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The 4K Conundrum

by Eric Achtmann Issue 108 - December 2015 2015 has confirmed once more that 4K remains the TV industrys Holy Grail. While 4K TV screens are becoming more affordable and Netflix, Amazon Prime and even YouTube are beginning to offer some 4K content, mass adoption is still sluggish as the increases in bandwidth required for distribution make 4K busin...

Submitted by Eric Achtmann

Published 17 December 2015

Lenses cant be that complicated can they? Part 1

with Graham Reed Issue 108 - December 2015 Many people who use lenses have very little understanding in the complexity or the science that goes on behind them. I do not pretend to be an expert on optics but I have spent some time in trying to understand just how complex they are. I think its first just a good idea to remind ourselves of what light...

Submitted by graham reed

Published 15 December 2015

Missing Parts Of The Spectrum

by Graham Jaggers Issue 107 - November 2015 Since the phasing out of conventional filament light bulbs and their replacement with fluorescent and LED, many manufacturers indicate the colour accuracy of their lamps with a CRI (Colour Rendering Index) number. It is possible however, to illuminate a scene using lamps with quite good CRI ratings and ex...

Submitted by Graham Jaggers

Published 01 December 2015

Test & Measurement: Ask the expert

by Alan Wheable Issue 107 - November 2015 What should an Eye diagram look like?There are basically two different approaches to capturing the Eye Diagram from an SDI signal. These are real-time capture (employed by Real Time oscilloscopes) and signal subsampling (employed by Sampling oscilloscopes such as the Omnitek Ultra 4k Tool Box). All broadcas...

Submitted by Alan Wheable

Published 01 December 2015

7 must sees at IBC 2015

by Beth Zarkhosh Issue 105 - September 2015 IBC, the annual broadcasting event that brings professionals in the media industry together has been running since 1967. Each year brings new excitement and innovation to the event held in Amsterdam. Originally aimed at purely the technical broadcasting industry, IBC (International Broadcast Convention) a...

Submitted by Beth Zarkhosh

Published 01 October 2015

Introduction to FM Single Frequency Networks

by Werner Drews Issue 103 - July 2015 Single Frequency Networks (SFNs) are a form of broadcast network design where several transmitters use the same frequency channel to send the same signal. SFNs are usually used for radio and digital TV broadcasting FM, AM and digital radio can be transmitted over SFNs while analog television is more problematic...

Submitted by Werner Drews

Published 01 August 2015

Distribution in the UHD Era

by Paul Briscoe Issue 103 - July 2015 Once upon a time, there were few broadcast TV standards. Each used its own regional image formats, color encoding scheme and sound and vision modulation standards. High-power over-the-air (OTA) transmitters broadcast the signal on internationally coordinated and regionally allocated radio frequency (RF) channel...

Submitted by Paul Briscoe

Published 01 August 2015

How HEVC technology is revolutionizing field-based broadc...

by Eli Garten Issue 103 - July 2015 High-Efficiency Video Encoding (HEVC), also known as H.265, is the subsequent generation of H.264 and tapped to be the next widely adopted standard for video compression. As with any MPEG evolution, the new standards goal is to make compression more efficient and allow for reducing OPEX and CAPEX in various video...

Submitted by Eli Garten

Published 01 August 2015

Cautionary notes from GTC Member number 001

by Dick Hibberd Issue 101 - May 2015 Recently I was invited to be on the panel of judges charged with selecting the winners of the 2014 \'Bill Vinten GTC University Awards\'. This was just the second year of this excellent scheme and, if the submissions from universities increase annually pro rata, then we will soon have a major logistics problem i...

Submitted by Dick Hibberd

Published 01 June 2015

A wide spectrum of choice

by Andy Clements Issue 101 - May 2015 Without microphones, in-ear monitors (IEMs), intercom and distribution systems based on wireless technology, many of today\'s large-scale television studios, outside broadcast and film productions would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stage. Wireless solutions provide convenience and, in the main, grea...

Submitted by Andy Clements

Published 01 June 2015

From VoD to Linear TV

by Nikos Kyriopopoulos Issue 100 - April 2015 Content owners, broadcasters, and operators worldwide typically provide a sizable library of VoD content and a limited offering of live/linear programming. This unbalanced ratio between VoD and linear TV offerings is historically shaped by two factors:- The cost associated with linear TV production, a b...

Submitted by Nikos Kyriopoulos

Published 01 May 2015

Cellular Wireless Networks

by Erwan Gasc Issue 99 - March 2015 1. What advantage do 3G/4G cellular wireless networks provide to broadcasters over satellite networks?For many years, satellite was the primary approach for real-time video delivery within the broadcast industry. That changed with the explosion of the Internet and second-screen devices like smartphones and tablet...

Submitted by Erwan Gasc

Published 01 April 2015

How full is your spectrum?

by Ian Muir Issue 98 - February 2015 Colour tuneable (Bi-Colour) LED based lamps are now increasingly commonplace in the world of Film and Broadcast. Their capacity to provide a choice of colour temperatures, usually in the realms of 3200K to 5600K, can be extremely useful. This is particularly beneficial when working in environments where setup ti...

Submitted by Ian Muir

Published 01 March 2015

Stability not short-term subscriptions

by Lewis Kirkaldie Issue 97 - January 2015 I\'ve been watching the prospect of subscription-based tools with interest. I talk to customers a lot, and they too are monitoring the situation. Some can see advantages; others are wary. I think it depends very much on what the tool is. Being able to switch a service on and off is attractive for some appl...

Submitted by Lewis Kirkaldie

Published 01 February 2015

4k - The biggest New Years resolution

by John Ive Issue 96 - December 2014 Whether it is Ultra High Definition (UHD), 4K or 8K - the predictions surrounding when and if this higher resolution format will become a widespread reality are still rife in the broadcast and media industry. The consensus in the sector seems to be that we may be edging marginally closer. However, many of the ba...

Submitted by John Ive

Published 01 January 2015