KitPlus | Articles

Broadcasting Audio in 5.1 Format

One of the positive consequences of digital television transmission is the ability to include fully embedded multi channel audio with suitable metadata to control both channel displacement and even sound levels within the domestic environment. While at the receiving end of the transmission chain there are many innovations and protocols to make life...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

Surround technologies

Throughout the world, in a wide range of broadcasts, surround sound has become a vital tool for easily and effectively capturing real-life recordings. Playing an equally important role in developing advanced surround sound microphones is Holophone®, with its patented audio recording devices designed specifically to address the challenges audio prof...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

The Prism Sound Effect

The Prism Sound Effect. When Prism Sound took over the SADiE brand last year, it embarked on a fact-finding mission to discover why the brand had such a huge and extremely dedicated international user base. This process has been extremely enlightening and has enabled Prism Sound to respond with SADiE 6 - a new product for professional sound editors...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

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

Eye to eye on Broadcast content management 2009

Content asset management is one of the fastest developing areas of the entire broadcast business. Its advantages over old-style film and videotape libraries are so widely recognised that they hardly need repeating. NAB provided an opportunity to look at new advances from some of the key players. AP introduced a new module for its ENPS 6.0 and 7.0....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

A day in the life of a TV lecturer

0830The Dorset country lanes give way to the flood of traffic into Poole and Bournemouth as I negotiate the rush hour streaming into the seaside town. Driving past Poole Harbour, home of Sunseeker Yachts and the RNLI reminds me that yacht I once dreamed of is still a dream. However, the job I once dreamed of became a reality when I became a televis...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009

HD Camera Measurements and getting the most out of your c...

Recap Parts1 and 2:Parts 1 and 2 covered the theory and actual measurement of white shading, making sure that the camera non-linearities introduced by various different lens systems on a particular camera are compensated. In this issue, Part 3 will investigate setting up colourimetry and exposure as well greyscale adjustments using a waveform monit...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009

Mobile communications Eye to Eye

Point to point communication via satellite is one of the most useful tools available to television and radio reporters in a world of fast news distribution. This short summary looks first at some of the newest SNG link kit and then at broadcast-related telecoms. Advent Communications has introduced an enhanced version of its 1.5m and 1.8m NewSwift...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2009

How we lit Mick

Shine a lightLets start at the beginning with the most fundamental, basic of questions – what’s the point of lighting anything, let alone a living legend like Sir Mick Jagger? The answer is simple – because lighting is the most important part of the whole process. Not the filming. Not the fiddly edit. Not the chin-scratching pre-production. The lig...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

Lights, Camera, Makohead Action

With the movie Quantum of Solace due to hit the big screens in October, audiences around the world are already gearing up for another huge blockbuster from the James Bond stable. The movie, which began shooting at Pinewood studios in November 2007, will undoubtedly include the spectacular action sequences that are the hallmark of James Bond films....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

Stryder TV Brick House Video User Report

Stryder TV is based in Oxfordshire and for decades we have provided both British and International broadcasters with a complete video production services. Our camera crews have operated in 45 countries from the Arctic to the Tropics and we produce anything from web content to beaming live pictures across the world with our satellite truck. We neede...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Insurance in a muddy field

There can be few subjects which provide a wider insight into life than Insurance. Don’t let anyone convince you that it is boring. Over the years I have been involved in covering risks as diverse as insuring a belly dancers belly against injury, whilst dancing at a top London Turkish restaurant, to covering the Polish Chamber Orchestra and the Pope...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

Guide to filming in London

Film London aims to make filming in the capital as straight-forward a process as possible. They hold a library of over 10,000 London film locations, a comprehensive database of crew and facilities in the region, and can also provide information and advice about the filming process. Please note however that they do not provide permits for filming. T...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008

The Reflecmedia Chromaflex portable chromakey system

The use of keying a foreground image over a background image to form a composite is an established and widely used technique in film and TV production. For most cameramen this will usually involve them in shooting a subject against a coloured background, typically green or blue. Sounds simple but reality can be far from it, anecdotes abound of nigh...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2008

A Cinematographers Companion, through hell and high water...

Miller Camera Support has never been more thoroughly tested than by Australian Cinematographer Wade Fairley, through Antarctic winters and summers, floods in Tuvalu, swamps in the Solomon Islands and the outback deserts of Australia. The most outstanding project of recent times for Wade was the trip for the BBC Natural History Unit, shooting footag...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2008