KitPlus | Articles

Eye to Eye: Video monitoring and displays

Given a decent stereo audio source and a pair of headphones, it is quite easy to imagine that you are actually attending a live performance. Not so with video; human eyes are much more demanding. Fortunately picture display technology is developing very quickly and along many different routes. OLEDsLED-backlit LCDs were about the best screens avail...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2010

LightLighting Sky News at the Gherkin

Jeff Randall Live is a new flagship daily business update on the Sky News channel, broadcast from Sky’s Gherkin studio in London. A recent addition to the City skyline, the Gherkin is located at 30 St Mary Axe. Its modern design includes a secondary exterior skin which gives the building its characteristic shape and is said to reduce its energy req...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2010

Expanding Video Monitoring to Meet Todays Demands

With the rapid evolution of the industry, new technologies must offer users both value and performance in the short term, as well as the promise of continued utility in the long term. A number of key advances in the design of video monitoring solutions are giving broadcasters and other media companies the means to manage monitoring of a growing num...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2010

Eye to Eye: Sports Production

I was somewhat crestfallen to receive the advice 'Lay off 3D' when I rang TV Bay for guidance on the theme for this month's Eye to Eye. For better or worse, 3D looks set to be a major part of sports television in the coming years. But I picked up my crest, closed one eye and carried on running. Long-range opticsIt is by now quite widely appreciated...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2010

How to create and brand a live TV experience online

Late last year, Pixel Power worked closely with the Perform Group to brand the first ever live England football match online, a landmark event. Before we discuss that in detail, there is a wider question to answer: what do we mean by “branding”? Branding is fundamentally how you differentiate your channel; how you make it stand out in the crowd and...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2010

Aston ON

In August 2009 leading Spanish real-time graphics manufacturer, Brainstorm Multimedia acquired the Aston 7 character generator from the Softel Group. With over 30 years on the market, Aston is one of the most established brands in the business and has been the gold standard in character generation in the United Kingdom for many years – to the exten...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2010

Playout in a recession

Times are tight and budgets are being cut. Weak companies may fail but the stronger ones will survive. Those in good shape and offering a lower priced alternative could actually thrive – but the product still has to perform. With the television industry still actually expanding the number of channels on-air are increasing with many looking at lower...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2010

Eye to Eye: Distribution and Delivery 2010

Distribution and Delivery are two elements of in the broadcast chainthat get taken pretty much for granted but both are highly important. My focus in this summary is on equipment and software introduced since IBC 2009 and in the run-up to NAB 2010. Distribution linksThese come in many shapes and flavours, over copper, optical fibre, RF, point-to-po...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2010

Eye to Eye: Whats even newer in test and measurement 2010

A year is a long time in broadcast test & measurement, which is just as well because that is when this column previously focused on it. Given the current push to establish 3D as a permanent feature of the broadcast landscape, one might reasonably expect T&M kit designers to be heading along the same road. Hamlet and Omnitek certainly are but it see...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2010

Breaking Down Loudness Control

Q: What is loudness and why is so much attention being paid to it?A: Loudness is what people hear. It refers to the perceived strength of a piece of audio such as music, speech or sound effects. Among other factors, loudness depends on the level, frequency, content and duration of the audio the listener is hearing. Right now, television viewers are...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2010

Eye to Eye: Acquisition and Production

Back in the days of the Audio Fair which annually graced London's Russell Hotel, my co-hack Frank Jones of Hi-Fi News put his head into the KEF Electronics demonstration room and bellowed the time-honoured question "What's new?"KEF was showing established products that year so its founder, the avuncular Raymond Cooke, responded with his own questio...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2010

AVCHD and NXCAM

I’ll be honest – up until recently I had not been a big fan of AVCHD. It promised great things but, having hired out consumer AVCHD cameras for the last few years, we knew there were still a few hurdles for it jump over. For corporate customers, to just ‘plug and play’ in terms of simple playback was impossible – some form of software was always re...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2010

The best job in the Met

If you have ever wondered “How did they do that?” when you watch the car chase in Spooks or the gun fight in Ashes to Ashes or even the thrilling gun shot scene at Waterloo Station in Bourne Ultimatum, then you may want to talk to the Metropolitan Police Service Film Unit (MPS FU). “COPS FORM A LUVVY SQUAD” was how one red-top newspaper commented o...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2010

Eye to Eye: Whats new in audio 2009

Part of my day at SATIS recently was sent discussing with Neutrik the dodgy issue of sexual compatibility, a subject not mentioned in my report from the show for TV-Bay last month. I had recently invested in a Roland Edirol R-44 solid-state audio recorder. Used in conjunction with four Rode phantom-powered capacitor microphones, it makes an excelle...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

The Prism Sound Effect

The Prism Sound Effect. When Prism Sound took over the SADiE brand last year, it embarked on a fact-finding mission to discover why the brand had such a huge and extremely dedicated international user base. This process has been extremely enlightening and has enabled Prism Sound to respond with SADiE 6 - a new product for professional sound editors...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010