KitPlus | Articles

The production desk finally gets innovative

by Kieron Seth Issue 104 - August 2015 The video switcher (aka vision mixer) is at the heart of all live television, all AV and many a live webcast. But despite its core role, its remained essentially the same concept for decades, consisting of a digital video effects processing unit, matrix switcher and control panel. Fundamentally this hardware-b...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 September 2015

Hungerford and the 10 rules of making a Microbuster

by Miles Bullough Issue 101 - May 2015 On April 27th 2015 Wildseed Studios\' debut feature film, \'Hungerford\', launched on iTunes and begins what we hope will be a digital voyage around the world to success. We coined the term \'Microbuster\' to describe movies made on micro budgets but with blockbuster ambitions - and it perfectly captures what...

Submitted by Miles Bullough

Published 01 June 2015

Oh what a show!

Issue 99 - March 2015Walking through the halls of BVE 2015 it would be hard not to acknowledge the bustling atmosphere, positive vibes and busy aisles. The show attracted a high quality and diverse audience from across the broadening content creation industry seeing over 15,000* key industry decision makers including leading indies, post houses, DO...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 April 2015

Bring up the bodies

by Dick Hobbs Issue 98 - February 2015 If you have even once turned on BBC television in the last couple of months, you could not fail to learn that the big blockbuster drama this winter is Wolf Hall, a television adaptation of Hilary Mantel\'s two-thirds complete trilogy about the Tudors, and Thomas Cromwell in particular. I subscribe to what seem...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 March 2015

Still unsure about cloud editing? Read this..

by Stephen Streater Issue 97 - January 2015 For all the talk about the cloud in the past couple of years, it can still be a bit of a mystery. When it comes to editing video in the cloud, some people still struggle with the concept. Is cloud editing secure? Do I need special knowledge? Why switch from traditional editing workflows? Won\'t cloud edit...

Submitted by Stephen Streater

Published 01 February 2015

Panasonic Previews Field of Hope

The latest documentary film from award winning photojournalist Fiona Lloyd-Davies, shot with the Panasonic AG-AF101, is being previewed at Panasonic Experience Centre, Pinewood Studios today August 10th 2011. 'Field of Hope' will be aired on Al-Jazeera English Channel in a programme called ‘Witness’ from 30th August until 6th September 2011. In the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2015

How to Sell a Film Before it is Made

by Beth Zarkosh Issue 93 - September 2014 Independent filmmakers can produce some of the most gripping, compelling and original cinematic works around, but without funding it’s a real struggle to piece together the requisite resources for such productions to get the backing that they deserve. So what’s the answer? Simple - sell the DVD before you’v...

Submitted by Beth Zarkhosh

Published 01 October 2014

Black magic studio camera

by Mark Stopher Issue 92 - August 2014 Blackmagic Design recently released their new Studio Camera - it’s a small, portable broadcast camera, intended for live studio productions. There’s an HD version that you can pick up for £1,289 and a 4K version is said to be shipping soon. At tv-bay we were shooting some product demonstration videos in our st...

Submitted by Mark Stopher

Published 01 September 2014

BroadcastShow Tour October 2013

Issue 82 - October 2013 October heralds the second tour of 2013 for BroadcastShow. The travelling road show of exhibiting manufacturers and seminars visited London, Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff and Bristol earlier this year with well over 1000 visitors through the doors. For the autumn leg the first stop will be the Europa Hotel in Belfast on 16th...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 November 2013

The Teradek Bolt reviewed

The location is a small busy working kitchen of a top London restaurant; the chef and kitchen staff have enough on their plate (!) without having to worry about avoiding cables and bumping into members of the crew filming them go about their business. The soundman is able to keep himself out of the way, not causing trip hazards with cables and the...

Submitted by Jon Boast

Published 01 July 2013

Jon Pratchett reviews the Matrox VS4 Capture Card

On many occasions it has been necessary to record ISO footage from the camera's on a multi camera live streaming job, normally just so we have that backup and can do any re-edits if needed. However it relies on either the camera operator having to remember to load the camera with storage media and then of course HIT RECORD!! In the heat of a live e...

Submitted by Jon Pratchett

Published 01 May 2013

Camera innovations from IBC

IBC 2012 – ‘Dam, that was a good showFresh from another trip to Amsterdam, Will Strauss picks his ‘best in show’ camera innovations from IBC. I know, I know. It’s October and the chances are that you’ve already had your fill of ‘round-ups’, ‘reviews’ and ‘what I saw in Amsterdam’ type articles. But with so much stuff to choose from at the show, hop...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 November 2012

Matrox MC-100 Reviewed

I have always liked multitools, leatherman, Gerber, Swiss Army. Amazing little all in one tools that can get you out a hole when you need. It’s the same when out setting up a Live webcast, a multi camera event or simply assisting another crew, I always like to have a few useful boxes of tricks with me just in case. This is where the new Matrox MC-1...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 May 2012

How much RAM do I need to edit video?

When talking to video editors who are looking to get into editing for the first time, one of the questions I’m asked most is, “how much RAM should I have?”First of all let me explain what RAM is and what is does. RAM (or Random Access Memory) provides space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the CPU (central processing unit)...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

Review on the Autocue SSP17 Starter Series

The time has come. My home made “autocue”, although working well, needed to be upgraded. It had served me well for a couple of years, but I needed something a bit higher quality and slightly bigger. So Autocue kindly loaned me one of their SSP17 Starter Package prompters. Their Starter Series of prompters is exactly that, it’s their lower end promp...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012