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Soooooo. IBC

Soooooo. IBC!For those of you who don't know (and obviously only read tv-bay for my column) IBC is the world's second largest broadcast convention, held in Amsterdam. As previously mentioned in last months' column, I went with tv-bay. It was my first convention of any kind, and I was in no way prepared for the sheer scale of the event. This thing i...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2011

Eye to eye: How secure is your content?

Before getting up steam for this article, I contacted a former colleague who worked for several decades on the editorial side of the consumer-audio press. He became one of the first collectors of Compact Discs, a medium trusted by many archivists. The oldest items in his collection date back to the original Q4 1982 launch of audio CDs. Were the old...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2011

Protecting your assets, safe storage and long life archiv...

A vast amount of information exists out on the Internet that can be very helpful but also misleading and confusing on how best to protect digital content over time both from degradation of content and from piracy. Thinking back on my twenty plus years in the industry, it is my personal opinion the first creative professionals to experience problems...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2011

Capturing the Gumball 3000 Rally 2011 with an iPhone4

Sons of Oscar nominated Director - Mike Figgis, Arlen and Louis Figgis, were tasked this year with following and recording the Gumball 3000 Rally. The Gumball 3000 is an annual 3,000-mile (4,800 km) international road rally which takes place over 8 days on public roads, with a different route around the world each year. Founded in 1999 by Maximilli...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2011

Storage and archiving

Anyone looking closely at a helical scan video tape mechanism, particularly the miniature variety, might be forgiven for wondering how such an elaborate technology ever came to be invented. The first experimental video tape recorders were essentially audio recorders running at very high speed to achieve the bandwidth needed for television signals....

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

Panasonic AF101 review

In 2008 Canon released its latest stills camera the 5DMk2. Little did they know what they had released on the videographers world. This so called STILLS camera had a hidden talent, that of course of remarkably good 1080p video. The indie film makers went wild, no more did they have to bolt on large cumbersome depth of field adapters to their video...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

IBC2011 must sees

Over 1,300 exhibitors will be supporting IBC2011, each bringing perhaps one, two or three new or enhanced products. My task is to distill these down to the 20 devices likely to be of greatest interest to TV-Bay readers, so far as that is possible several weeks before the show opens. As a recent convert to OS X, I note with gloom that Apple remains...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Operating at the cellular level

The live coverage of outside broadcast events, news or sports has always been an expensive and logistically cumbersome business. The need to invest millions of pounds in specialist satellite trucks can take years to recoup, putting the ability to service live sports contracts beyond the economy of a very few suppliers. Even the live presentation of...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Eye to Eye on Delivery and Distribution

A notable aspect of the 2010 IBC and 2011 NAB conference sessions was the rapidly increasing focus on IP streaming. Fibre-optic delivery to the home has yet to be turned into widespread reality but transport speeds over existing electrical infrastructure continue to accelerate. Cloud-based storage and distribution services offer a solution to the c...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2011

Cameras for streaming

I first saw true HD pictures years ago at IBC. OpTex had a camera focusing on some beautifully lit fruit. The image on the screen was extraordinary, hypnotising. Leap forward a decade and Amsterdam brought Europe its first taste of Ultra High Definition Television - not 720p, not 1080i, but 4320p. The enveloping cinematic pictures and the embrace o...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

KVM enterprise and video matrix switchers in broadcast ap...

KVM enterprise and video matrix switchers in broadcast applicationsEngineers within the professional broadcast world are comfortably familiar with video routers for the control of uncompressed video and audio signals within live studio and editing locations. However there is less familiarity with the use of KVM enterprise and video matrix switchers...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

HTML5 and H.264. Friends United....

H.264 - The Success StorySome technologies like DVD, CD, TV and the PC prove themselves over time. They are practical, flexible, reliable - even universal. Is H.264 one of those magic bullet technologies?H.264, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC, is the video codec that has taken the broadcast and consumer world by storm. In 2008, Anthony Rose, fo...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 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

So what is Digital Television - Part 1

It is tempting to think of “digital television” as something very scientific and even complex. But when we view the end result, we find something very familiar; something television engineers have sought since the very beginning…an experience that just keeps getting better and better…quality video and audio conveying great entertainment, sport, mov...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

Test and measurement in digital television

Do we need to worry about test and measurement in digital television?Let’s be clear about this. Test and measurement tools are not there to make life difficult for you, they are there to ensure that we get the best quality pictures and sound through the long path to the home within a required technical specification. So yes, simply put, checking th...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011