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The miniaturization of high-quality portable video began about six years ago with the arrival of video capability in DSLR cameras. However, for those who want to do precision lighting in the field, change has come more slowly.
Professional Wireless Systems provided frequency coordination for all wireless communications. The PWS team coordinated approximately 110 frequencies for a single game, ensuring that there were no dropped signals or unwanted interference during the live telecast.
Knowing which camera to choose for an assignment is important—for those times when you can make this decision. Knowing how to get the best out of the resulting footage you get is necessary when you can’t. Understanding how the technology works can help in both cases.
It may be obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs stating, which is that television pictures can only be assessed by the viewer through the human visual system. It is equally obvious, that moving picture reproduction systems developed without an understanding of human vision will be sub-optimal. That’s where we are at the moment: today’s TV and cinema standards were specified before much of what we know about sight was well understood. With our now expanded and newer understanding, we should apply the science to future television systems.
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.
