KitPlus | Articles

New workflows floating on the horizon

The way in which we consume content has fundamentally changed. We want to watch what we want, when we want, where we want and how we want, and we want to find programmes quickly, preferably in HD or increasingly UHD. Content is king and in order to satisfy consumer requirements it is essential media companies can locate their material quickly and e...

Submitted by Lee Sheppard - new

Published 04 April 2017

5G Streaming - The Rollout

5G will bring significant improvements in bandwidth per device, capacity per network and reduced latency per session. These are all very important features for video both today and going forward. The growth of new formats such as UHD, AR, VR and 360 video place much greater demand on the networks that serve consumer devices, so 5G will be essential...

Submitted by Steve Plunkett - new

Published 04 April 2017

Taking a hybrid approach to the SDI/IP transistion

Broadcasters are not newcomers to technological transitions. As an industry, we\'ve survived analogue to digital, baseband to file-based workflows, SDTV to HDTV and now 4KUHD resolution, not to mention weathering a barrage of new compression formats. Today, we\'re facing one of the most dramatic transformations we\'ve ever undergone: SDI to IP. Unl...

Submitted by Matthew Coleman

Published 07 December 2016

Blackmagic Design URSA Mini Reviewed

The yeti finally arrived earlier this year - I call it so, because for almost twelve months until BVE 2016 we\'d only seen it in pictures! So getting my hands on one in a real word environment was an absolute no brainer, when Simon Tillyer dropped me a line offering the opportunity to review the camera for KitPlus. I\'ll cut right to the chase with...

Submitted by Ben Sherriff

Published 07 December 2016

Selecting the right broadcast minicam lens

So we all know that HD and 4K (and beyond) is the norm for content creation and delivery, with the need for unique and versatile shots being offered to increase the audiences participation and visual experiences. A major factor aside from the camera itself is the selection of lens, for some of the UHD sensor formats a broad spectrum of "off the she...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 10 November 2016

Heading towards brightness regulations

I like IBC in the same way that I find NAB grating. Maybe I have been living in the UK for too long, but the bright morning Amsterdam sun breaking through clouds and reflecting off the canal while fit young things on bicycles pedal to college; snapchatting with their friends and avoiding collisions with practised ease has a certain charm. You just...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 10 November 2016

IBC - how was it you

IBC 2016 was very much a launching show, with more new products and updates than in many recent IBC\'s or NAB\'s. With so many of these announcements directly in the remit of a cameraman, blink and you\'d miss the next big thing in camera and lenses news. With this in mind, this review focuses on camera and lenses only. One consistent factor among...

Submitted by Duncan Payne

Published 10 November 2016

Live streams versus srowing files

So, what is the difference between a stream and a file? It may seem like a dumb and obvious question, but it's crucial in the design of many file based workflows and the applications that drive them. Let's start with the basic and obvious answer. "You can random access a file but you sequentially process a stream". This used to be important back in...

Submitted by Bruce Devlin

Published 26 September 2016

Make sure you are connected. The writing is on the wall

SIS LIVE has a long history of providing OB technology for horse and dog racing, our traditional link to sports. So you can rightly deduce that we\'re not what could be considered a more generic OB company. Racing is our heritage and is something we continue to support. Having said that, we work with a multitude of OB companies in our new guise as...

Submitted by John Bozza

Published 26 September 2016

Filming in 4k in not just about the camera

Filming in 4K is not just about the camera. The whole workflow and supply chain needs to be considered. A BNC cable that you have used for the last few years has happily coped with 1.5G HD-SDI, now we are wanting twice the data rate. Camera Corps asked Polecam to help with its supply of cameras to the Champions of Hockey Games at the Olympic Hockey...

Submitted by Steffan Hewitt

Published 26 September 2016

Test and measurement in a multiformat world

The evolution of television technology since the days of 525-line and 625-line standard definition has left a large legacy of standards which modern broadcast systems now have to recognise and process. In today's video and audio business, creatives and technical staff have to be ready to handle a multiplicity of signal types. In its standard form,...

Submitted by Kevin Salvidge

Published 24 August 2016

The true benefits of the media factory ideal

As an industry we know that to be successful in the new multi-platform, multi-format environment there are hurdles that broadcasters and other content owners must overcome. These include: the introduction of non-linear offerings, which require different services to be managed in parallel; the reduction of revenues from conventional linear channels,...

Submitted by Julian Fernandez-Campon

Published 22 July 2016

Ask the experts - Transitioning to IP

1) What has been the broadcast industry's feeling about the move to an all IP workflow?Transitioning from conventional signal transport to an all-IP environment in broadcast or content production operations seems to be a matter of "when\" rather than "if,\" as it brings a great number of advantages with it. IP is touted as offering numerous benefit...

Submitted by Craig Newbury

Published 22 July 2016

Innovations getting you ready for the transition

There has been much speculation about the migration away from cable and the potential disappearance of set top boxes. However, regardless of what happens in the future, we cannot escape the fact that a multitude of sources is streaming content into people's living rooms and this is having a significant impact in consumer's use and choice of devices...

Submitted by Menno Koopmans

Published 22 July 2016

OTT A Multiscreen Environment

Just when pay-TV operators and content providers seemed to be facing an insurmountable number of challenges related to OTT multiscreen delivery, the cloud has emerged as their saving grace. During this Q&A session, Sefy Ariely, EVP Americas at Viaccess-Orca, discusses the advantages of using a complete cloud-based TV Platform as a Service (PaaS) fo...

Submitted by Sefy Ariely

Published 14 June 2016