KitPlus | Articles

State of the Nation - part 1

i Imagine you are the director of the Champions League Final, knowing that 200 million people will be watching your every decision. Or you\'re directing the Eurovision Song Contest. Or even, to be honest, the Tunbridge Wells local news opt out. And at live minus 30 seconds, all the screens in the monitor wall suddenly go black then show a demand, i...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 07 September 2017

The UPs and Downs At NAB with Mr MXF

i "Nothing is finer than the pictures on that monitor", said my colleague as we stood in front of the enormous Sony LED screen showing super bright, super wide HDR pictures that were beautifully shot and carefully presented. The English language, however, can be confusing because when I returned from NAB and showed my wife the photos that I took, s...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin - new

Published 01 August 2017

Insiders View - A few Days in the Desert

i At Finepoint, we always get excited about attending the NAB show. With tens of thousands of video professionals from around the world gathering together, NAB is a great opportunity for us to get exposure to all the latest news and technology in the world of video and post production, as well as giving us the chance to catch up with all our indust...

Submitted by Giles Bendig

Published 01 August 2017

Remote Production - Speed, Control, Infrastructure

i Remote production gives broadcasters the ability to capture a wider range of live events, such as regional sports, news or music festivals, and mix them in a remote facility hundreds or thousands of miles away. Many of these events might be of restricted interest, and may be broadcast to a narrow audience demographic. They may be regional news ev...

Submitted by Ian Cookson - new

Published 01 August 2017

Misinterpreting complexity for sophistication

i Professor Niklaus Wirth was one of the pioneers of computing as we know it. He was responsible for the Pascal language, a project he completed in 1970. Wirth became professor of computing studies at ETH-Zrich, and retired in 1999, although he remains active to this day. He grew ever-more despairing of the complexities of computing systems, which...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 01 August 2017

Is now the time to compromise on investment

It would seem on the face of it that many broadcasters and production companies are trimming spending to the bone, or at least postponing it in anticipation of more lucrative days to come. While that may seem prudent, and is in some cases a necessity, there\'s an equally valid argument that periods of economic downturn, real or perceived, are the p...

Submitted by Mike Ransome - new

Published 19 May 2017

Controlling the Chaos of Remote Uplinks

For Satellite Broadcasters, consumer needs have never been so varied. Audiences are increasingly accustomed to personalisation in every type of content they consume. They now demand, or rather expect to receive breaking news from a scene, content specific to their regions and access to live sporting events held thousands of miles away. As a result,...

Submitted by Roger Franklin

Published 19 May 2017

Live Remote Production Over IP

As broadcasters migrate to a more ubiquitous IP transport and switching network infrastructure, a key benefit is that the variable expenditures of remote on-site live productions can be dramatically reduced, as it is no longer necessary to carry the high field costs associated with these activities. The broadcast studio can now be seamlessly connec...

Submitted by John Smith -new

Published 04 April 2017

Swimrun World Championships - LiveU report

Through the open waters and across the islands of the Swedish wilderness, battling the elements in the OTILLO Swimrun World Championship isn\'t for the faint-hearted. The total distance is 75 kilometres, of which 10 km are open-water swimming and 65 km are trail-running, presenting a huge physical - and doubtless mental - challenge. Taking place in...

Submitted by Kim Svensson - new

Published 04 April 2017

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

A Software Based Approach to Video Monitoring

Real-time content monitoring is a mission-critical operation for broadcasters, telecom, and satellite operators. Traditionally, service providers have used monitoring systems based on specialized hardware with a dedicated, fixed interface designed to monitor a specific number of video feeds. Yet, bespoke hardware solutions require a substantial amo...

Submitted by Anupama Anantharaman - new

Published 04 April 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

Polecam user review

When it comes to filming from above, drones have dominated in recent years. But restrictions on where and when they can be used means there is still a demand for traditional style jibs. Polecam has been a major player in the crane market for nearly two decades and its rigs have captured everything from interesting perspectives of major sporting eve...

Submitted by Phil Vinter

Published 15 March 2017

Not all power is created equal

Battery companies are quickly coming to realize that as new technologies continue to emerge, power solutions cannot be a one-size-fits-all commodity. There is no single battery for every situation, but instead a myriad of choices to accommodate even the most complex requirements. Below are five common videographer or photographer scenarios with the...

Submitted by Jose Flores

Published 15 March 2017

The Transistion in Audio Monitoring

As signal chains have become increasingly complex, the challenges involved in managing and monitoring these paths have multiplied exponentially. Over the past few decades, we\'ve migrated from handling a single channel of content using composite video and analog audio pairs, to elaborate multi-channel facilities routing HD video with embedded audio...

Submitted by Shane Toven

Published 15 March 2017