Recent content by livedownunder

Just wondering what to expect with the G20 Summit coming to town in a few weeks (Brisbane, Australia). I'll have a multitude of live crosses to do, and expect that I'll need to hardwire mics and IFB. Assuming the USSS jamming technology improves from year to year, I would expect that wireless...

Some of my colleagues take pride in how much depth-of-field they can achieve with their live shots and PTC's. The background is so out of focus that's it's difficult to even make out what's actually there. I can understand where it's necessary so as to not identify people in the background (ie...

I'm looking for some feedback from anyone that's done live within Hurricanes alone the Florida coastline. What's the latest trend with getting the images live to air ... using SNG or fiber optic points ? How do the sat dishes hold up to the winds and have there been many damaged in the past (I...

An Australian colleague of mine is going over to LA later this month for a week, and wishes to use some radio mics while he is shooting around southern California. The frequency bands he uses here in Australia goes from 792.25 mhz to 805.5 mhz (Australian TV Channels 66 & 67). I believe that...

What do you do with your old camcorder batteries ? Throw them into the dumpster at work, or drop then into a local battery recycling facility ? A work colleague dropped a IDX Lithium-Ion camera battery into the surf the other day, and shocked me when telling me that he had then put the same...

Has anyone had any issues in the past with frequency jamming when Air Force One is arriving and departing your town ? I'm speaking in relation to radio microphones, cellphones, and microwaves links. I may be on assignment when AF1 is visiting "my side of the World", and I'm wondering what...

Has anyone got any recommendations for software that will convert multimedia files to a format that our AVID will accept ? I'm always encountering strange file formats from mobilephones, handycam hard drives and the such. For example, I'm talking about the MOD files on a JVC handycam hard drive...

Does your station make you attend training courses, involving safety and work practices ? Are there any other courses that you've done that I haven't mentioned ? So far my employer has come up with a multitude of safety and awareness courses, all of which are compulsory for all "on road" news...

I've got an upcoming live cross where the reporter will be coming down a waterslide, then ending in a shallow pool. The camera will be "high and dry", but the radio mic and IFB will be getting totally wet. Anyone got any good ideas for waterproofing, other than using condon's or surgical gloves...

I was watching an episode of "CSI: New York" the other night, where the lab boys had to restore some really creased up broadcast videotape. What they did was feed the loose tape through a series of pulleys that moved the videotape along at about around half an inch per second. The technician was...

Read the article below, and then watch this - <http://img.dailymail.co.uk/video/cabbie.wmv> http://img.dailymail.co.uk/video/cabbie.wmv Fare comment! He is the BBC's latest star - the cab driver who a leading presenter believed was a world expert on the internet music business. The man...

Have you been out in the rain shooting all day, and your lens fogs up (internally). I'd like to hear the various ways of quickly clearing that annoying circular spot that forms inside. I've always found that blowing hot air (eg air-dry or car's heater) onto the lens will eventually clear the...

Anyone know what the breaking points are with wind speeds for the various sizes and types of ENG and SNG dishes ? I did hear that a few satellite dishes were snapped off their trucks during the recent hurricanes in the USA. How much will a microwave dish take before it's mounting bolts are...

Anyone out there using digital microwave on their ENG trucks ? My link truck was recently upgraded to digital, using a Nucomm COFDM(OFDM) 2ghz transmitter. Along with the many advantages of now being digital, I've also found some unusal side-effects. One thing is that the engineers tell me that...

Reporter wonders why the Beta SX tape with her story on, suddenly jams in the preview machine. After manually removing the tape from the J1 machine, I noticed that the tape had snapped in two. After further inspection, a slightly squashed ant was discovered some distance in on the take up spool...