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Broadcasting and telecoms have had a long relationship, one that in recent years has become closer and more symbiotic. But there is one area where the two clash head on: radio spectrum. This is a vital resource for not just television and radio transmission but also the production of entertainment shows and outside broadcasts today, which relies heavily on wireless microphones and cameras, in-ear monitors (IEMs) and mobile communications. Parallel to this is the ever-growing demand from mobile phone companies for frequencies to support video streaming and wireless telephony as well as telephony.
Sometimes we can make an informed decision about which camera acquisition format to use, other times we take what we get and fix it in post. Both cases require an understanding of the tradeoffs manufacturers have made in producing a camera designed to sell at a particular price point. Without getting into why manufacturers make multiple models or why a particular technology gets transformed into product at some point in its life cycle. Let’s try to be agnostic.
I remember “painting” the cameras. Riding the CCU’s to make sure that the trees did not change from emerald green to grass green when the fader bar on the switcher was pulled. Colour grading in the post suite has made the crude tools we used to use outdated, but what about live production in the new multi-digital world? When colours change between shots it breaks the illusion. We have become lax about this because the tools are simply not available.
Drones, essentially unmanned aircraft, can be used in a myriad of ways. From controversial remote-controlled bombing platforms and police surveillance to monitoring crops on large farms and delivering medicines to remote locations, drones have found a wide range of uses.
Ask any television or film lighting designer and you’ll get the same answer. Lighting is currently going a period of rapid technological change and LED fixtures are gaining fast over more traditional lighting — especially tungsten.
The capture of depth information in scenes is an increasingly rich field of development but it has so far remained on the fringes of TV production because of the need to either use physical markers on objects or to render the output in post. Start-up company Zinemath aims to change that with a technology called zLense it claims to be the first real-time 3D depth mapping tool for broadcast.
The IP wave has broken on the shores of wireless connectivity as several pro-camcorder manufacturers announce cloud-integration capability removing the need for traditional video uplink. This workflow particularly benefits ENG and electronic field production for store and forward media transfer or streaming live to air from sports or news events and taps into the maturation of cellular networks which are enabling a more secure and lossless signal transmission with lower latency. That said, 4G network coverage even in western Europe lags some way behind that of the U.S. which makes hybrid systems combining cellular channels and satellite links of necessity for most news-gathering services.
In recent years, major events such as the Arab Spring and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake have brought the role of citizen journalists into global prominence. As mainstream news outlets adapt to this emerging trend, professional journalists and average citizens alike can explore the use of satellite technology as a key enabler to delivering news from anywhere in the world.
