KitPlus | Articles

Moving to an IP Platform Considerations

Audio transport methods have remained virtually unchanged in the broadcast industry for more than half a century. Common approaches to routing audio around large broadcast facilities have closely followed methodology employed in telco central offices, with the use of X-Y crossbar or crosspoint switching. This began to change with the arrival of sol...

Submitted by Stephen Brownsill

Published 07 June 2018

UHD 4k and HDR Picture Quality

And as good as it is, and as easy as it is to do, one of the raps on HDR is that some feel that it’s so bright and sharp that it looks odd, unnatural, almost harsh. It’s similar to when we did our first trials with 4K. The resolution was so high you could easily see, for example, even very minor blemishes. It’s perhaps an irony of new technology th...

Submitted by Tobias Kronenwett

Published 07 June 2018

The Ongoing Evolution of Subtitling Technology

As a subtitling technology developer and manufacturer we’re currently and frequently hearing remarks along the lines of us ‘having it easy’ at the moment. This has typically spun out from the fact that there hasn’t been any really significant and therefore demanding technology shifts in the industry that have affected us for a while. In the past we...

Submitted by Dean Wales

Published 07 June 2018

Tried and tested: DPA d:vice

KitPlus recently took delivery of an interesting piece of equipment for review. We like our iPhone gadgets here. For us, useful iPhone gadgets started when the Olloclip lens gave us a wide angle adaptor. This was a good start, finally evolving into a proper tool when Ziess produced the Exolens system for the 5,6 & 7 series iPhones. Around the same...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 26 March 2018

Interview with Peter Rowsell, Polar Graphics

If you don’t recognise the name Peter Rowsell instantly you no doubt would recognise him in person, from the famous ‘Pink Coconut’ parties during IBC (Brighton) in the 80s or the name ‘Polar Video or Polar Graphics’ both companies which he’s built up over the years. Entering his 43rd NAB (yes 43rd, that is NOT a typo!) who better to catch up with t...

Submitted by Polar

Published 26 March 2018

TV Futures, Tales on Location

If I think back to last May, I was just finishing my second year at the University of Portsmouth, studying Television and Broadcasting, and winding down for the summer. Then out of the blue I got a message from my course leader, saying I might be getting a call from someone who was a location manager working for Raider productions, you know, the pr...

Submitted by Georgia Thirtle

Published 26 March 2018

Why OTT needs multicast ABR

Last year, Netflix’s global revenue reached $11 billion, with 24 million new names added to its subscribers’ list. Viewers are certainly making their preferences heard – and voting with their remote controls to show that over-the-top (OTT) content is here to stay. However, OTT doesn’t just mean video on demand but extends to live streaming too. Dri...

Submitted by Damien Lucas

Published 26 March 2018

Playing with Pink Floyd

For the founder of London-based Hangman, James Tonkin, this has indeed been a summer to remember. After sixteen years of working in the same suites, he designed and moved his team into a new future proofed facility in Kew Gardens created specifically for the manipulation and delivery of formats in up to 8K HDR. Soon afterward, he was approached by...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 12 February 2018

Panasonic GH5: Tried and Tested

My journey as a filmmaker began with a select number of enthusiastic BBC reporters picked out and trained in the concept of Personal Digital Production by the American Video Journalist Michael Rosenblum. Back in the early naughties he was pioneering the concept of one person journalist shoot editors. A complete news reporting package with small per...

Submitted by Tim Bearder

Published 12 February 2018

Speed in a Changing Media Landscape

We are living in the video era - the staggering statistics on video growth make that abundantly clear. According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology 2016–2021, video will make up 82 percent of all consumer internet traffic by 2021, an increase from 73 percent in 2016. To put this in perspective, “it would take an individual...

Submitted by Mike Nash

Published 08 February 2018

AoIP in the intercom world

Everyones talking about using AoIP (Audio over IP) in the broadcast world, but what does it mean to the operators actually making the production - the intercom users? And after years of interoperability taking the lowest common format of analogue tie-lines (also known as 4-wires), has intercom today already moved into the digital world by sharing d...

Submitted by John Sparrow

Published 17 January 2018

Managing Talent

Presenting for television is a talent that is critically competitive. Budding presenters around the world produce showreels, attend acting schools and fight to be the next Ant and Dec¦ but what is it exactly that makes a successful television presenter? As a wannabe TV presenter myself, I wanted to explore the exact process talent managers follow w...

Submitted by Nicole Inanc

Published 02 November 2017

IP or not IP, that is the question

There can be a one size fits all approach to prompting, but with the many forms of production in todays broadcasting world - from a major sporting event, to the biggest Saturday night entertainment show, to a 24-hour news operation or prompting on location - it is unlikely that a single system will suit every circumstance. The equipment needs to be...

Submitted by Brian Larter

Published 02 November 2017

State of the Nation - part 2

This is, of course, the IBC issue of this splendid magazine. Much of the rest of its pages are filled with what you will see there, or (in some cases) what vendors and their marketing communications agencies want you to see there. This year’s IBC is a particularly special event, though. It is 50 years – almost to the day – since the very first Inte...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 19 October 2017

A bluffers guide to image stabilisation

i(Due to the number of image references this articleis best read via the digital magazine on the link above)This month’s article is about Jelly. Unfortunately, not the kind that can be served with whipped cream after about four hours in the fridge (sorry) – but instead the video artefact seen from improperly stabilised video cameras. One of the gre...

Submitted by Mike Colyer

Published 19 October 2017