KitPlus | Articles

New workflows floating on the horizon

The way in which we consume content has fundamentally changed. We want to watch what we want, when we want, where we want and how we want, and we want to find programmes quickly, preferably in HD or increasingly UHD. Content is king and in order to satisfy consumer requirements it is essential media companies can locate their material quickly and e...

Submitted by Lee Sheppard - new

Published 04 April 2017

The now and how of LED Lighting

LED lighting has come a long way from the days when companies like Outsight were ridiculed by major manufacturers at trade shows because, the manufacturers asserted, technology couldn\'t be entrusted with the requirements of our industry. During this time the market has moved from that initial question, "What is LED?\" to "Is LED ready?\" and final...

Submitted by Tama Berkeljon

Published 15 March 2017

The Benefits of LED Lighting in Broadcast

The humble LED studio light has come a long way since its introduction. In the early days adoption was low, while scepticism that the quality and functionality of LEDs could rival traditional tungsten lighting was high. There has been a period of adjustment, challenges (particularly around light quality and manufacturing) overcome and the broadcast...

Submitted by Rod Aaron Gammons

Published 15 March 2017

What are the challenges of AoIP

At the setup of a recent Outside Broadcast (OB), I was privy to an attempt to pass a signal across two independent Audio over IP (AoIP) enabled trucks. In an SDI world, this bridge would have been as simple as coupling two BNC cables together, but here the engineers quipped about the additional and sometimes challenging processes of connecting one...

Submitted by Craig Newbury

Published 15 March 2017

How to illuminate a better shot

LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology built for the general lighting market is designed to meet very different criteria than the critical lighting requirements for image capture. While LEDs may be a suitable lighting option for some photography and videography, critical applications, such as feature film, production requires users to understand the...

Submitted by Chuck Edwards

Published 15 March 2017

The future of post production

Love it or hate it, 2016 will certainly be a year to remember, for many reasons. In the world of post-production, we\'ve seen high dynamic range become incorporated into UK studio pipelines for the very first time. We watched Ang Lee demonstrate exactly what you can do by shooting at 120 frames per second in combination with stereo 3D. We\'ve even...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 15 February 2017

You can have your OTT and IP IT too

It has taken a long time, for a variety of reasons, but the rising tide of pushing mainstream content over IP is now commonplace. Looking back a few years, some manufacturers, who were early to recognise the advantages, were keen to implement IP based interconnectivity, even though some of their customers remained, and are still, somewhat reluctant...

Submitted by Peter Blanchford

Published 13 January 2017

Diversify or Die

This headline of this article is a simple fact, diversify or die! It is necessary for survival as well as interest of mind to do this within business. "If a farmer can no longer produce crops because no-one wants them he must diversify or die.\" Caravans, glamping, corporate days in the country with hunting, fishing and shooting; these are just som...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 13 January 2017

Television is dead, long live television

After decades of operating within the same fundamental model, the walls around our world - what was the broadcast world, or "vertical", in marketing terms - are crumbling. NAB 2016 clearly showed this and IBC 2016 took it one step further: momentum is strengthening as we push towards an IP future. The TVB2020 conference earlier this year also refle...

Submitted by Ephraim Barrett

Published 07 December 2016

Streamlining operations at BFBS

British Armed Forces around the world rely on British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) to provide them with entertainment and information via their TVs and radios. Operating from studios in Buckinghamshire, BFBS is part of Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), a not-for-profit charitable organization that makes a considerable contribution...

Submitted by Adrian Richmond

Published 07 December 2016

Taking a hybrid approach to the SDI/IP transistion

Broadcasters are not newcomers to technological transitions. As an industry, we\'ve survived analogue to digital, baseband to file-based workflows, SDTV to HDTV and now 4KUHD resolution, not to mention weathering a barrage of new compression formats. Today, we\'re facing one of the most dramatic transformations we\'ve ever undergone: SDI to IP. Unl...

Submitted by Matthew Coleman

Published 07 December 2016

Space lights and a man called Bill

The Space Light has become one of those universally used fixtures which inhabit many film sound stages, as well as finding employment within studio-based broadcast productions. Its history, not completely lost in the sands of time, is very much part of the evolution of the British film industry, whilst its use extends now to Hollywood and beyond. F...

Submitted by Ian Muir

Published 07 December 2016

Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Reviewed

The yeti finally arrived earlier this year - I call it so, because for almost twelve months until BVE 2016 we\'d only seen it in pictures! So getting my hands on one in a real word environment was an absolute no brainer, when Simon Tillyer dropped me a line offering the opportunity to review the camera for KitPlus. I\'ll cut right to the chase with...

Submitted by Ben Sherriff

Published 07 December 2016

Selecting the right broadcast minicam lens

So we all know that HD and 4K (and beyond) is the norm for content creation and delivery, with the need for unique and versatile shots being offered to increase the audiences participation and visual experiences. A major factor aside from the camera itself is the selection of lens, for some of the UHD sensor formats a broad spectrum of "off the she...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 10 November 2016

IBC - how was it you

IBC 2016 was very much a launching show, with more new products and updates than in many recent IBC\'s or NAB\'s. With so many of these announcements directly in the remit of a cameraman, blink and you\'d miss the next big thing in camera and lenses news. With this in mind, this review focuses on camera and lenses only. One consistent factor among...

Submitted by Duncan Payne

Published 10 November 2016