. Described as being both the most sustainable broadcast facility of its kind in Europe as well as the most technologically advanced, the Sky Studios project is set to completel...

Submitted by Tom Pidsey

Published 18 July 2018

G-Teching Storage to another level

That heart-dropping, cold-sweat evoking moment your external hard drive fails to connect to the computer and you realise the precious project you’ve been working on for weeks is lost for good (unless you want to spank hundreds on a recovery service that may or may not retrieve some of the mangled data!)Ah, the fun of video storage - it may not be t...

Submitted by Phil Vinter

Published 18 July 2018

Will we soon be paying our respects to PayTV

Recent reports show pay TV in the US peaked in 2012 and will keep dropping over the next five years. Digital TV Research’s North America Pay TV Forecasts state the US will see a 20% drop between 2012 and 2023. Should the UK be readying for a similar change in consumer viewing, or is something different happening here?Looking at UK pay TV revenues,...

Submitted by Malcolm Harland

Published 18 July 2018

How to shoot the perfect lighting mix

Advances in high-quality LED lighting over the past couple of decades might be one of the best things that’s ever happened to broadcast and cinema production. Compared to traditional tungsten fixtures, LED lights offer powerful operational and financial benefits from longer life and lower energy bills to brighter, more consistent light and greater...

Submitted by Alan Ipakchian

Published 07 June 2018

Moving to an IP Platform Considerations

Audio transport methods have remained virtually unchanged in the broadcast industry for more than half a century. Common approaches to routing audio around large broadcast facilities have closely followed methodology employed in telco central offices, with the use of X-Y crossbar or crosspoint switching. This began to change with the arrival of sol...

Submitted by Stephen Brownsill

Published 07 June 2018

The Pitfalls of Online File Sharing and Sending Services

Easy-to-use, readily-accessible, and consumer-oriented, online file sharing platforms such as Dropbox and Google Drive are, to end users, a pleasant replacement to older file transfer methods such as FTP. FTP is complex to use and requires IT intervention to make almost any change. The pain associated with FTP, which was developed in the 1970s, is...

Submitted by Mike Nash

Published 07 June 2018

State of the Nation

I sometimes think I pay too much to get my hair cut. On the most recent occasion I was trimmed, my hairdresser had just returned from a holiday in Hawaii. Where she thought she was going to die. She thought this because the state’s emergency alert system was triggered, sending messages across all available platforms, for 38 minutes, that a ballisti...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 26 March 2018

TV Futures, Tales on Location

If I think back to last May, I was just finishing my second year at the University of Portsmouth, studying Television and Broadcasting, and winding down for the summer. Then out of the blue I got a message from my course leader, saying I might be getting a call from someone who was a location manager working for Raider productions, you know, the pr...

Submitted by Georgia Thirtle

Published 26 March 2018

Grand slam IPTV and digital signage platform

Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, is home to major league baseball’s Kansas City Royals. Built in 1973, “The K” has a proud baseball legacy, and goes down in history for winning two World Series championship titles; one in 1985 and another in 2015 — exactly 20 years apart. The most recent win brought a resurgence of baseball fever to the s...

Submitted by Joe Walsh

Published 26 March 2018