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Tv-bay Digital Signage Special Report IBC2009

Sign of the times at IBCDigital signage – the use of video screens or projectors to create dynamic information and advertising displays – has moved on rapidly from technological showcase and niche market to become a mainstream media. Recent research by Multimedia Intelligence predicts a doubling of the market by 2012, with 2.3 million displays in u...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Guide to Testing IPTV Technologies and Challenges Part 2

In Part 1 of this series we gave a background to IPTV and explained that the two-way nature of IPTV networks offers many advantages over traditional broadcast technologies, but also presents a number of technical challenges. In this part we will begin to examine some of the challenges faced by IPTV service providers, and the importance of Quality o...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Modern multiviewers

The monitoring of multiple video sources has been simplified and costs greatly reduced by the use of multiviewers. These make use of two principle technologies: large high-resolution video screens and the real-time resizing of video. The market is now well developed and provides a wide choice of specifications such as the number of inputs and their...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

OLED vs LCD

There was a rapid change in image display technology within the last few years. Nowadays CRTs are history, flatpanels substitute them everywhere. Even in the broadcast industry. Different technologies dominate the market;Plasma - a self-lighting principle - mostly used for large screens;TFT-LCDs - a concept that always needs a backlight - most comm...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

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

The filming of Lands End to John OGroats

I’ve been here for several minutes now. Standing in the pouring rain with a camera pointing at the road sign for Somerset, the drops of rain tapping on the camera rain cover add a certain atmosphere to the wild track. I stood trying to work out who was the madder, the two cyclists I was waiting for, or me. Here they come, 10 seconds on the tape, ba...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

Brand New School Makes the Move to Uncompressed HD

What did you do over Christmas 2008? I spent the whole two-week break rebuilding the post production workflow at Brand New School, the prestigious commercial production and design firm in Santa Monica, CA, and the experience let me stretch every technology muscle I had built up in 10 years as a video engineer. At the time, Brand New School was usin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

HD Camera Measurements. Getting the most out of your came...

Recap previous Parts:While the first parts covered the theory and actual measurements of white shading, setting up colorimetry, exposure, greyscale adjustments, alignment and matching of cameras using a waveform monitor, this final part is devoted to providing a better understanding of the displays used. Interpreting a waveform monitor displayA Wav...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 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

NAB 2009 report

By general consensus, this year's NAB Spring Convention, or 'NABshow' as it styles itself, was one of the best ever. Wider aisles and a respectable rather than manic level of attendance made the event, in the words of one exhibitor, 'Business Class'. NAB was always the prototype show where you could sense the directions in which manufacturers were...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009

Compliance and Punishment

Glyn Powell-Evans of Ideas Unlimited.tv explains the benefits of compliance recording and how failing to adhere can land you in hot waterFor broadcasters in the UK, ensuring that anything they broadcast is recorded and available for review is a way of life. The regulator Ofcom has regulations in place which dictate that all broadcasts must be recor...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

Africans in London TV

Joseph Otieno Adamson, Managing Director of the new TV Station Africans in London or AIL TV, is a man whose enthusiasm for all things media knows no bounds. A talented musician, he attended a university course to learn to become a music producer, set up his own recording studio and later decided to extend his talents to video and the world of broad...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

Common Questions on the Topic of Distribution and Deliver...

As the Broadcast and Post industries continue to adopt file-based workflows, there has been an ever-increasing need for the implementation of technologies for the distribution of digital media. Being tapeless also means being aware of how to send and receive files over IP networks, but there are many common questions that arise. Here is a sampling...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

HD Camera Measurements. Getting the most out of your came...

Recap previous Parts:The first parts covered the theory and actual measurements of white shading, setting up colorimetry and exposure as well as greyscale adjustments using a waveform monitor. The objective was to provide a thorough understanding of the functions and benefits of using a waveform monitor when addressing non-linear effects in the cam...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009