KitPlus | Articles

Driving the Bandwidth Conundrum

At the time of writing, there is a story on the IBC website with the headline "In five years the problem won\'t be bandwidth, but knowing what to do with it". That seemed to me to be an interesting assertion, so I read on. Now I appreciate there are few who are as old as I am, but if you are you may remember the claim, in the early days of nuclear...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs - new

Published 04 April 2017

Smarter Branding

The past decade of multi-channel digital broadcasting has created a paradox. The addition of OTT, VoD and other online services only serves to add to it. On the one hand, the more channels there are, the more you need to market yours if it is to win and retain a healthy audience. On the other hand, the more channels there are, the more the total re...

Submitted by James Gilbert

Published 15 February 2017

Assets in the air

People everywhere are talking about "the cloud", as if it is somehow something (1) new and (2) intrinsically exciting. It really is neither of those things. In the IT world, software as a service (SaaS) has been around since the 1960\'s when organisations bought the use of mainframe software on a time-sharing basis. The important part of SaaS is th...

Submitted by Paul Wilkins

Published 15 February 2017

The secret to global Gogglebox success

People all over the world love watching other people watch TV. What many of us thought was a ridiculous notion when Gogglebox first aired in the UK in 2013, has since become a worldwide phenomenon. \'Gogglebox is held up by the global industry and broadcast community as an example of excellence in audience engagement and production innovation, and...

Submitted by Chris Cooper

Published 15 February 2017

Mr MXF thinks the future is bright

I have had the good fortune to spend some time with students at Southampton Solent, The University of Surrey, Ravensbourne and Godalming College in the last few weeks. Although student numbers are down on the technology courses, enthusiasm is high and the passion for the broadcast and media industry is evident in the eyes of the stars of tomorrow....

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 13 January 2017

Social streaming and broadcast

We are witnessing a growing trend from broadcasters looking to complement TV content with social streaming. When done well, it can really help increase consumer engagement on a huge scale and we have seen some great examples of it over recent months. At the recent Kit Plus Show, I talked about the marriage between broadcast and social streaming, wh...

Submitted by Craig Moehl

Published 13 January 2017

The value of an industry placement

"Do a placement after the second year of your degree they said, it\'ll be fun they said!\" You know what, they were right! Hello there, my name is Abbie Smith and I have just returned from my placement year to conclude my third and final year studying BA Film and Television Studies. Undertaking a placement within your university degree is heavily p...

Submitted by Abbie Smith

Published 07 December 2016

Streamlining operations at BFBS

British Armed Forces around the world rely on British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) to provide them with entertainment and information via their TVs and radios. Operating from studios in Buckinghamshire, BFBS is part of Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), a not-for-profit charitable organization that makes a considerable contribution...

Submitted by Adrian Richmond

Published 07 December 2016

Smart audio - the way foward for live broadcast productio...

Today\'s broadcast facilities are facing ever-increasing demands on their resources as they strive to keep up with consumers who expect more content on more devices, both where and when they want it. Amongst all the various elements broadcasters have to handle (including video, graphics, data, captions and subtitles), the importance of audio should...

Submitted by Anthony Wilkins

Published 07 December 2016

Hacking Hell

There was a really scary story in the news a week or two ago. In the words of Yves Bigot, director-general of TV5 Monde, "we were a couple of hours from having the whole station gone for good". What happened to this highly respected broadcaster was that malicious hackers set out to destroy the network\'s systems. That has to be an alarm call for al...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 07 December 2016

TVFutures - The Battle of the Flowers

Studying on the BSc Television and Broadcasting course at the University of Portsmouth had given me some experience working as a camera operator, but this summer I had the chance to put what I\'d learned over the last two years into practice. Back home in the sunny island of Jersey, in what newsrooms would usually call the \'silly season\', an even...

Submitted by Alex Watson

Published 10 November 2016

Documentary filmmaking - Protecting the past

If you wanted my opinion on what I thought was the most rewarding media making pursuit, I'd have to single out documentary filmmaking. All media making can be very demanding, and each genre has its own particular issues that make it what it is, but almost nothing is certain about documentary which is why I find it so exciting. The idea could be ins...

Submitted by Charlie Watts

Published 26 September 2016

Self contained and expandable commentary systems

Adopting innovative technologies and techniques is always fundamental to the control of capital and operational costs - the key to broadcast facilities or technology providers gaining competitive advantage. Sports commentary has continually suffered from high operational costs, whether at the sports venue itself or "off-glass", due to the need for...

Submitted by Chris Collings

Published 26 September 2016

Shooting the WRC Rally

Mark bites the dust for his art and lives to tell the tale... A look at my website will confirm I don\'t just shoot cars, I cover a wide range of genres. But I have shot in and around cars through my career. Early on I joined a facilities company specialising in the design and build of onboard camera systems for F1 and Motorcycle GP live TV coverag...

Submitted by Mark Sallaway

Published 25 August 2016

The FAQs on automated quality assurance

The transition from tape-based to file-based video and audio recording allowed a completely new approach to the business of checking that programmes and interstitials conform to broad-cast industry standards prior to transmission. The Vidcheck team designed the world\'s first au-tomated broadcast quality control product. We have been working on fil...

Submitted by Thomas Dove

Published 25 August 2016