KitPlus | Articles

RIDING THE AUDIO WAVE ON SET OF HAWAII FIVE-O

McGarrett eyes his foe across the beach. After signaling to his trusty sidekick Dano, he jumps on an ATV and the chase is on. Dano jumps on a jet ski and tries to cut off the enemy's escape from the sea. Yet in middle of all this, you can actually hear what they're saying to each other. Ever try to mic somebody on a jet ski? Location sound guys hav...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Its good to talk

Online, my sister is quite the socialite. She has more friends on Facebook than people I’ve ever met, and a very active Twitter account. Let’s not even get started on LinkedIn, Buzzsprout, Flickr, You Tube, MySpace and Scrib’d. Half her life is on the web, and while the conventions of these online relationships remain a mystery to me, my sister is...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2011

Either meet your listeners halfway, or get them to come t...

In TV Bay’s IPTV & Online issue, I spoke about how streaming video online enabled content owners to share their work with the world a lot more effectively, so although the end result is the same, what technical procedures are different for streaming pure audio content?The pace of technical advancements have now established distinct requirements for...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Working With Audio Signals

For most of the past century, working with audio signals was a very straightforward process. The audio information was converted to electrical signals in the form of a varying voltage between the two conductors in a pair (balanced) or between a conductor and the ground reference (unbalanced). The bandwidth, frequency response, distortion and noise...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Its a MADI World

At this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas, 3D solutions were still a hot topic — but one emerging technology threatened to steal the show. In fact, the rapid growth of devices that support the Multichannel Audio Digital Interface (MADI) has more potential for simplifying broadcasting operations than perhaps anything else. But what exactly is MADI and wh...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 June 2011

Post Production Ask The Experts

IntroductionIt’s a familiar scenario: A client calls with an urgent transfer request. It may be a movie sourced at 23.98PsF that needs conversion for broadcast, and the client needs an HD version at 1080 50i with Dolby E audio and an SD program at 625 50i with PCM audio, as well. Or perhaps the content was shot at 1080 59.94i, but the client needs...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

What are the most important opportunities and challenges...

What are the most important opportunities and challenges facing the TV industry today?To answer this question we need to look more broadly at consumer behaviour and the changing way people are consuming content. Viewers no longer solely want a passive experience with a TV programme in their front room. They want to watch catch-up TV on a laptop, do...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2011

DVB-3DTV: A Milestone

In 1822, George Stephenson set his Standard Gauge for the world’s first steam railway at 4 foot 8 inches (1.44m), to match a nearby wagonway that worked well at Killingworth Colliery. Despite Isambard Kingdom Brunel building the London-to-Bristol line (1838) on what he considered to a better 2.2m ‘Board Gauge’ (he was right!), the Gauge Act of 1846...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

One Eyed 3D

The illusion of a single 3D image is created within the brain based on the spacial displacement of our two eyes. So how can you make a 3D production with one camera?The 3D stop frame animation feature film 'Coralline' was largely made with just one camera for each scene. The same DSLR camera was used to take left and right images successively. For...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

Mobile Cameraman Extraordinaire

I had wanted to work in television since my teens and, at 20, started as a trainee assistant cameraman at Mersey Television on 'Brookside' in Liverpool and then joining Thorn-EMI Facilities in London. Thorn-EMI put me in charge of a studio used to shoot links for companies like Children's Channel using very bulky early tubed Betacams. Five years la...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

A novel approach to delivering radio content

Who does a national broadcaster turn to with 9 TV and radio stations, each with 20hrs of daily programmes and a need to deliver them locally and cross continental... In a media rich world where viewers habits are rapidly changing they need to add another dimension to radio while maintaining the 'spirit' of a radio programme. France Tlvisions’ Rseau...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

Will Youview and IPTV change the face of TV Broadcasting

Youview, and the evolution of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV), are set to have a major impact on the UK broadcasting industry. Youview is the latest evolution of Freeview and Freesat, the Set Top Boxes (STB) that give access to additional channels without a monthly subscription. Freeview gives viewers access to terrestrial broadcasts, while Freesat ena...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

The 4 Golden Rules of Streaming

In November 2009 a Florida-based web design company ran a series of tests on their website. Their bounce rate (the % of visitors to their site that hit their home page but go no further on a site) started at 45% - a barely acceptable rate. Over the course of a month, they added graphic after graphic to their site. The effect was catastrophic with a...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2011

Eye to eye: The changing face of video displays

Video display technology is progressing so fast that the phrase 'More revolutions than a banana republic' inevitably comes to mind. No offence intended if you have just taken over as president. From the 1930s to the present century, television display was dominated almost entirely by cathode ray tubes. Competition then arrived in the form of plasma...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011

Using Multipoint Monitoring to Ensure Reliable Digital Vi...

Because the quality and bandwidth-efficiency advantages of digital over analog methods have made digital transport preferred, the world continues its migration to an all-digital approach to delivering video signals – from the studio through distribution networks to the end-viewer. As with any new technology, adopting and integrating digital video d...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2011