KitPlus | Articles

Andrew McLeans Guide to Lenses

Andrew McLean, an experienced cinematographer and now vice president of business development at broadcast equipment hire company HotCam, details some of the basic things to consider when it comes to choosing and using camera lenses. What’s the first thing you do when choosing lenses for a shoot?First I consider the creative direction – the aestheti...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

Eye-to-eye: 2011 highlights

“Broadcasters must climb up the ladder into high definition or they’ll get their ankles chewed by the computer industry”. Memorable quote from a manufacturer of video standards converters nearly 30 years ago when NHK was trying to establish its original 1125-line (1080-active) 5:3 aspect-ratio ‘Hi-Vision’. Well it happened. 2011 was the year ‘high-...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

JVC 3D Spotlight

JVC Professional’s expanded family of 3D products now include the new GY-HMZ1 3D ProHD handheld camera, along with the GD-323D20 32 inch 3D display/production monitor, our popular DT-3D24G1 3D production monitor and the upgraded IF-2D3D1 2D to 3D converter. The products are already widely used throughout the post industry, helping content creators...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

The art of 3D

Two recent events have expanded my understanding of 3D. BVE North turned out to be quite busy – both around the exhibition and at the many free seminars. Of course I made a beeline for the 3D Revolution Theatre where there were sessions throughout the two days of the show. The ‘Storytelling in 3D’ session was of particular interest. There’s been pl...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

tv-bay Questions

Name & Title?Doug Garside, Chief Engineer at Edit 19 Ltd. based in ManchesterWho are you? (about yourself and who you work for)?As a teenage performer, I attended Manchester Youth Theatre for two years running and appeared in numerous amateur and college productions, including once being naked on stage at a catholic college! Having completed my A l...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

The IBC 2011 Future Zone

Meet Tony Drummond-Murray, an engineer. His company, Murraypro, has been inventing and manufacturing precision equipment for 37 years. The mere 10 minutes I spent on the Murraypro stand at this year's IBC were an education. I learnt how and where manufacturers dangerously cut corners when designing their products and what effect this has on broadca...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 November 2011

Storage and archiving

Anyone looking closely at a helical scan video tape mechanism, particularly the miniature variety, might be forgiven for wondering how such an elaborate technology ever came to be invented. The first experimental video tape recorders were essentially audio recorders running at very high speed to achieve the bandwidth needed for television signals....

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

Panasonic AF101 review

In 2008 Canon released its latest stills camera the 5DMk2. Little did they know what they had released on the videographers world. This so called STILLS camera had a hidden talent, that of course of remarkably good 1080p video. The indie film makers went wild, no more did they have to bolt on large cumbersome depth of field adapters to their video...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

The Red Epic has landed

Finally the Red Epic has started to appear in facilities companies around the world, S+O Media is one of the first in the UK to receive a handmade Epic-M. I’ve taken the camera out on a couple of shoots and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. I’m sure everyone is aware of the Red One, the first camera from Red. Billionaire Jim Jannard decided he co...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

IBC2011 must sees

Over 1,300 exhibitors will be supporting IBC2011, each bringing perhaps one, two or three new or enhanced products. My task is to distill these down to the 20 devices likely to be of greatest interest to TV-Bay readers, so far as that is possible several weeks before the show opens. As a recent convert to OS X, I note with gloom that Apple remains...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Cameras for streaming

I first saw true HD pictures years ago at IBC. OpTex had a camera focusing on some beautifully lit fruit. The image on the screen was extraordinary, hypnotising. Leap forward a decade and Amsterdam brought Europe its first taste of Ultra High Definition Television - not 720p, not 1080i, but 4320p. The enveloping cinematic pictures and the embrace o...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

So what is Digital Television. Part 2 - Back to Basics

Component digital videoThe designers of early analogue special effects equipment recognized the advantage of keeping the red, green, and blue video channels separate as much as possible during any processing. The PAL and NTSC encoding/decoding process is not transparent and multiple generations of encoding and decoding progressively degrade the sig...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 August 2011

On the level

In shooting 3D you naturally have two cameras and two lenses: albeit, there are some weird and wonderful single lens/single sensor contraptions out there. This usually means there are any number of ways each camera lens combination could be producing images with minor are major signal level differences. If these level differences are not dealt with...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

So what is Digital Television - Part 1

It is tempting to think of “digital television” as something very scientific and even complex. But when we view the end result, we find something very familiar; something television engineers have sought since the very beginning…an experience that just keeps getting better and better…quality video and audio conveying great entertainment, sport, mov...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011

Easy and accurate testing of low-power transmitters for d...

Using portable TV analyzers for gap filler installation, maintenance, and service measurementsTwenty-five kilograms or more: That is how much the test equipment needed for testing digital television transmitters – a test receiver, spectrum analyzer, and power meter – weigh all together. This weight is not an issue for a transmitter like the one on...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 July 2011