UK TV and Radio Voice Over, BigFish Media was formed in 2004 by BBC Radio 2 Newsreader and Professional voice-over artist Ricky Salmon and BBC TV Continuity Announcer Phil Vowels. Ricky Salmon has experience of voicing corporate and training videos, radio commercials and trailers, "on hold" telephone messages, IVR(voice prompts) and webpages. He is also a television continuity announcer for PLUS and a radio continuity announcer for World Radio Network. Phil Vowels is a Continuity Announcer for both BBC1 and BBC2 Television. He is an experienced BBC radio presenter, having presented and produced programmes for BBC Southern Counties Radio, BBC Radio Bristol, BBC Radio Solent and a late night phone-in programme heard on all BBC radio stations across the South West of England.
 
 
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BigFish Media Technical


ISDN

We can supply voiceovers for your project from the BigFish Media ISDN-equipped studio near Woking, Surrey, UK.


We are hooked up to the internet via a 4MB broadband connection for the extremely fast delivery of MP3/wav/aiff files to your computer. 



Our studio is also available for hire at the very reasonable rate of £50 per hour. It is suitable for use by other voiceover artists, who don't have their own ISDN connection or home studio, and live radio interviews. Please contact us for details and availability.


 


 



 

CONTACT DETAILS

BigFish ISDN:     +44 (0) 1483 730614 (x2)
BigFish Fax:       +44 (0) 1483 727905
BigFish Office:   +44 (0) 1483 750578
BigFish Mobile:   +44 (0) 7788 741996



 


 


 



 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

Codec: Audio TX Communicator
Microphone: Audio Technica AT4033
Sound Card: Marc 2 PCI
Mixer: Powerplay Pro
Headphone and mic pre-amp: Audio Buddy
Editing Software: Adobe Audition
Headphones: Beyer Dynamic DT100's
CDR: Memorex



 


 


TECHNICAL TERMS 

ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscribers Line (Broadband). Technology for transmitting digital information at high bandwidths on your existing phone line. Unlike the regular dial-up phone service, ADSL provides an "always on" connection to the internet. It works by splitting your phone line into two separate lines - one for your phone and the other for data. This means you can talk on the phone and surf the web at the same time. ADSL is asymmetric in that it uses most of the line to transmit to your computer and only a small part to receive information from you. 


AIFF - Audio interchange file format. A common format for storing and transmitted sampled sound. It is the standard sound format for Macintosh computers. AIFF files generally end with a .AIF or .IEF extension.



Codec - Short for compressor/decompressor. A codec is any technology for compressing and decompressing data (digital video or stereo audio). Codecs can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of both.


DSL - Digital Subscriber Link It uses sophisticated modulation schemes to pack data onto copper wires. They are sometimes referred to as last-mile technologies because they are used only for connections from a telephone switching station to a home or office, not between switching stations.


Firewall - A combination hardware and software buffer in between your computer and the internet. A firewall allows only specific kinds of messages from the web and protects your computer from hackers.


ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network. A system of digital high bandwidth telephone lines, which allows you to surf the web or send audio, video and data at speeds of up to 128Kbps. It is designed to provide a single interface for hooking up a telephone, fax machine and a computer.


CD-ROM - Compact Disc Read Only Memory. A computer storage medium which can store large amounts of information; generally used to distribute software or multi-media for use on computers. A CD-ROM disc looks just like a music CDs but can't be altered by a user.



Bandwidth - The rate at which information travels through a network connection (ADSL or ISDN etc). It is usually measured in bits per second, kilobits (thousand bits) per second, or megabits (million bits) per second.


Download  -To copy data (usually an entire file) from a main source to a local device. The term is often used to describe the process of copying a file from the internet to your computer. Downloading can also refer to copying a file from a network file server to a computer on the network.


FreeWare - Software that is available for download and unlimited use without charge.


FTP - File Transfer Protocol. A way of transferring files over the Internet from one computer to another.


HTML - HyperText Markup Language. A collection of tags typically used in the development of Web pages.



HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol. A set of instructions for communication between a server and a World Wide Web client.

Kbps - kilpbites per second. The transfer of data at one thousand bites per second.

LAN - Local Area Network. A high speed network, over a relatively small area, that connects computers, printers and other network devices so that they can interact with each other.

Lossy - This is used in the context of describing audio encoding schemes where some detail or nuance of the original analog master or source material or signal are lost during the analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue conversion process. MP3 audio is a lossy format.

Metadata - Data about data. Metadata describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data is formatted. Metadata is essential for understanding information stored in data warehouses and has become increasingly important in XML-based Web applications.

Metatag - An HTML command that defines keywords within web documents.


Modem - short for modulator-demodulator. This is a hardware device or program that enables a compute to transmit data over analogue telephone lines. Computer information is stored digitally, whereas information transmitted over telephone lines is transmitted in the form of analogue waves. A modem converts between these two forms. The modem enables dial-up access to the internet. Modems come in different speeds; the higher the speed the faster the data is transmitted. The fastest widely available modems are 56Kpbs.

MPEG - Motion Picture Experts Group. Audio data file format MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3). A format for compressed movie files using similar technology to jpeg.


MP3 - A coding standard for compression of audio data: MPEG-2 Layer 3. A compressed audio format that is popular for downloading from the internet and for use with memory-based audio players. Files may be recorded on CDR or CD-RW media for playback in compatible DVD players, audio CD players, and CD-ROM drives. Files are usually named as .mp3. Sound quality varies as a function of the recording/encoding bit rate. Anything recorded with less than 128 kbps data rate will sound degraded. For a high fidelity home audio system, we recommend MP3s are encoded at 256 kbps.



Plug-In - A small application which extends the built in capabilities of your web browser. Examples include Macromedia's Shockwave providing animation, and RealAudio offering streamed sound files on the Internet. The multimedia files do not need to be downloaded before shown or played.


POP - Post Office Protocol - a method of storing and returning email.


Protocol - An agreed set of rules by which computers exchange information.



Real Audio- Software that allows sound files to be transmitted from the Internet back to the user?s PC in streams. What actually happens is that the file starts playing (i.e. you hear the music) before all of the data has been received - giving the effect of playing the sound instantaneously.


Search engine -A tool that enables users to locate information on the internet. Search engines use keywords, entered by users to find web sites which contain the information which is being sought.


Shareware - Software that is available on a free limited trial basis. Sometimes this is a fully featured product, other times it lacks some of the features of the commerical version. If you find the product useful, you are expected to register the software, for which in return you will receive the full featured commercial version.



USB - Universal Serial Bus. A bidirectional, isochronous, dynamically attachable serial interface for adding peripheral devices such as game controllers, serial and parallel ports, and input devices on a single bus.


Worm - A program that reproduces itself over a network, usually performing malicious actions, such as using up the computer's resources and possibly shutting the system down.


Virus - A program that is loaded onto your computer without you knowing about it. Viruses can make copies of themselves, quickly using up all the available memory. Some viruses can transmit themselves across networks.



Upload - To copy a file from a local computer connected to the Internet to a remote computer. The opposite of download.


URL - Uniform Resource Locator - the world wide web address of a site on the internet. The URL for the BBC is http://www.bbc.co.uk .


WAV - file format developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM as the standard format for sound on PCs. WAV sound files end with a .wav extension and can be played by nearly all Windows applications that support sound. 



WMA - Windows Media Audio. Developed by Microsoft, like MP3 this is a compressed audio format, but with some copyright protection. Microsoft claims that WMA features better audio quality for the same file size as a comparable MP3 file. Files may be recorded on CDR or CDRW media for playback in compatible DVD players and computers. Files are usually named as .wma. Like MP3, sound quality varies as a function of the recording/encoding bit rate.


Winsock - An interface which allows Windows to use Web browsers and FTP programs.


ZIP - A compressed file format. Many files available on the Internet are compressed or zipped in order to reduce storage space and transfer times. To uncompress the file, you need a utility like WinZip (for Windows).