KitPlus | Articles

Mixing console displays - central to usability

Since the introduction of assignable controls on mixing consoles, it has been essential to provide sound engineers with a clear picture of what the function and status is of each fader and other associated controls. Consoles can have over 100 faders. To allow the sound operator to keep track of the function of each panel and its current settings, c...

Submitted by Paul Hooper

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

Sully - Grading a miracle

We all know the story. On 15 January 2009 an Airbus A320 took off from LaGuardia airport in New York, heading for Charlotte. Just a couple of minutes later the plane flew through a flock of Canada geese and blew out both engines. Knowing the risk of crashing into heavily populated areas, Captain Chesley Sullenberger - Sully - aimed for the only lon...

Submitted by Maxine Gervais

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

The future of post production

Love it or hate it, 2016 will certainly be a year to remember, for many reasons. In the world of post-production, we\'ve seen high dynamic range become incorporated into UK studio pipelines for the very first time. We watched Ang Lee demonstrate exactly what you can do by shooting at 120 frames per second in combination with stereo 3D. We\'ve even...

Submitted by KitPlus

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

Health and Safety gone mad

The first true broadcast television service started 80 years ago, on 2 November, 1936. Its home, famously, was Alexandra Palace, a vast and really rather run-down building on top of Muswell Hill in north London. Originally opened in 1873, and re-opened in 1875 after a catastrophic fire, it was built primarily as an entertainment venue. Indeed, it w...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 13 January 2017

Where university meets universe with Tim Peake

If you had told me last year that, going into my second year at the University of Portsmouth, I would have met and interviewed Tim Peake, then I would have probably laughed and said something along the lines of "I wish". Well, turns out I didn\'t have to wish, because I did just that. As a second year in Television and Broadcasting BSc I\'ve starte...

Submitted by Georgia Thirtle

Published 13 January 2017

Live streaming and the power of your own channel

We\'ve just celebrated 80 years of television. And it\'s been quite a journey from the birth of television to where we are now. Only a small percentage of UK households had television sets when the BBC began broadcasting in 1936, and of course the Second World War temporarily suspended any television viewing shortly after that for the duration of t...

Submitted by Liam Laminman

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

Diversify or Die

This headline of this article is a simple fact, diversify or die! It is necessary for survival as well as interest of mind to do this within business. "If a farmer can no longer produce crops because no-one wants them he must diversify or die.\" Caravans, glamping, corporate days in the country with hunting, fishing and shooting; these are just som...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 13 January 2017

The eye in the sky

EVENT360 specialises in production and delivery of sport presentation, entertainment and stadium ceremonies, and, as such, we\'re always looking for new, interesting, and innovative crowd engagement tools. One of those engagement tools that we\'d been using for many years was a crowd-surfing ball - basically a sponsor-branded beach ball thrown into...

Submitted by Julian Marks

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

The importance of a low noise floor

The Noise Floor of a piece of T&M equipment is the inherent noise (or intrinsic jitter) introduced by the equipment itself. The level of inherent noise affects the accuracy and repeatability of jitter measurements that can be made, especially when measuring low levels of jitter. With the permitted 100KHz jitter on a 12G-SDI signal being only 0.3UI,...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 07 December 2016

Television is dead, long live television

After decades of operating within the same fundamental model, the walls around our world - what was the broadcast world, or "vertical", in marketing terms - are crumbling. NAB 2016 clearly showed this and IBC 2016 took it one step further: momentum is strengthening as we push towards an IP future. The TVB2020 conference earlier this year also refle...

Submitted by Ephraim Barrett

Published 07 December 2016