KitPlus | Articles

Preparing for the holiday peak

The summer holiday getaway of 2018 hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A UK airport's non-functional departure boards left travellers unable to find their flights. Meanwhile, an airline cancelled over 2,000 flights due to a computer glitch. One European city closed its airspace entirely. Despite best efforts, staff struggled to cope with t...

Submitted by Jamie Adkin

Published 04 June 2019

Living LIVE at BVE with Ross Video

KitPlus’ Jon Pratchett chats to Stuart Russell, Ross Video, in the BVE studio. Covering customer partnerships and loyalty, pain points, growth, industry trends, pace of IP adoption, 12g SDI technologies, UHD / HDR, 8k, AI and we try to get a hint of new products on the horizon... Well I’m here at BVE with Stuart Russel. Stuart, is Ross Video a bit...

Submitted by Jon Pratchett

Published 21 March 2019

The making of The Heist

Shine TV has never been one to shy away from a challenge, be that in terms of using new technologies, filming ideas or overall formats: we pride ourselves on being ambitious and risk-takers. We make Hunted and The Island with Bear Grylls for Channel 4 and we’ve just made The Heist, this time working with Sky One. These are all huge, ambitiously for...

Submitted by Tom Hutchings

Published 25 January 2019

State of the Nation - November 2018

There is an interesting seminar called Size Matters at the KitPlus Show – organised by the publishers of this fine magazine – at MediaCityUK in Salford on 6 November. It’s a talk by cinematographer Alistair Chapman on the way that camera technology is changing, and in particular the size of the electronic device which creates the image is growing....

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 09 November 2018

An Epiphany Moment

I had been negotiating the sale of my company and had reached the really hard end of the bargain. We were close to agreeing the final sum after a lot of too-much-give-and-not-enough-take negotiation. The solicitors were calling me, keen for a deal. It had come down to one sticking point and, in my hard ball “I am the Wolf of Wall Street” guise, I w...

Submitted by Peter Savage 2

Published 09 November 2018

Sony HDC-4800 Review

First announced at NAB 2016, the Sony HDC-4800 is a studio camera system capable of shooting 4K/UHD at up to 8x or full HD at up to 16x. With a price point upwards of £250,000 it is a very high-end product with a wide feature set. In Sony's own words, "This is the future of live production, designed to satisfy the storytelling aspect of modern spor...

Submitted by Andy McKenzie

Published 09 November 2018

The Pace of Change

The youngest human to stand on the moon (so far) was Charles Moss, the lunar module pilot of Apollo 16. Charlie had a wonderful claim: his father witnessed the Wright Brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, and lived to see his son on the moon. Does anything capture the speed of technological advance better than that? The whole of the history of powe...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 08 September 2018

What is next in OTT

In the past year alone, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the amount of OTT content that’s being streamed. In the first quarter of 2018, there’s been a 114 percent year-over-year growth in streaming video hours, and those numbers are only expected to rise. With OTT revenue predicted to reach $16.6B in 2018, a 40% gain over last year, there’s no...

Submitted by Mary Kay Evans

Published 08 September 2018

Smashing the WTA Tour

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) is the global leader in women’s professional sport with more than 2500 players representing nearly 100 nations competing for a record $146 million in prize money. The 2018 WTA competitive season includes 54 events and four Grand Slams in 30 countries. In 2017, the WTA was watched around the world by a total TV a...

Submitted by Danny Ridler

Published 08 September 2018

Peli Air 1507 Review

Originally named after a bird that carries its precious cargo through the skies, it was, perhaps, only a matter of time before Peli released its Air range. Designed specifically to provide safe but practical storage on planes, the latest model is the smallest and lightest case in the family. Weighing in at just 5.24lbs the Peli Air 1507 is targeted...

Submitted by Phil Vinter

Published 08 September 2018

Fast-moving productions need multi-cam RF reliability

Wireless acquisition creates a level of freedom not possible with any other form of filming yet only a decade ago the technique was barely possible. The technology enabling live real-time connections over radio frequencies has advanced leaps and bounds such that there is barely an entertainment, documentary, sports or news format today that doesn’t...

Submitted by Darren Bilton

Published 08 September 2018

DJI Ronin-S Review

Any self respecting filmmaker starts their edits with their best shots, so let me try to do the same in my writing:My top tip when buying a DJI product is to buy from a local and reputable dealer rather than direct from DJI; sending any faulty item back to Holland at your own expense can be costly. That’s not to say much has gone wrong over the yea...

Submitted by Tim Bearder

Published 08 September 2018

IBC in a post Brexit world

Peter Savage settles into his seat on a flight to IBC in Amsterdam, closes his eyes and dreams of a post-Brexit worldCast your mind forward and we are not in 2018 but next year and, yes, it’s you and me walking to the departure lounge to catch the plane to IBC just as I, and perhaps also you, have done for the last 25 years. (By the way, where is m...

Submitted by Peter Savage 2

Published 08 September 2018

Have Lorry will Broadcast - NHS70

One thing that has become a permanent offering here at the University of Portsmouth is our focus on big, outside broadcasts that we offer to students studying BSc Televisions and Broadcasting. Students spent their third year making multiple live programmes, but as they reach the months of April and May, we shift the experience to something that is...

Submitted by Charlie Watts

Published 18 July 2018

Dedo DLED3 Microlighting Kit Review

Having recently had the immense pleasure of getting my hands on the new Minisoftbox adapter ring for the Dedo DLED3 that takes the soft box that fits the standard DLH4 & DLED7. Size matters here! I discovered that there is only about a half stop difference between the DLED7 and the DLED3 output at the surface of the diffusion fabric which is amazin...

Submitted by Jonathan Harrison

Published 18 July 2018