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Articles by Bob Pank#

LIGHTING FOR 3D PRODUCTION

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Richard Walch, a photographer and DSLR film-maker from Germany, usually makes spectacular productions dealing with extreme sports. For a 3D special supplement in one of the largest German newspapers, Richard Walch photographed Germany's most famous puppet theatre: The "Augsburger Puppenkiste". The troop is internationally known for its films includ...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Reaching for 3D

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From the opening shot of the Ryder Cup to the Champions League final when Manchester United played Barcelona this year, a stately homes documentary to a Derren Brown magic show, cameraman Chris Taber has been there, filmed it and got the T-shirt. And the reason the camera crane operator has been in demand for so many high-profile jobs? In a word: 3...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Putting the Realism into Reality Television

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“Reality television’ as a category of programming emerged in the late 1990s with the introduction of shows that attempted to portray real people responding to real challenges under more or less continual public gaze. Unlike sport, where the focus is primarily on physical skills and endurance, reality television shows place their participants in a w...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Without training will there be future for the TV Industry...

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It might come as a surprise to you but do you know that there in the UK 80,000 people working in the TV industry. That's 10% of the work force. And some more facts:The UK has overseas programme sales of £980 million. Non-terrestrial TV spends £193 millions on content whilst terrestrial TV spends £2.6 billion on content. Independent producers in the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Ten Top Tips For OB Operators Fuel Economy

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As fuel prices around the world hit a record high, every driver is looking for ways to squeeze as many miles as possible from every precious gallon or litre. If you are a broadcaster with a fleet of Outside Broadcast vehicles, how do you stop fuel overheads from rocketing and eating in to your hard earned profits?Recognising that fuel is not a disc...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Sennheiser MKH 8060, 8070 and MKE1 Lapel microphone revie...

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Sennheiser recently asked me to review two new MKH series microphones, and a new Lapel MKE 1I had a job coming up and I thought this would be the perfect time to try the two MKH microphones out. The job was a TV commercial. We would shoot on the beach and in Jumeirah Beach Park. For my set up, I decided I would use a PSC Alphamix Mixer, a Sound Dev...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

The art of 3D

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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

3D Five years on

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For me, IBC2006 was the beginning of the modern 3D era. At an invitation-only presentation, 3ality’s CEO Steve Schklair described what his company was achieving with S3D. Suddenly it all made sense. With the accuracy of digital shoots and computer technology replacing difficulties and expense of working with film, 3D could now be viable. Unlike the...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Capturing a slice of the 3D market

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The capture card is an essential bit of hardware glue that connects the professional TV studio world to the IT world of the modern high-performance PC.A bewildering range of models and options are offered. Some features are poorly specified or not even mentioned in the product specs. Where there is analogue to digital conversion going on, you reall...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Building an HD MCR for The Associated Press

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The Associated Press delivers fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, it has grown into a large and trusted source of independent news and information. AP’s activity in the broadcast market centres on the supply of live and edited video to over 500 broadcasting operations and 200 news...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Thinking of buying an OLED - read this first...

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It may surprise some people that Autocue, known worldwide as the leader in broadcast, educational and corporate teleprompting, is also highly experienced in providing broadcast quality reference monitors. We’ve parlayed our experience in quality prompting screens to specify the manufacture of broadcast monitors for OB trucks, vision galleries and Q...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

tv-bay Questions

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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

Cut the risk out of developing and operating connected se...

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When is an opportunity also a threat? In fact, most opportunities also pose some element of inherent risk. And for today’s media operators, the opportunities have never seemed riskier, and the risks have never offered so much potential gain. A diversifying, multi-screen, ‘connected’ media landscape is like a vast new hinterland for traditional broa...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Multi Function 2D and 3D Signal Monitoring Capability

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We find ourselves in a constantly evolving industry with an ever increasing variety of video sources and devices that require monitoring. There is still a significant amount of analogue equipment requiring both composite and component monitoring, and then there is the whole raft of digital video equipment supporting SDI, HDSDI, 3G and now HDMI conn...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Learning from the master

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In 1985 I took a job at Logica. In those days we were developing systems for teletext and subtitles, and later for graphics management, using computer hardware from DEC, a brand name that disappeared in 1998 when it was acquired by Compaq. The PDP-11 was revolutionary in that it was a 16 bit computer, but even then there was a suspicion that it did...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011