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3D One year on

The month started with a trip to Sony to visit its very impressive 3D Customer Experience Centre where Paul Cameron (Training) gave a three-hour run down all about 3DTV production. This very compact version of Sony’s three-day course kept me on my toes. Early on he pointed out that 3D had been in favour, and then out, several times already, at abou...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

3D Film-making Goes Independent

James Cameron and Sky TV have stolen the stereoscopic 3D limelight. Events such as football cup finals and royal weddings have seemingly been produced with no expense spared in order to show 3DTV at its best. The Ryder Cup, for example, employed an incredible 21 3D Polecam rigs, supplementing the main camera systems. Beyond the world of Hollywood a...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Hands on an IPad 2

It’s been near on 1 year since the Apple iPad landed on planet earth. No one knew if it was going to be a success, sceptics were sure that the tablet format would be nothing more than a fad and that true portable computing still lay in the realms of the notebook pc's. However after 9 months and 12 million units sold, Apple of course, again, annoyin...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

Eye to Eye: Video Post-production

My first direct experience of video post-production involved hauling a heavy Sony U-Matic tape machine up a flight of stairs before going back for an equally heavy playback deck, a bulky CRT monitor and a large box of interface giblets. That was in 1978. 33 years on, an Apple Mac does the whole editing job a great deal better, faster and more econo...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

A decaying elephant...filmed

Assignment: To film 24/7 the six week decay of a dead five tonne adult elephant in the wild. Reason: to learn how the death creates six million calories of fat, meat and guts, feeding a whole new cycle of life. It was in early March 2010 when Tigress productions put in the call to TX for a meeting of minds, to discuss the idea of filming an elephan...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

AdVision TV: Editing... Live

Glastonbury - it's on TV. Premier League Football? On TV. Not subscribing to the right satellite channel? Worried about missing a big event? Try Googling it, try YouTube. You would have thought that live events would struggle to survive in the face of this wall of media coverage. But rock concerts, sports matches, conferences and venues across the...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 May 2011

BVE and the Year Ahead

In the IABM's market survey a year ago, the Director General, Peter White, forecast: “Although the worst appears to be over and a degree of optimism is discernible, 2010 is still shaping up to be a fairly lacklustre year. As we exit the year, however, we do expect to see better signs of market improvement with a more promising 2011 and 2012.” How p...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 April 2011

BVE 2011 retrospect

BVE 2011 had much of the buoyancy and buzz of an IBC. The organisers claimed an attendance of over 15,500 visitors and 240 exhibiting companies. Many of the UK-based stalwarts who make the annual pilgrimage to Amsterdam could be seen exploring the show, confirming that BVE is now taken seriously by mainstream broadcasters. It is perhaps over-optimi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

Eye to eye: The changing face of video displays

Video display technology is progressing so fast that the phrase 'More revolutions than a banana republic' inevitably comes to mind. No offence intended if you have just taken over as president. From the 1930s to the present century, television display was dominated almost entirely by cathode ray tubes. Competition then arrived in the form of plasma...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Tape goes West at UWE

Three years ago a convoy of white vans arrived at the Faculty of Arts at the University of West of England in Bristol. An hour later its entire stock of SVHS camcorders, linear editing decks and analog tape were history. In came Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and Panasonic digital camcorders. Now 20 professional tapeless HD camcorders have taken up...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Eye to Eye, Portable power supplies

The true portability of modern HD mini-cameras and flash-RAM video recorders is encouraging programme makers to go way beyond reach of tethered power supplies. But are the battery-makers living up to the demands being placed on them?Recommendation 1 in portable power supplies is so obvious it almost doesn't need stating: rechargeable batteries are...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2011

Ravensbourne 21st Century Broadcast Education

Just over eighteen months ago, Adrian Scott of the Bakewell House Consultancy was commissioned to guide Ravensbourne through the EU Tendering process to appoint a Systems Integrator to transform the broadcast facilities of Ravensbourne as it moved into its new multi-million pound home at Greenwich Peninsula. Winning the contract, TSL rose to the ch...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Eye to Eye at the Wildscreen International Film Festival

Founded in 1982, the Wildscreen International Film Festival is claimed to be the world's largest event of its kind. It attracts several hundred delegates from more than 30 countries, all of whom (if they register early enough) get their contact details listed in the festival directory. The festival is staged every two years in Bristol and revolves...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Meet Steadicam

1) What is Steadicam?Steadicam is a body-worn camera support systems that isolates the movement of the camera from that of the operator and allows the camera to travel with great freedom over almost any terrain without resorting to conventional track and dolly techniques. Invented by Garrett Brown, the first model was produced in 1976 primarily for...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

AF101 a first look

IBC saw the first working prototypes of the AF100 being shown to the public. Barry Green (some of you will be familiar with Barry from the US Forum DVXUSER) had the pleasure of working with the pre-production AF101 while at IBC. Incidentally the AF100 & AF101 are the same basic camera for different markets, all of them are NTSC/PAL switchable. At t...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010