KitPlus | Articles

Loudness measurement: One year on

By Jon Schorah, creative director, NUGEN Audio. With, much of Europe and the U.S. now producing broadcast audio to meet loudness standards, Jon Schorah, creative director of NUGEN Audio, reflects upon the current state of play, the lessons learned along the way, and what’s to come. Playout or Production Normalisation?Commonly there are two ways to...

Submitted by Jonathan Schorah

Published 01 February 2013

Character generation today means real-time 3D graphics

In the constantly evolving world of television, graphics departments could be the ones facing the most complicated challenges. Designers have changed from 2D stills to 3D real-time animations and many sections of the department, such as news graphics or CG specialists, had to cope with the most radical changes, both because new technologies and the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2013

Call of Duty Black Ops II: World Exclusive First Look Str...

I work a lot in live online broadcasting, and backup systems are top of mind when designing any live event. Being off air for any reason is unacceptable, so I build systems knowing that should something fail, I can easily reroute the signal or switch to another machine. This was on my mind when we were asked to live stream for four straight days at...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 January 2013

Matrox Microquad reviewed

There's nothing quite like a bank of screens in front of you, showing all your video feeds coming in to the production system. The more it looks like the something from Star Trek the happier I am. However when you start to look at the cost of all those screens and especially if you are monitoring HD/SDI inputs, I have to admit a wave of despair gra...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 December 2012

Take control with Helm

Control and monitoring are two of the biggest issues faced in playout operations. Broadcasters and playout providers want to be able to select precisely the equipment that they need and probably more so than ever, are now able to very accurately do that. But this, combined with the fact that previously largely ‘static’ devices are now empowered by...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 December 2012

Streaming Part 2

I thought it was about time that I gave you all a little update on some of the kit I have been using and testing of the past few months. So here are a couple of updates for you starting with:Matrox MC100This little beauty has been in my procession for about a year now. If you don't know it’s a little box that allows you to do things such as HD-SDI...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2012

Protecting the archive

Over the last 20 years or so we have all become accustomed to the expression “asset management” and, as ever, familiarity has bred contempt. In this case, the expression has become a loose descriptor for almost anything with a bit of a database in it. We need to stop and think about what we are trying to achieve. In any media enterprise, the conten...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2012

Taking on the World of Sophisticated Asset Management

Asset management systems have come a long way in only a few years. They’ve always offered a world of promise for workflow improvements, but not so long ago asset management silos were the norm – with individual departments within a broadcasting operation - such as news, sports production, and drama - operating their own closed systems, inaccessible...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

Parting the Cloud

Every so often a trend looms over the broadcast horizon that gathers pace so quickly it soon becomes the buzzword at every launch and trade show. A few years ago it was MAM and more recently stereoscopic; now the big buzz in town is the cloud. But despite its recent rise to fame in the broadcast sector there’s still a lot of confusion regarding how...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

Discussing asset management

Half the stands at IBC claim to have asset management products – do they all do what you do?Yes, it seems like everyone claims to do asset management or workflows. And it confuses the hell out of buyers. So we need to take a step back and think about what we actually mean. So let’s break it down. First: assets. What are your assets? Well, that depe...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2012

Metadata rules

Regular readers of this column will know that I am frequently tasked with covering the sexiest of broadcast industry subjects. Indeed, just two months ago I got to discuss test and measurement (T&M). Well, if you thought that was intense, just wait for this month's topic. Not only is it potentially even less glamorous than T&M, it has the potential...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 October 2012

Testing times of a 4K world

The term '4K' applies to some five slightly different picture formats with around 4,000 pixel horizontal resolution: all much bigger than HD. In fact roughly four times the total pixels required for 1920 x 1080 pixel high definition. 4K has been around for some years but was until recently only affordable by producers with mega budgets. Advances in...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 August 2012

Handheld T and M the broadcast emergency service

“Test and Measurement”. Shudder. Like “Health and Safety”, “Bus” and “Replacement Service” or “Keith and Orville” it’s a collocation of words that fills me with dread. Seriously, who wants to read about “Test and Measurement”? Well, as it turns out, the answer is: quite a lot of people. Because, despite its lack of glamour, it is hugely important....

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 August 2012

Automating intelligence across the signal flow

Back when broadcasters maintained small channel lineups, monitoring was a simple task that could be performed cost-effectively by station staff. The manual system-wide monitoring of critical audio and video parameters required dedicated staff all along the broadcast chain, but the investment typically could be justified. However, even with dedicate...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2012

Our third digital revolution?

Our third digital revolution?By Bob PankA little history – the first digital revolution for the TV production and post industries started somewhere about 1972 and then involved introducing digital islands into an analogue world. The introduction of much more affordable digital VTRs such as Sony’s DigiBeta in 1993 heralded the beginning of the end o...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2012