Infosecurity Webinars 6 11 14: call for speakers
I am moderating two webinars for Infosecurity Magazine on Thursday 6 November.
The first, for an EMEA audience, is on secure application development. The working title is Secure development: strategy and tactics for Infosec professionals.
It will cover the importance of a security-driven approach to development, the risks pose by insecure app development methods, and how to achieve application security in practice.
The session is at 1900 GMT.
The second session is titled Fappening and Snappening Exposed: The Truth Behind the Headlines.
It will look at both hacks and get to the bottom of the truth behind the headlines.
Panellists will discuss the nature of the hacks, the real-world consequences, and explore how these leaks could have been prevented.
For both sessions, we are looking for speakers who are:
– CIOs or CISOs
– independent information security consultants
– industry analysts
– academics or researchers
The session is at 1400 EST.
Please get in touch via the contact page on this website or tweet @s_pritchard if you are interested in taking part or want to know more.
Video packages: June 2012
Video technology is changing all the time, and commissioning video services can be complex.
In response, we’ve put together packages that we hope are keenly priced, and cover some of the most common jobs.
Of course, if you need something different, please email us, tweet, or call the office on +44 (20) 7099 4862.
These are the rates for corporate and commercial productions. Broadcasters or other editorial outlets should contact Stephen Pritchard directly.
The usual small print: prices are an indication only, but we will always aim to give you a firm price.
Prosumer: £350/day
Our “better than an iPhone” package: based on a camera operator or video journalist with a high-quality consumer camcorder, and a single microphone. This set up is small and light, but flexible enough to work in situations such as show floors or for vox pops. Recording formats: AVCHD or MPEG-2 (memory card) or HDV (tape) at 1080i.
DSLR: £500/day
Want that DSLR look? A video journalist with video-capable, full-frame DSLR. Great for set-ups where portability is important, or where you need to “lose” a busy background and isolate the subject. Good in low light. Includes separate sound recording and portable lighting, so suitable for outdoors or venues where mains power might not be on hand.
Recording formats: Quicktime H.264 at 720p or 1080p. For broadcast, upgrade to 50mpbs+ recording for £100/day.
Standard definition or streaming: £500/day
Not every job needs HD. There are still plenty of outlets that need, or require, footage on SD tape. We provide a video journalist with camcorder filming in the industry-standard DVCAM format, or a camera operator with a full-sized broadcast camera. Both have FireWire outputs so are suitable for lower-end streaming or vision mixing.
Recording format: DVCAM to tape or solid state media. Lighting and sound as above. For interviews, upgrade to a full lighting kit for £100 (mains power required).
HD: £900/day
Want the next level in quality and flexibility? Book our two-person team and film your project in full HD at 1080p. Our full HD packages are based around the Sony XDCAM EX format, and include a journalist/producer/interviewer, experienced camera operator, and a professional lighting and sound kit. This format is ideal for interviews, quality vox pops, reports and features, and b-roll as well as for corporate footage intended for display at events or for HD broadcast online. The XDCAM EX format is suitable for news-level HD broadcast (and SD of course).
Upgrades: add a second camera, ideal for interviews, £150/day. Separate recording at 50mbps + (for “long form” HD broadcast, or post-processing): £100 per camera per day. Additional lighting, “green screen” and more on request.
Other options:
- Editing – office based: £350/day
- Live video production and streaming, green screen, sound recordist, other video formats: on request.
All our prices exclude VAT at the prevailing rate. Travel, and other expenses – such as media – agreed with the client in advance.
Video case study for CAST Software
ENS Media recently produced this video case study for software vendor CAST.
It features the CIO of the European Medicines Agency talking about how he has improved software quality, and reduced costs.
Pro-bono media training: an offer
This December, we are looking to offer a media training session to a UK charity on a pro bono basis.
The session will be a half day, for up to three participants.
The catch? The session will be conducted remotely, so the participants will need to have Skype, Facetime/iChat, or possibly an ISDN connection for the mock interviews. And the presentation/briefing will be over a web-based collaboration tool (we will try to use a free one).
Why are we doing this? We want to test out the options for training people remotely. And it seems a good way to give something back at the same time.
If you are interested, please send Stephen Pritchard a quick email (at the usual address) explaining a little about your organisation, why the training would be useful, and when in December would be good…
Phase II studio upgrade now complete
It’s not been much of a summer in the UK, weather-wise and work-wise. But despite a heavy workload (and maybe because it’s been too cold and wet to venture out often) we have completed our phase II studio upgrade.
