KitPlus | Articles

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

Implications of a Tapeless workflow

The rise of ‘Tapeless Workflows’ is dramatically changing the way broadcasters and post-production facilities protect the content they are working on or own. The traditional workflow relies on tapes to record and protect information, usually stored on a shelf to be used again if necessary. However, due to changes in technology and the demands of an...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

A Guide to Testing IPTV: Technologies and Challenges Par...

Testing IPTV NetworksThe Technology LifecycleThe deployment of new technologies tends to follow a similar lifecycle that begins with early research, development and standardisation and ends with full deployment and service management. The lifecycle diagram illustrated in Figure 5 shows a number of different technologies moving through the design an...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

Five Best Practices for Securing Your Content during Coll...

That is the sound of your content leaking into the hands of pirates – costing the industry billions. Wolverine, Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are just some of the movies reported to have been leaked. The same holds true for TV content – though some argue that when a pilot or season premiere leaks – it falls into th...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

Supporting the RED

James Cullen was working as a studio cameraman for the BBC when he was asked by television quiz show favourite CJ de Mooi to shoot a promo for him. The brief was to showcase CJ’s enthusiasm for the Porsche 911 Carrera, and Cullen knew that the production standards had to match the engineering excellence of the car. “I was using a RED One camera whi...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 November 2009

3D Post

The state of 3DRewind a couple of years and 3D was a hot topic but there was very little production and few companies able to offer suitable support for efficient 3D post production. Many people thought it would fade, as before. A few even hoped it would go away! Now many are supporting stereoscopic 3D. The most activity is in the DI (digital post...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Adventure between two Oceans 2009

The route of this year’s Dakar Rally went through South America, subjecting participants and equipment to very extreme conditions. Bikers and quad pilots as well as teams in cars and trucks participated in this 31st rally of its kind in South America. Cameraman Len Jansen and his team DakarPress from the Netherlands were also there. They have been...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Digital Vision case study

The Edit Store, based in London’s W1, is one of the last few independent facilities in the city. Spread across two buildings, the Edit Store provides many of the world’s leading broadcasters with offline, online, grading and audio dubbing facilities primarily for broadcast factual programmes. At the heart of its HD grading suite, introduced in 2008...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 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

Lighting series

So far in this series, I have stressed some of my own preferences for good portrait lighting; using Fresnel lamps for key lights to enable accurate barn dooring, minimum spill light and an even ‘field’ of light. Open faced lamps, whilst cheaper, do not give the same control of light, they give rise to double shadows and are also prone to bubble fai...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

A Guide to Testing IPTV: Technologies and Challenges Par...

Before we can go on to look at testing IPTV systems, it would be useful to provide an overview of the technologies involved. Network ArchitecturesFigure 3 shows an example of a typical IP network structure. Content is first delivered into the video headend; this can be done in a variety of formats over a number of different delivery mechanisms (e.g...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Converting for displays

Behind every great display there’s a great converter. Ever since television started to go digital in studios and post production, the number of digital formats has grown. For a while the television standards bodies got a grip and succeeded in pulling nearly everyone along the ‘SDI’ track; now itself expanded to HD-SDI and 3G-SDI – carrying a multit...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009

Ask the experts. Eye & Jitter

Why should TV broadcast engineers be interested in adding Eye and Jitter measurement to their T & M facilities?The call for Eye and Jitter as part of overall video test and measurement lies in the widespread adoption of serial digital interface (SDI) standards for broadcast. Unlike analog transmission in which the image quality gradually degrades a...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 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

Diversify - the key to success

Most business could survive the recession if they adapt what they do, or how they do it, explains Peter SavageIn the current economic climate, with the market shrinking, every business has to look at ways of growing or developing – if they are to survive. And sometimes you have to think outside the box. There is, as they say, only so much blood you...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009