KitPlus | Articles

Misinterpreting complexity for sophistication

i Professor Niklaus Wirth was one of the pioneers of computing as we know it. He was responsible for the Pascal language, a project he completed in 1970. Wirth became professor of computing studies at ETH-Zrich, and retired in 1999, although he remains active to this day. He grew ever-more despairing of the complexities of computing systems, which...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 01 August 2017

Designing the correct workflow

Last year I took a year-long placement as a video editing support technician. The role exposed me to the common issues that students run into when editing their projects, and I developed an understanding as to why they might struggle understanding the complexities of video workflow. As a student myself I can understand why workflow can be a difficu...

Submitted by Harry Smith

Published 19 May 2017

Mr Cloud, as much about cashflow balance as technology

It was an ordinary Tuesday, the last day of February 2017. It was getting late in the day and I was online doing my monthly management accounts and was just finishing the data entry for a very long Invoice when refreshing the expenses Tab on my browser showed this delightful picture. Woah, I thought, someone has updated the package and not done the...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin - new

Published 04 April 2017

Does the cloud have substance?

Just at the moment, every customer we talk to wants to move to the cloud. It is not just a techno-buzzword: people are really attracted by it. The idea of getting rid of all hardware and letting someone else worry about keeping machine rooms alive seems like a good plan. And they sometimes feel a bit deflated when we talk quietly and calmly about w...

Submitted by Ciaran Doran

Published 04 April 2017

Who really benefits from the Cloud?

The transition to "the cloud\" in our industry has been challenging. Why is it so important to have cloud technologies? What do customers really expect? The term "cloud\" has been used to such an extent that it has diminished the real and actual importance of what\'s really going on - off-premise compute power. With typical cloud adjectives still a...

Submitted by Jayson Tomlin - new

Published 04 April 2017

Streaming and the need for continued innovation

In a fast-changing world, audio producers need to adapt quickly in order to keep up. Media consumption is changing - fast. Almost without anyone noticing, we have passed the tipping point. Only a few years ago we were discussing streaming as an emerging technology; yet now, according to a recent Deloitte survey, streaming has overtaken live TV as t...

Submitted by Jon Schorah - new

Published 04 April 2017

A Software Based Approach to Video Monitoring

Real-time content monitoring is a mission-critical operation for broadcasters, telecom, and satellite operators. Traditionally, service providers have used monitoring systems based on specialized hardware with a dedicated, fixed interface designed to monitor a specific number of video feeds. Yet, bespoke hardware solutions require a substantial amo...

Submitted by Anupama Anantharaman - new

Published 04 April 2017

Driving the Bandwidth Conundrum

At the time of writing, there is a story on the IBC website with the headline "In five years the problem won\'t be bandwidth, but knowing what to do with it". That seemed to me to be an interesting assertion, so I read on. Now I appreciate there are few who are as old as I am, but if you are you may remember the claim, in the early days of nuclear...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 04 April 2017

Libec HFMP out of the box review

Just before we all broke up for Christmas we took delivery of a new \'thing\' at KitPlus HQ. Our first reaction was surprise and a little curious as to how it was going to make itself useful. What\'s the point? The innovative new HFMP (Hands Free Mono Pod) certainly got us thinking. Where other monopods fall over, this one stands strong! It was spe...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 15 March 2017

The Benefits of LED Lighting in Broadcast

The humble LED studio light has come a long way since its introduction. In the early days adoption was low, while scepticism that the quality and functionality of LEDs could rival traditional tungsten lighting was high. There has been a period of adjustment, challenges (particularly around light quality and manufacturing) overcome and the broadcast...

Submitted by Rod Aaron Gammons

Published 15 March 2017

Libec TH-X Tripod review

It is worth highlighting that I am primarily an Editor. Like many of us, over the years I have regularly been involved in the entire creative process in some capacity but increasingly I am asked to go out and film the simpler corporate jobs such as exhibition stands or a \'piece to camera\' for YouTube, Vimeo etc. and embedded into the customer\'s...

Submitted by Nick Robbins

Published 15 March 2017

Polecam user review

When it comes to filming from above, drones have dominated in recent years. But restrictions on where and when they can be used means there is still a demand for traditional style jibs. Polecam has been a major player in the crane market for nearly two decades and its rigs have captured everything from interesting perspectives of major sporting eve...

Submitted by Phil Vinter

Published 15 March 2017

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

Assets in the air

People everywhere are talking about "the cloud", as if it is somehow something (1) new and (2) intrinsically exciting. It really is neither of those things. In the IT world, software as a service (SaaS) has been around since the 1960\'s when organisations bought the use of mainframe software on a time-sharing basis. The important part of SaaS is th...

Submitted by Paul Wilkins

Published 15 February 2017

Sully - Grading a miracle

We all know the story. On 15 January 2009 an Airbus A320 took off from LaGuardia airport in New York, heading for Charlotte. Just a couple of minutes later the plane flew through a flock of Canada geese and blew out both engines. Knowing the risk of crashing into heavily populated areas, Captain Chesley Sullenberger - Sully - aimed for the only lon...

Submitted by Maxine Gervais

Published 15 February 2017