KitPlus | Articles

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

Mr MXF thinks the future is made of components

The recent SMPTE IMF plugfest that was kindly hosted by Fox in Burbank gave the vendors, users and content owners a chance to discuss the fine details of the IMF standard and to get excited about where it will take the Post Production community. If you haven\'t heard of IMF then you have not been standing within 500ft of me for the past year. IMF i...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 15 February 2017

Rethinking standards in the media world

It\'s actually a more difficult question than you think. When I ask the majority of engineers this question, I will get a technical answer. It will be something like "to be sure we meet the specification\" or "to be sure we don\'t put bad signals on air\" or "so that I don\'t get fired for getting loudness wrong\" The reality of course is that moni...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 07 December 2016

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

Scopes, a creative trilogy

The purpose of color correction is to fix any problems with exposure and color, ensuring the final image looks right. Color grading is used to set the mood by adjusting the colors of the video imagery to achieve a certain look or feel. At the core of color correction is tonal range: the range of brightness from dark (black) to light (white). When t...

Submitted by Paul Issacs

Published 07 December 2016

Cause and effect of jitter in an operational IP video net...

What are the advantages of moving to an IP infrastructure? The most commonly cited advantage of deploying IP Video networks in production and other operational applications is the ability to use Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) IT-based infrastructure, which takes advantage of the economies of scale of the IT industry when compared with the relative...

Submitted by Paul Robinson

Published 07 December 2016

Review: Transvideo Starlite RF

The Transvideo StarliteRF is a new lightweight wireless monitor system that ticks many boxes and satisfies new and developing monitor requirements. Rental companies are reporting a rising demand for lightweight shooting kits even for commercials and movies, increasing use of hand-held, use of Steadicam, gimbals and other body rigs which keep the ca...

Submitted by Marcus Brent-Smith

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

Smart audio - the way foward for live broadcast productio...

Today\'s broadcast facilities are facing ever-increasing demands on their resources as they strive to keep up with consumers who expect more content on more devices, both where and when they want it. Amongst all the various elements broadcasters have to handle (including video, graphics, data, captions and subtitles), the importance of audio should...

Submitted by Anthony Wilkins

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

A changing media industry

Q. How is the media industry changing today? The media industry, especially the digital TV industry, is going through some revolutionary changes both in terms of how video is delivered and how it is watched. Until a few years ago, consumers watched TV programs that were delivered via a dedicated and controlled network. Content was aggregated and de...

Submitted by Anupama Anantharaman

Published 07 December 2016

Life through a hire lens

There are loads of differences in the requirements for say news, sport or live entertainment events, and it\'s digging a little deeper into those differences that ultimately, well, makes the difference in what cameras and lenses we hire out to customers. It\'s a bit of a cliche, but what customers want is not always what they need. Add to that all...

Submitted by Neville Fuller

Published 10 November 2016

Self contained and expandable commentary systems

Adopting innovative technologies and techniques is always fundamental to the control of capital and operational costs - the key to broadcast facilities or technology providers gaining competitive advantage. Sports commentary has continually suffered from high operational costs, whether at the sports venue itself or "off-glass", due to the need for...

Submitted by Chris Collings

Published 26 September 2016

Are you female and going to IBC

Trade shows within this industry can be hard enough to survive for anyone, let alone as a woman when women make up less than 10% of the general populace. There are undoubtedly some benefits to being the minority (as there are with many things); I\'ve never had to queue for the toilets for a start. However, feedback we have collated from our FBI dat...

Submitted by Sadie Groom

Published 25 August 2016

Test and measurement in a multiformat world

The evolution of television technology since the days of 525-line and 625-line standard definition has left a large legacy of standards which modern broadcast systems now have to recognise and process. In today's video and audio business, creatives and technical staff have to be ready to handle a multiplicity of signal types. In its standard form,...

Submitted by Kevin Salvidge

Published 24 August 2016