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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

A year on the net AIL

2009 was a good year for AILTV as this was this the year we started broadcasting. The period was used to test and try out new ways to improve our services made all the more challenging with the recession was in full swing. Some plans to take AILTV to a next level had to be put on hold such as the purchase of a Niagra Go Stream for live streaming wh...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 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

Selling your business in a downturn

Those of you who live by satnav might smile at the heading. It’s one of the great lines the device keeps saying (perhaps followed by “turn round whenever possible”). And it is on that subject, negotiating your exit from your business, that this article is based. It comes by general request so it seems that, in these challenging times, business owne...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

Eye to Eye New post-production kit at IBC 2009

This alphabetical overview of new video and film post-production kit at IBC 2009 was going to start with Apple but the company pulled out of both NAB and IBC in 2008. I begin instead with Avid which has certified its Media Composer, NewsCutter, Symphony and DS software to run on the new HP Z series Workstations – the HP Z800 and HP Z400. Avid custo...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Eye to eye Picture displays and multiviewers 2009

The transition from cathode-ray tubes to flat-panel display devices for broadcast picture monitoring was a long time coming but is now almost complete. Grade 1 CRTs from suppliers such as Ikegami and Sony are still purchased in small numbers for monitoring in quality-conscious playout centres and post-production houses. For every other broadcast ap...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Why choose a broadcast or professional monitor

Just as it’s unlikely that anyone would purchase a family vehicle to set trailblazing records around a race track and a sports car is not going to be the best choice for off-road use, the same principle is true of monitors – the key is to match the product to the demands of the task. So what are the differences between the major monitor families?Co...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Eye to eye on Broadcast content management 2009

Content asset management is one of the fastest developing areas of the entire broadcast business. Its advantages over old-style film and videotape libraries are so widely recognised that they hardly need repeating. NAB provided an opportunity to look at new advances from some of the key players. AP introduced a new module for its ENPS 6.0 and 7.0....

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

Its A Bigger DAM Picture

There’s a lot of fuss these days about “Digital Asset Management.” Why? Because organizations (and their hard drives) are busting at the seams with digital assets that are multiplying faster than hamsters at a rave. Many of these organizations already have enterprise management software solutions in place, so DAM often becomes a new, isolated plane...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

SRW-5800 Training

“Hi Dave, how was the course?” This is the sort of greeting you come to expect from fellow engineers when you have recently attended a training course. Engineers are notorious for having no “small talk”, probably because our minds are usually concerned with things like volts, amps and ohms… and why that VTR always works on the bench, but fails as s...

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

Red One Hit or Myth

So – after having arrived a year ago to these shores the Red is starting to settle into everyday living here in the UK. Possibly being American and designed by an iconic trendy sunglasses designer, we shouldn’t be surprised by its many foibles. The Red started life in the UK as whispered conversations about a piece of equipment being developed that...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2009

The Fairlight Time Machine

Just over fifty years ago, the then Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit around our planet. At that time the USA and USSR were in the depths of the cold war and the launch of Sputnik 1 on the 4th October 1957 was the starting gun for the space race. The winner would be the country to successfully land the first human being on the Mo...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

New editing essentials

I like to think of myself as a bit of a pioneer at the frontier of the new age of HD Digital Cinematography. Investigating the best of the new technology available to our industry and evaluating its possible impact. I ‘d like to explain the impact of some of the particular examples of this today starting with:-XDCam EX Tapeless HD Camcorders. One w...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008