KitPlus | Articles

Capture and Produce

Issue 93 - September 2014 Amongst all the new cameras, support and other production kit being touted prior to IBC, it was a less tangible announcement that really captured the imagination: Atomos’ announcement that it wants to standardize its Start/Stop Trigger connectivity for HDMI by making it available to other manufacturers. Locking SDI interfa...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 October 2014

Manage and Monitor

Issue 93 - September 2014 In less than a month’s time, British television producers will be asked to deliver their programmes to broadcasters as files rather than tape. Some have been doing it for years. For others, it’s a whole new world. Fundamentally, the change is just replacing physical items like tapes, labels and VT reports with their zeros...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 October 2014

An editors perspective

by Larry Jordan Issue 92 - August 2014 When it comes to chroma-key (also called “green-screen key”) the phrase “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it in post.” is a recipe for disaster, because if you don’t shot your key right during production, it will be painful, timeconsuming and expensive to fix it later during editing. I know, because I’m an editor. Bad c...

Submitted by Larry Jordan#

Published 01 September 2014

Atomos Samurai Blade and Connect Converter TSG

by Kevin Owen Issue 90 - June 2014 Kevin Owen has worked in live television broadcast industry for the past 10 years, specializing in fiber optic systems integration and video engineering. Troubleshooting problems on the fly, often at remote locations away from the production truck has become an integral part of his job. Kevin is most often found w...

Submitted by Kevin Owen

Published 01 July 2014

When the going gets tough

by Will Strauss Issue 88 - April 2014 When working in the field, the kit we use has to withstand a fair old battering. And Im not just talking about the cameras, viewfinders and those expensive lenses. While glass still needs protecting, these days so does your laptop, your storage, your memory cards: the lot. They all need bags, cases and toughene...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 May 2014

Leading digital cinematography seminar with Matt Siegel

by Matt SiegelIssue 83 - November 2013 Multiple-award-winning film producer and cinematographer Matt Siegel chose a Leader LV5381 four-input multi-SDI monitor for use during his recent seminar on Digital Cinematography at The Maine Media Workshops. Designed for emerging cinematographers, the course explained the advantages of using digital technolo...

Submitted by Matt Siegel

Published 01 December 2013

From archival master to usable video with Mark Gray

by Mark GrayIssue 80 - August 2013 With about 4 million new video channels expected to hit the market in the next five years, its going to be more important than ever to make high-quality content readily available. Many media archives and libraries; studios; broadcasters; production and postproduction facilities; and mastering, quality control, and...

Submitted by Mark Gray

Published 01 September 2013

Televising Swan Lake in live 3D from St Petersburg

by Tim HighmoorIssue 79 - July 2013 Stereoscopic television may still be in its infancy as a home entertainment medium but it is thriving in the cinema world. Freed from domestic distractions, cinema audiences are ideally placed to give their full attention to the images on the big screen. On Thursday 6 June 2013, the Mariinsky Ballet company in Ru...

Submitted by Tim Highmoor

Published 01 August 2013

NyeTec: Company spotlight

Issue 79 - July 2013 Established for 10 years, NyeTec is a growing family run company. We believe traditional service and support of our clients is paramount. Terry Nye, as MD of the company, has over 30 years experience in Television, building on a solid foundation at the IBA, and having installed several of worlds first Digital Head Ends. NyeTec...

Submitted by KitPlus

Published 01 August 2013

Why test and measurement is for real life, not just for e...

by Will StraussIssue 79 - July 2013 Thanks to its long-standing association with virtually incomprehensible acronyms, dark machine rooms and (lets face it) engineers with unruly beards, the subject of Test and Measurement (T&M) always gets a bit of bum rap. Yet, for all the pre-conceptions, it is a hugely important part of the production and broadc...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 August 2013

Audio phase: Robin Palmer asks why it is wobbly?

Phase meters and audio vectorscopes are to be found on most test kit involved with audio monitoring. This is important because left/right audio correlation problems between the channels will distort the stereo ‘image’ and could degrade mono compatibility. If left and right phase should ever be inverted, any centered identical audio would be cancell...

Submitted by Robin Palmer

Published 01 June 2013

Life live beyond the Premier League

by Kieron SethIn Europe outside broadcast has traditionally been within the reach of a handful of deep-pocketed television companies. Across the Atlantic, small OB vans have been popular for years with niche, regional news crews beaming state pie eating competitions to eager viewers. With the advent of Local TV and low-cost fast turnaround producti...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 April 2013

What you see is what you get? Doubtful!

by Robin PalmerThe colour you see is not necessarily the same colour experienced by someone else looking at the same thing. It all depends on the viewer and the viewing conditions as well as the actual colour of the thing. In some professions having perfect colour vision is a matter of safety as in the case of airline pilots and those in railway si...

Submitted by Robin Palmer

Published 01 March 2013

Technical Testing Joins Forces with Visual Monitoring

In the past, test and measurement equipment was designed exclusively for broadcast engineers. Vectorscope and waveform read-outs sketching out shapes on a scope were readily understood by technicians fluent in the language of signal analysis. Today multi-camera digital acquisition is not merely the domain of the broadcaster; television production i...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 December 2012

Wibbly Wobbly Waveforms

The very first analytical electronic instrument, developed in the late 1890s, was the oscilloscope. This used a cathode ray tube (CRT) to paint a graph of voltage on the Y axis versus time on the X axis. Once television became a practical reality in the 1930s, the same instrument was applied to the video output from the camera and became the very u...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2012