Posts tagged power
CIRCUS: Studio Sound
0My final main Circus session today was on Studio Sound, and how it can make or break a live or as live television production. Bellow is what i had to say about today, in my circus report:
Studio sound is quite similar to Location sound, with the main difference being the amount of microphones / audio sources you can mix and output. In a studio mixer you can also use techniques such as Compression, Effects (Reverb, Delay and such), and Limiting.
In the studio at Ravensbourne there are 3 wall boxes each with a set of input / output tie-line which link back to the sound gallery. Each socket from this wall box can then be patched to any channel on the Solid State Logic C10, digital sound mixing desk. Each socket could be patched as an aux on the desk, allowing you to feed particular channels into the studio, for example as monitors for a band.
Each channel in the SSL C10 can have its own effects and compression applied to it which can be very useful in a band / interview situation, were you would like some reverb on the performance mic’s and nothing on the interviewees. Also each channel can be supplied with phantom power individually; this means that if you have microphones or other equipment that require phantom to operate, they can be supplied with it, without the rest of the inputs being affected. Some older sound desks only supply phantom to all or nothing, this can cause some problems with sensitive equipment.
The SSL C10 can handle “64 full input channels, each with dedicated 4-band EQ, Comp/Lim, Insert, Direct Output”5 as well as “16 dedicated mono Mix Minus buses with insert points, can be stereo-linked”5, all of which allows the sound supervisor to provide the studio floor / in ear monitoring all different mixes. For example a presenter will want to hear the Director, PA, and VT’s but they don’t want to hear themselves.
CIRCUS: Location Sound
0Another day, another circus Session this time we were learning about location sound. this is what i wrote about it for my Circus Report:
Locations sound works hand in hand with location camera’s providing additional sound capabilities to the single camera, for example an interview situation that required two personal mic’s could be mixed together before being fed to the camera as stereo or mono line level mix. Location mixers often have 2-4 inputs and can either mix in stereo or dual mono. Location mixers normally have better Microphone pre-amps than Camera’s, which in turn provides better sound quality, as the mixer is outputting at line level (0db) and the camera won’t apply any more amplification to the signal.
Some microphones require batteries or phantom power (+48v) to operate; these mic’s are a form of capacitor mic’s are much more sensitive than standard dynamic mic’s that don’t require power to operate. Most cameras and mixers can supply phantom power to these microphones.
When setting up for a shoot, you can use the tone that the mixer is supplying to the camera to help setup the record levels on the camera. Tone should be set just below the 0db mark as this allows some “head room” before the camera starts to clip the signal should you go above the tone volume.
LECTURE: TV Systems & Signals
0Optical Fibre Links
Today we looked at optical fibre links and how they now power the internet age that is now upon us. The amazing power of fibre is slowly being understood with new theoretical limits being constantly found, the current tested theoretical limit could handle the worlds current internet and phone traffic, and more in a single fibre.
Fibre’s are the back bone the UK broadcast industry, as they link all the Studio Centers with the 1000+ Transmission sites in the UK. The Fibre links are mission critical for all Analogue and Freeview transmission, as they provide the 17 Main and 1000 “Fill” UHF Transmitters, with the signal to broadcast.
LECTURE: Electronics and TV Systems & Signals
0This is my first real blog post for IPP / Fluxity and its on Electronics and TV Systems and Signals. This is still right at the start of the course for us, so we are starting right at the beginning with the Electronics and Tv Systems and Signals.
Electronics
Starting with the basics over the last few lectures, we looked into the fundamentals of Electronics, this included:
- The Atom
- Charge
- Voltage
- Current
Most of this I had covered previously in at A Level, but these lectures stood as a handy recap. Over these lectures we also covered Resistance, Power, and Capacitance, all at a fundamental level, to provide the building blocks for later lectures.
Tv Systems & Signals
Tv Systems and Signals is a completely new unit for most of us on the course. with these first couple of lectures covering the very basics, starting with the Broadcast Chain and The EM Spectrum. Both topics although basic provided me with a huge insight into the broadcast world and how its not as simple as just watching TV makes it seem. This small insight into the industry has spurred me on to find out as much as I can about being a Broadcast Engineer