KitPlus | Articles

Polecam on Safari

Safaricam"No, you can’t get out of the car", the voice replied. "Why not?’ I asked. "Because you might get eaten by a lion."I put the phone down and contemplated what it was I had just agreed to do. The Kenya project started with a call from a French production company expressing an interest in hiring my Polecam system for three weeks. The series,...

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

Brand New School Makes the Move to Uncompressed HD

What did you do over Christmas 2008? I spent the whole two-week break rebuilding the post production workflow at Brand New School, the prestigious commercial production and design firm in Santa Monica, CA, and the experience let me stretch every technology muscle I had built up in 10 years as a video engineer. At the time, Brand New School was usin...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

HD Camera Measurements. Getting the most out of your came...

Recap previous Parts:While the first parts covered the theory and actual measurements of white shading, setting up colorimetry, exposure, greyscale adjustments, alignment and matching of cameras using a waveform monitor, this final part is devoted to providing a better understanding of the displays used. Interpreting a waveform monitor displayA Wav...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009

A day in the life of a TV lecturer

0830The Dorset country lanes give way to the flood of traffic into Poole and Bournemouth as I negotiate the rush hour streaming into the seaside town. Driving past Poole Harbour, home of Sunseeker Yachts and the RNLI reminds me that yacht I once dreamed of is still a dream. However, the job I once dreamed of became a reality when I became a televis...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009

NAB 2009 report

By general consensus, this year's NAB Spring Convention, or 'NABshow' as it styles itself, was one of the best ever. Wider aisles and a respectable rather than manic level of attendance made the event, in the words of one exhibitor, 'Business Class'. NAB was always the prototype show where you could sense the directions in which manufacturers were...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009

IBC2009 set to be a successful show

IBC COO Michael Crimp is "confident but not complacent\" as he tells how IBC is building a vibrant and healthy IBC2009. How are plans for IBC2009?Exhibition bookings for IBC2009 are still very strong. Currently we are about 10% down on the final space requirement for last year, which at this time is very good. My view is that we will have an excell...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2009

Compliance and Punishment

Glyn Powell-Evans of Ideas Unlimited.tv explains the benefits of compliance recording and how failing to adhere can land you in hot waterFor broadcasters in the UK, ensuring that anything they broadcast is recorded and available for review is a way of life. The regulator Ofcom has regulations in place which dictate that all broadcasts must be recor...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

Africans in London TV

Joseph Otieno Adamson, Managing Director of the new TV Station Africans in London or AIL TV, is a man whose enthusiasm for all things media knows no bounds. A talented musician, he attended a university course to learn to become a music producer, set up his own recording studio and later decided to extend his talents to video and the world of broad...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

Eye to Eye File-based content distribution 2009

The rapidly divergent pattern of broadcast market development resembles the branches of a fast-growing tree. But there is one crucial aspect in which the industry is quite obviously converging: the transition from video and audio to file-based content distribution and delivery. This would have happened anyway given the increasing popularity of the...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

HD Camera Measurements. Getting the most out of your came...

Recap previous Parts:The first parts covered the theory and actual measurements of white shading, setting up colorimetry and exposure as well as greyscale adjustments using a waveform monitor. The objective was to provide a thorough understanding of the functions and benefits of using a waveform monitor when addressing non-linear effects in the cam...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2009

Ask the Expert with Broadcast Service Centre

Ask the Expert with Broadcast Service Centre’s Dave LlewellynThis month we visited independent service company, Broadcast Service Centre Ltd (BSC), specialising in providing top quality technical support for a wide range of equipment within the Broadcast and Pro video industry. Dave Llewellyn has worked as a broadcast engineer for BSC (Broadcast Se...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009

From little acorns....

So what do we do? We have done little for television – our market place is much more modest. Parafotos has its origins in the early sixties when I started filming free fall parachuting– having to cope with a Bolex H16 strapped to the side of my helmet during the opening of the parachute was an interesting experience which no doubt accounted for an...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009

Edirol R-09HR records Obama inauguration

When sound recordist Alan O’Duffy was contracted to travel to the USA to record interviews and atmospheres for a “feature documentary” about Barack Obama becoming the 44th President of the USA, one of the first pieces of kit he packed was Edirol’s R-09HR digital recorder. Irish film company, Alpha Films, wanted Alan to record on location first in N...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009

EPIC HD Upgrade

EPIC-TV came into being in late 2006, after Norfolk County Council acquired the ITV Anglia Regional news and Network production studios at Magdalen Street Norwich. Since then it’s been re-developed as one of the technically most advanced production facilities in Europe, with three broadcast studies, two of the HD, one of them Virtual, linked direct...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2009