KitPlus | Articles

Lighting series

So far in this series, I have stressed some of my own preferences for good portrait lighting; using Fresnel lamps for key lights to enable accurate barn dooring, minimum spill light and an even ‘field’ of light. Open faced lamps, whilst cheaper, do not give the same control of light, they give rise to double shadows and are also prone to bubble fai...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

A Guide to Testing IPTV: Technologies and Challenges Par...

Before we can go on to look at testing IPTV systems, it would be useful to provide an overview of the technologies involved. Network ArchitecturesFigure 3 shows an example of a typical IP network structure. Content is first delivered into the video headend; this can be done in a variety of formats over a number of different delivery mechanisms (e.g...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Converting for displays

Behind every great display there’s a great converter. Ever since television started to go digital in studios and post production, the number of digital formats has grown. For a while the television standards bodies got a grip and succeeded in pulling nearly everyone along the ‘SDI’ track; now itself expanded to HD-SDI and 3G-SDI – carrying a multit...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Ask the experts. Eye & Jitter

Why should TV broadcast engineers be interested in adding Eye and Jitter measurement to their T & M facilities?The call for Eye and Jitter as part of overall video test and measurement lies in the widespread adoption of serial digital interface (SDI) standards for broadcast. Unlike analog transmission in which the image quality gradually degrades a...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Eye to eye Picture displays and multiviewers 2009

The transition from cathode-ray tubes to flat-panel display devices for broadcast picture monitoring was a long time coming but is now almost complete. Grade 1 CRTs from suppliers such as Ikegami and Sony are still purchased in small numbers for monitoring in quality-conscious playout centres and post-production houses. For every other broadcast ap...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

How to choose a broadcast display

How to choose a broadcast display…10 years ago, buying a CRT monitor was simply a case of buying the latest version of your facilities favourite brand in either Grade I or II. The advent of the LCD, HD and the demise of the CRT means we have now to try and decipher all the marketing jargon to work out which display best fits our needs. To help de-m...

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

Ask the Experts on the Topic of Distribution and Delivery

NAB 2009 was fascinating with respect to how many customers were looking for solutions and insisting that manufacturers work together to provide solutions, as opposed to just supplying products. File-based workflows were the talk of the town (well, at least the talk of NAB) and there certainly continues to be significant discussion and implementati...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 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

Broadcast management systems specialisation not generali...

“Broadcast management systems” is used here as a collective term to encapsulate all of the processes involved from capturing and creating content, to distribution and monetisation. There are so many points of decision making in a broadcast production chain that automating the processes can be mind boggling in complexity. Taking just a view of frame...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

Longevity of media archives

The role of the archive has evolved rapidly, delivering not only new revenue opportunities but crucial conservation possibilities for historical and cultural libraries that have lain dormant for many years. The economic downturn means that now more than ever cost saving is a huge issue; facilities need to create new revenue opportunities whilst red...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

A Guide to Testing IPTV: Technologies and Challenges Par...

High consumer expectations have put pressure on content producers, network operators and equipment manufacturers to deliver consistently high quality audio and video to their end users. The proliferation of enabling technologies has resulted in a wide variety of formats and standards adding to the complexity of the challenges faced in establishing...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

SRW-5800 Training

“Hi Dave, how was the course?” This is the sort of greeting you come to expect from fellow engineers when you have recently attended a training course. Engineers are notorious for having no “small talk”, probably because our minds are usually concerned with things like volts, amps and ohms… and why that VTR always works on the bench, but fails as s...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009