KitPlus | Articles

EPIC HD Upgrade

EPIC-TV came into being in late 2006, after Norfolk County Council acquired the ITV Anglia Regional news and Network production studios at Magdalen Street Norwich. Since then it’s been re-developed as one of the technically most advanced production facilities in Europe, with three broadcast studies, two of the HD, one of them Virtual, linked direct...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009

Lighting. Back or rim light part 4

In my last article, I discussed modelling of the ‘talent’ by choice of lamp, and careful choice of the horizontal and vertical angle of the ‘key’ light. Having made those choices my next priority would be to choose a ‘back’ light. It is also sometimes known as a ‘hair’ light which gives a pretty good clue as to its function. Just to say that we are...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009

JVC introduces new Final Cut Pro 6

Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) further expands its ProHD camcorder line-up by introducing two professional solid state camcorders, the industry's first to store files in the native QuickTime format for Apple's Final Cut Pro™ onto reliable and inexpensive SDHC media cards. The compact hand-held GY-HM100 3-CCD camcorder is introduced in January...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2009

Red One Hit or Myth

So – after having arrived a year ago to these shores the Red is starting to settle into everyday living here in the UK. Possibly being American and designed by an iconic trendy sunglasses designer, we shouldn’t be surprised by its many foibles. The Red started life in the UK as whispered conversations about a piece of equipment being developed that...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2009

Mixing with the wildlife on Big Cat Live

A crew of 73 travelled out from the UK for 6 days of BBC’s ‘Big Cat Live’ programmes from Kenya early in October. Most of us were flown in on single engine cessnas which took us from Nairobi across the great Rift valley & down towards Tanzania. From the moment we touched down on the rough dirt & asphalt landing strip in the middle of the Masai Mara...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

Fine design for post.. The IKEA story as told by EDIUS

There can be few companies in the world with greater brand awareness than Swedish-based IKEA, the business that has brought Scandinavian furniture design to the world. IKEA is now bringing its corporate history together in a series of videos and, as befits a highly design conscious company, it has chosen the Thomson Grass Valley EDIUS editing platf...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

The future of Audio

Total audio has been around for 12 years now and I worked for the BBC for 13 years prior to that, I resigned in 1996 as a senior sound supervisor based at Pebble Mill. I firmly believe that sound is only noticed twice, the first time it was distorted and the second time it wasn’t there. When it all goes swimmingly it’s rarely mentioned. In the last...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

The morality of meltdown

Apologies for breaking away from my usual broadcast-orientated comments but, when looking at the micro of our own world, sometimes big macro economic tsunamis crash in – and can have hugely damaging effects on our own small, flat, micro economic island. I’m writing this over the weekend when the US Congress is deciding whether it should bail out th...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

How and where to do your Post Production.

The world of professional editing and post production has changed dramatically in the last few years. The biggest of the barriers to entry – (cost), has all but disappeared with the advent of desktop editing solutions. Manufacturers like Apple and Adobe and even Avid have made this possible with products like Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe’s CS3 Prod...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Behind the scenes at Big Brother 9

Working 94 days with no day off is a hard task. It’s even harder for the TV equipment that has to keep going round the clock, every day, to keep all the viewing ‘addicts’ supplied with live footage and highlight editions. This is the situation that the Big Brother 9 team finds itself in. For those inside the house, there is actually a means of esca...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

IBC top visitor tips

From flower bulbs to North Sea ferries, here are some top tips from the people in the know…!Tip 1 - The funny smelling coffee shops don't generally sell good coffee!Tip 2 - Prostitution is legal in Amsterdam - not compulsory!Tip 3 - When crossing the roads, once you've safely avoided the cars, taxis, trams, bikes and rickshaws - keep an another eye...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

The largest fibre and Ethernet video SAN network in the w...

Out of the Ashes of the old Anglian TV studios EPIC has risen like a phoenix to become not only a major broadcasting hub in Norfolk but to rival traditional studios throughout Europe. With the financial backing of Norfolk County Council and the East of England development agency, EPIC has converted the old TV studios and installed a state of the ar...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Chyron interview with tv-bay

Chyron has moved into the online content creation space. What is driving this shift?The foundation for this new division is Chyron’s recent acquisition of AXIS Graphics, a unique web-based graphics system that has pioneered online graphics production. Chyron and AXIS bring innovation to graphics creation workflow and production - and most important...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Making the most of a downwardly mobile market

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?When the economy takes a downward turn you must look for opportunities to succeed, not assume you will fail, explains Peter Savage The trade press has been rife recently with stories of doom and gloom. Speculation abounds about more post houses hitting the wall as the economy continues to slide. So I thought it was timely to giv...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Mixing with the wildlife on Springwatch

As the 5th series of ‘Springwatch’ draws to a close I’d like to share with you an insider view of one of my favourite vision mixing jobs. As a freelance vision mixer I work across the board on all sorts of programmes: quiz & chat shows, sports, drama, music & Light Entertainment, recorded & live, studio-based or Outside Broadcast. But for four week...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008