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Articles by Bob Pank#

Deskilling or reskilling

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I recently went to a demonstration of some really terrific new technology. This is not a technology column so I do not propose to go into too much detail about why I was impressed. I mention it because it started me thinking about a more fundamental issue about our industry today. The demonstration was at the offices of Ibis, a company which has al...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Commonwealth Games Will Be All Right On The Night

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Fans of Bollywood films will be familiar with the classic Indian wedding storyline in which complete chaos usually engulfs the event right up to the moment when the groom arrives, at which point everything comes together and everyone has a whale of a time and puts behind them the dramas that preceded the ceremony. The XIX Commonwealth Games (CWG) i...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Does 2D to 3D really work?

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It is widely said that 3D has to be done well as, if it’s not, then it actually can hurt the viewer and give 3D a bad name. Certainly there have been big efforts to make good 3D, with Sky going to great lengths to ensure they set a high standard. Unlike the old 3D celluloid films, digital 3D can be a completely stable medium; it does not degrade wi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

TV Bay Questions Editor and Technical Manager at Astley B...

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Who are you? (about yourself and Astley Baker Davies)I am Taig McNab, editor and technical manager at Astley Baker Davies. We are a small, multi-award winning animation studio based in central London. What do you do? What does Astley Baker Davies do?We are most famous for our involvement with the Peppa Pig series. Our other shows include Ben & Holl...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Meet Steadicam

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1) What is Steadicam?Steadicam is a body-worn camera support systems that isolates the movement of the camera from that of the operator and allows the camera to travel with great freedom over almost any terrain without resorting to conventional track and dolly techniques. Invented by Garrett Brown, the first model was produced in 1976 primarily for...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

AF101 a first look

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IBC saw the first working prototypes of the AF100 being shown to the public. Barry Green (some of you will be familiar with Barry from the US Forum DVXUSER) had the pleasure of working with the pre-production AF101 while at IBC. Incidentally the AF100 & AF101 are the same basic camera for different markets, all of them are NTSC/PAL switchable. At t...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Not so Good Vibrations

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When shooting with ordinary 2D, you can almost do what you like with camera dynamics. If you pan wildly from side to side or up and down, what you see through the viewfinder is what you will actually get. If there is going to be some camera shake or vibration, you can opt to switch in a stabiliser in the camera or the lens system. In 3D these are d...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Deja Vu

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3D was everywhere at IBC with a choice of new products on offer for all parts of production. This makes 3D far more accessible as well as easier to produce. It was also clear that interested visitors to the show were no longer swayed by the initial ‘wow’ factor and were trying to see the more important things – notably the economic realities. In th...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Around the globe with Q-Ball

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The bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin was celebrated during 2009 by a variety of TV programmes studying the background to his 1859 book 'On the Origin of Species'. One of the most ambitious tributes was a 35-part series planned and produced by Dutch broadcaster VPRO. Rather than hire a studio, they commissioned the three-masted clipper Sta...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Redefining Mobile, High Definition Recording With Cinedec...

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IBC 2010 saw the official European launch of Cinedeck EXTREME v2.0, an ultra-portable cinema grade integrated High Definition monitoring, recording and playback device that has already won numerous awards and accolades since making its first public appearance at this year’s NAB Convention in Las Vegas. Cinedeck EXTREME v2.0 incorporates a number of...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Television on television

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Just at the moment I am receiving a steady, almost daily, stream of press releases from an American company called IVI. The service they offer is aimed at an American audience so I will not bore you with the details of their campaign. But it raised some thoughts in the back of my mind. IVI has developed some clever (it claims) software, for Mac, Li...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Television camera lenses

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This is a glass-to-glass report with a difference, starting at front-end of the video production chain and staying there. Given the speed of development in almost every other branch of television, it is easy to overlook the advances taking place in optics. Until, that is, you need a wider capture angle than your existing kit can deliver or you want...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Am I a Martian at IBC2010

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I have just returned from my annual sojourn at IBC and must confess that I was somewhat bemused by what I saw. I always think that the way to assess the tone of a show is to ask yourself what an average Martian would think about it, if it were doing a spot of pre-earth invasion scouting. Three dimensional headachesThis year, my Martian would have w...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

tv-bay IBC2010 double takes

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Tv-bay Double Takes..!Acquisition For-A VFC-7000 Camera HD Variable Frame Rate CameraASA1800 Sensitivity, Native 720x1280 resolution with inbuilt up-convert to 1920x1080 and will output at 50 or 59.94 frame rates. 120 - 700 Frames per second recording speed. Two HD-SDI outputs enabling live and recordings to be viewed simultaneously. Standard onboa...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010

Rotolight Interview Kit Review

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This month we decide to surprise Jim in his cage and see if we could illuminate him with the new Rotolight Interview Kit. Highly portable and extremely user friendly, Jim was beaming all over – pardon the pun. The Rotolight has already been around for a while with many cheaper copies trying to emulate the brand. This new package is good. It’s a com...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 November 2010