KitPlus | Articles

The evolution of camera connectivity and the HPX600

Tape in, tape out. Cable in, video out. Card in, card out. Simpler times: productions orchestrated by an army of runners, tape op’s and engineers, with transmission to TV, ingest via a VTR and a room dedicated to storing media. Today’s production team has changed. It’s become a small elite squad, tasked with multi-channel playout, multi-resolution...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 July 2013

Chris Barlow gains greater customer satisfaction

by Chris Barlow, Technical Director, AstecMonitoring the quality of service and experience for customers across an often complex and sizeable broadcast estate, can be a difficult area to oversee and hard to control. Gaining an understanding of the quality of the services customers are receiving has many variables to consider including the presence...

Submitted by Chris Barlow

Published 01 May 2013

Cost effective transport of video over long distances

The transportation of live video and audio feeds over the internet has become a widely accepted technique. This has led to a bewildering number of products and techniques becoming available from simple PC plug in cards to very sophisticated encoder / decoder sets. Of course each of these has its own place in the market, as there can be no one size...

Submitted by John Golding

Published 01 May 2013

TV-Bay takes BroadcastShow on tour!

TV-Bay’s BroadcastShow goes on tour... Where & When?London (Pinewood Studios) 9th May 2013Glasgow 14th May 2013Manchester 16th May 2013Cardiff 21st May 2013Bristol 23rd May 2013Who’s exhibiting?A growing band of leading manufacuters and distributors are coming on the tour and (at time of going to print) we are pleased to say Panasonic, NewTek, Blac...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 May 2013

Live from the supermarket car park

What’s Cooking? is the new daily daytime TV show beamed from a temporary studio in the car park of a supermarket. As chefs prepare dishes live on air, a roving camera crew relays pictures from the aisles of the shop while Channel 4 viewers interact with the presenters and cooks via social media. Produced by Superhero TV, technical integration and i...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 May 2013

Alice Chant: Following the Ravensbourne 3

by Alice ChantAs I had suspected a busy, new term has been presented to me. All of a sudden, I can't quite believe my three years at University will be over in a matter of months. It only feels like yesterday that I arrived feeling terribly nervous and so full of hope and expectations. The main task of this term is our dissertation. My question is...

Submitted by Alice Chant

Published 01 April 2013

Trends that could bring a much needed change to post-prod...

In my Christmas article I made the analogy that the post-production market was like high street shopping where the superpowers – Tesco, Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrison’s – have become ever larger at the expense of the poor, independent, high street retailers. With American venture-vultures circling the likes of HMV and Dreams, shoppers inc...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2013

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

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

Ask the experts......Intercoms for outside broadcasts

Ask the experts – intercoms for outside broadcastsBarry Spencer, Trilogy CommunicationsI just assume outside broadcast trucks come with an intercom. Why do I need to even think about it?The first big point is that an outside broadcast is not just a control room on wheels. It is an event. And that means communications beyond the truck. Within the pr...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 April 2012

Eye-to-eye: 2011 highlights

“Broadcasters must climb up the ladder into high definition or they’ll get their ankles chewed by the computer industry”. Memorable quote from a manufacturer of video standards converters nearly 30 years ago when NHK was trying to establish its original 1125-line (1080-active) 5:3 aspect-ratio ‘Hi-Vision’. Well it happened. 2011 was the year ‘high-...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Innovation is the Key to Digital Signage Success

In a recent survey conducted and published by POPAI UK & Ireland, the trade association for companies involved in point-of-purchase and retail communications, there are nearly four times as many shops and business incorporating digital signage into their retail sales operations as there were only four years ago, which essentially equates to a nearl...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

The IBC 2011 Future Zone

Meet Tony Drummond-Murray, an engineer. His company, Murraypro, has been inventing and manufacturing precision equipment for 37 years. The mere 10 minutes I spent on the Murraypro stand at this year's IBC were an education. I learnt how and where manufacturers dangerously cut corners when designing their products and what effect this has on broadca...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 November 2011

Can second-screen apps really add value to the broadcast...

As today’s consumers watch television, many of them are engaging with media through multiple devices at once. In fact, some studies indicate that as much as 50 percent of television viewers are regularly online as they watch. They are posting and tweeting on social networking sites, checking movie and actor facts on sites such as IMDB, and even vis...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

North West 200

As the gates to the event open and the hordes roll in to watch the North West 200 motorcycle race, production company Greenlight TV is primed: production schedule ready, broadcast timetable planned meticulously. Then... torrential rain, a crash and a major oil spill... finally a credible bomb alert. It's at times like these when production skills a...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 July 2011