As well as some fairly mundane fixes, such as a new headphone amp and live room speakers (so guests can hear what they’ve recorded) we’ve added an HD-SDI video feed from our live to control room, mic positions that are better suited to interview recording, and have moved the ProTools rig onto a full ADAT recording system (so each mic has its own digital channel). We’ve also put in a second ISDN codec (a Glensound GS-GC5) which can be used for radio remote contributions as well as for interview training. Backup recording has now moved from Minidisc and DAT (RIP both) to a digital WAV recorder, which gives near instant access to the files for playback and editing. But we can still burn audio on to a CD too, if required.
For more information about our voiceover, podcast, and audio and video production services please email or call.
Unavoidable email maintenance
Due to the ever-higher volume of email we’re receiving, and our service provider’s move to a new mail platform, we are going to upgrade our email systems.
However, no migration promises to work 100 per cent first time, and I have been warned that mail on the hosted servers – roughly from 24-08-11 to 05-09-11 when the migration will be done — may not carry over.
So firstly bear with us if we don’t reply to email instantly; and if you have sent something important since 24-08, you might want to resend to be sure.
thanks
Stephen Pritchard
Online audio: giving a voice to your ideas
Podcasts and online audio are effective ways to communicate information and ideas to a busy audience.
Some see audio content as less powerful than video but, used well, audio has its own advantages.
It uses less bandwidth and storage than video. It is easy for listeners to “timeshift” programmes, by downloading them to listen to later via iTunes, and to transfer it to an iPod, iPhone or other portable player.
Audio programming costs less to produce than video, and production is less time consuming and intrusive (no lights, makeup or backdrops required!).
And podcasts can be more intimate than video content: as with a good radio show, a good podcast or online audio production brings the speaker and presenter closer together.
ens: media produces online audio for editorial, corporate and not-for-profit clients. We can put together a simple audio podcast, with two participants, in a day using our in-house production and editing facilities.
All work is overseen by Stephen Pritchard, a journalist who has been involved in audio content production since 1997. We can provide journalists or presenters to anchor your show, or work with your own staff to make your audio both professional and compelling.
Examples of recent podcast productions include:
Costs start at £500*, which includes two hours’ of studio time in our in-house facilities in South West London.
… And if you are still tempted by video of course we have a full range of video services too.
*(Cost for a day’s production including two hours’ studio time for two people, recording, editing and mastering to WAVE/AIFF format, with the finished production supplied on a CD or USB stick. Please ask for costs for a presented podcast, media encoding, and iTunes/RSS syndication.)
New IP (and Skype) studio link
We now have a new link for IP-based recording in our studio.
The link is currently configured to work with Skype and Apple’s iChat, and connects directly to our control room. This makes it possible to mix live and remote guests in one programme; we can also mix ISDN and IP links. The plan is to add more codecs; currently we are testing a number of G.722 software options and we might also add Luci Live software, if there is enough demand.
Some people have expressed reservations about the quality of audio recorded over the Internet, and especially Skype. In fact it it works well, if it is managed well. Most resistance seems to come either from PRs or from companies’ IT departments, rather than from producers or broadcast engineers.
Our experience is that the most important element is the microphone at the remote end; some headsets are very poor quality. The second most important factor is microphone positioning (to avoid plosives or ‘pop’s) and the use of a windshield; the third is the ambient noise level in the room; the fourth is the actual bandwidth.
Of course there are some issues that can trip up Skype and other VoIP technology, such as overly aggressive firewalls — though usually these will block calls altogether rather than degrade quality — bandwidth, and the processing power of the host computer.
If you want to try out VoIP for interviews — and we really think you should — contact us and we can set up a test connection.
And if you want advice or technical help in setting up a link for your offices or for a client, we can recommend the consultants at Radio Studio Services, who have developed a set of packages to suit a range of budgets and needs, including IP and ISDN.
New audio studio for ens: media
Our new audio studio – for recording podcasts, voiceovers, audio webinars, media training and radio work – is now finished.
There are a couple of pictures in this post and I will post some more soon.
We can accommodate two or three guests (four at a push) in person but also have both IP and ISDN links for remote interviews. For ISDN we use the G722 codec.
For more information, and for rates (either for projects or studio hire and production) please call or email.
New weekly column for IT PRO
I’m now writing a weekly column on enterprise IT for Dennis Publishing’s IT PRO.
The first article is on why PC makers need to make a profit.
Do email if you’ve an idea for further topics.
Stephen Pritchard's media blog 