KitPlus | Articles

Implications of a Tapeless workflow

The rise of ‘Tapeless Workflows’ is dramatically changing the way broadcasters and post-production facilities protect the content they are working on or own. The traditional workflow relies on tapes to record and protect information, usually stored on a shelf to be used again if necessary. However, due to changes in technology and the demands of an...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

The importance of measurements for eye and jitter

‘If it hasn’t got eye and jitter measurements, it’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot’ recalled Paul Nicholls, PHABRIX sales and marketing manager. ‘This was one comment made by a prominent broadcast engineer that stuck with me when we began to research the critical toolset required on the new eye and jitter PHABRIX SxE’. Having taken this to h...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

Supporting the RED

James Cullen was working as a studio cameraman for the BBC when he was asked by television quiz show favourite CJ de Mooi to shoot a promo for him. The brief was to showcase CJ’s enthusiasm for the Porsche 911 Carrera, and Cullen knew that the production standards had to match the engineering excellence of the car. “I was using a RED One camera whi...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

Mercedes-Benz Worlds winning formula, Online Creative and...

I set up Online Creative in 1999 after a number of years of linear editing and five years of post working for German non-linear editing manufacturer, FAST, during the pioneering days of digital video. The early 90s were a very exciting time editing with non-linear for the first time, although I haven’t done a linear edit since!Online Creative has g...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Digital Vision case study

The Edit Store, based in London’s W1, is one of the last few independent facilities in the city. Spread across two buildings, the Edit Store provides many of the world’s leading broadcasters with offline, online, grading and audio dubbing facilities primarily for broadcast factual programmes. At the heart of its HD grading suite, introduced in 2008...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Eye to Eye New post-production kit at IBC 2009

This alphabetical overview of new video and film post-production kit at IBC 2009 was going to start with Apple but the company pulled out of both NAB and IBC in 2008. I begin instead with Avid which has certified its Media Composer, NewsCutter, Symphony and DS software to run on the new HP Z series Workstations – the HP Z800 and HP Z400. Avid custo...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Converting for displays

Behind every great display there’s a great converter. Ever since television started to go digital in studios and post production, the number of digital formats has grown. For a while the television standards bodies got a grip and succeeded in pulling nearly everyone along the ‘SDI’ track; now itself expanded to HD-SDI and 3G-SDI – carrying a multit...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Eye to eye Picture displays and multiviewers 2009

The transition from cathode-ray tubes to flat-panel display devices for broadcast picture monitoring was a long time coming but is now almost complete. Grade 1 CRTs from suppliers such as Ikegami and Sony are still purchased in small numbers for monitoring in quality-conscious playout centres and post-production houses. For every other broadcast ap...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Ancillary Data Monitoring in Multiviewers

The broadcast environment has gone through enormous change over the last decade, creating challenges in the management, storage and broadcast of material. Factors contributing to these challenges include the increase in the number of channels with the move to digital, the introduction of various aspect ratio and video standards with the transition...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

How to choose a broadcast display

How to choose a broadcast display…10 years ago, buying a CRT monitor was simply a case of buying the latest version of your facilities favourite brand in either Grade I or II. The advent of the LCD, HD and the demise of the CRT means we have now to try and decipher all the marketing jargon to work out which display best fits our needs. To help de-m...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Tv-bay Digital Signage Special Report IBC2009

Sign of the times at IBCDigital signage – the use of video screens or projectors to create dynamic information and advertising displays – has moved on rapidly from technological showcase and niche market to become a mainstream media. Recent research by Multimedia Intelligence predicts a doubling of the market by 2012, with 2.3 million displays in u...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Modern multiviewers

The monitoring of multiple video sources has been simplified and costs greatly reduced by the use of multiviewers. These make use of two principle technologies: large high-resolution video screens and the real-time resizing of video. The market is now well developed and provides a wide choice of specifications such as the number of inputs and their...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

OLED vs LCD

There was a rapid change in image display technology within the last few years. Nowadays CRTs are history, flatpanels substitute them everywhere. Even in the broadcast industry. Different technologies dominate the market;Plasma - a self-lighting principle - mostly used for large screens;TFT-LCDs - a concept that always needs a backlight - most comm...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Filming for the army on Salisbury Plain

The ApproachIt’s no secret. Soldiers are trained to feel invincible, They develop a whole persona around focussed “toughness” and the ability to take care of themselves. But nobody is tough enough to withstand being crushed between a 70 tonne Warrior and a Land Rover. The problem is how to explain this to men who as a day job, get shot at. That was...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Why choose a broadcast or professional monitor

Just as it’s unlikely that anyone would purchase a family vehicle to set trailblazing records around a race track and a sports car is not going to be the best choice for off-road use, the same principle is true of monitors – the key is to match the product to the demands of the task. So what are the differences between the major monitor families?Co...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009