• Thursday, Jul. 30, 2015
Streamstar releases streaming studio software
Streamstar's new streaming studio software can turn a desktop into a multi-camera live production studio.
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- 

Streamstar has released standalone live production and streaming studio software. This new possibility facilitates use with third party manufacturers of capture cards and other devices, which extend Streamstar’s product range to wider audience.

Streamstar SW is an advanced live production and streaming studio software loaded with professional features, including replay and slo-mo as standard, and an intuitive user interface designed to make production smarter, faster and easier, turning a desktop into a powerful multi-camera live production studio.

For a free product trial, click here.

  • Wednesday, Jul. 29, 2015
Canon tutorials feature Ryan Connolly, MikelParis
A scene from the Canon tutorial "How to Film Films with Filmmaking with Ryan Connolly."
MELVILLE, NY -- 

Canon’s Digital Learning Center has rolled out vlogging and filmmaking tutorials as part of its online Learning Center presentation.

In one, filmmaker Ryan Connolly, the face of YouTube’s popular channel “Film Riot,” demonstrates how to create Hollywood-level productions on a budget. Learn how to select the right camera for your project, how to setup and select composition, how to light for scenes, the importance of audio and much more. As the creator of popular films, like “Portal Combat” and “Real Gone,” Connolly shares the basics behind films like those. Using minimal equipment--which may include a Canon EOS DSLR, Cinema EOS camera or video camera and accessories--he shows viewers how to produce films like he does. Connolly's film can be accessed here.

A second release in the tutorial series is “Behind the Scenes: TuneTrek with MikelParis.” Singer and songwriter MikelParis, host of YouTube’s popular series “TuneTrek,” takes viewers behind the scenes of one of his episodes, “Poppenhusen Institute.” Shot in Queens, NY, his tutorial shares which gear he uses and why, his setup process, how to obtain the best audio quality, his postproduction process, and preferred applications.

  • Tuesday, Jul. 28, 2015
NY wins $600 million hub for photonics research, development
Dr. Alain Kaloyeros, founding President and CEO of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, left, and Michael Liehr, Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology, Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, right, brief Vice President Joe Biden, center, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, second from right, and Under secretary Frank Kendall, as they visit SUNY Poly Canal Ponds during the official announcement of the Department of Defense awarding a $110 million to help create the new American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics Monday, July 27, 2015, in Rochester, NY. (Shawn Dowd/Democrat & Chronicle via AP)
ROCHESTER, NY (AP) -- 

Rochester, whose fortunes have risen and fallen with the demand for futuristic technologies from former powerhouses like Xerox and Kodak, is looking for its next big breakthrough in the field of integrated photonics, a light science with the potential to transform communications, medicine and national defense.

Federal, state and local officials on Monday announced the city as the national headquarters for a $610 million research and manufacturing hub dedicated to the emerging field, which could mean thousands of jobs for the region.

"You've gone from making Brownie cameras to the lenses that are now mapping the far side of Pluto," Vice President Joe Biden told an audience inside a vacant Kodak building that will serve the photonics hub. "We've reached the furthest reaches of the solar system but today's announcement is a much smaller frontier, harnessing the power of light into the tiniest components."

Western New York already has about 100 companies focused on optics and photonics, and supporters of the new project say it will bring together government, industry and academia to advance photonics research and its commercial uses.

"This is a huge win that will shape our region's economy for decades to come," Rep. Louise Slaughter said.

The project will be funded in part by $110 million from the U.S. defense department, with an additional $500 million in state and private investment, Biden and Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in Monday's formal announcement.

"Rochester, the future is here," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. "Today."

New York's bid was selected from among three finalists competing for the project since it was announced by President Barack Obama's administration last fall as part of efforts to strengthen American manufacturing. Southern California and central Florida also were in the running.

The photonics project is the sixth such private-public partnership to be announced and the most heavily funded to date. Others in the National Network of Manufacturing Institutes include a 3D printing technology hub in Youngstown, Ohio and an advanced materials center in Knoxville, Tennessee, Biden's office said.

The integrated photonics manufacturing institute is envisioned as a photonics "ecosystem" that includes domestic foundry access, automated packaging, assembly and workforce development.

"The photonics center we are now bringing to Rochester will harness the power of the Defense Department and ?the prowess of Rochester's 24,000 employee-strong photonics industry and focus it like a laser beam to launch new industries, technologies, and jobs," Sen. Charles Schumer said in a statement.

The photonics institute involves a consortium of 124 colleges, companies and laboratories. Led by the Research Foundation of the State University of New York, key members include the Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of California, as well as Boeing, IBM, Corning, Raytheon and Texas Instruments.

Biden announced the award with Cuomo following a private briefing on the technology. President Alain Kaloyeros of the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute showed the two men an array of next-generation photonic technology, including a chip with 144 optical ports and the potential to transmit 20 terabytes of data a second and a module with more than 400 integrated photonic elements that can transmit the equivalent of the entire print content of the Library of Congress in 20 seconds.

"Now let me ask you," Biden said to Kaloyeros. "What comes next?"

  • Monday, Jul. 27, 2015
Filmotechnic USA expands operations
Camera car systems company names Jeanine Wojtanowski head of rentals
LOS ANGELES -- 

Filmotechnic USA, known for its fleet of high performance camera car systems, has named Jeanine Wojtanowski head of rentals and customer service.  This follows an overall expansion of the company with new fabrication/staging facilities in Hawthorne, Calif., adjacent to Space X. With two fully equipped facilities in Los Angeles and Detroit (servicing Chicago and New York). Filmotechnic has a fleet of 12 high speed camera cars, 12 Russian Arms (lengths from 9 feet to 25 feet) and 16 gyro-stabilized heads. The lineup of equipment allows filmmakers solutions to every camera tracking need on all types of platforms.

Wojtanowski comes from a family well versed in marketing; her parents (Jerry and Carol) owned their own advertising company that they included the whole family in, and her brother (Jeff) is in digital media marketing. For the last eight years, Wojtanowski served as general manager at Pursuit Systems, Inc., a camera car rental service.

At Filmotechnic, Wojtanowski said she was drawn to Filmotechnic’s people, resources, and R&D which continues to expand those resources. She cited VP/driver/fabricator Dave MacDonald. “For over twenty years, Dave has become a trusted resource for production companies worldwide. His work in fabrication along with his knowledge of rigging, fabrication, picture vehicles and camera car driving is rarely surpassed.” Other key members of the Filmotechnic USA team include longtime general manager John Urso, shop foreman Paul Murufas, Flight Head techs Josh Knight, Drew Dumas and Michael Dzialowski, stunt car drivers Steve Holladay and Ele Bardha, precision driver Bruce MacDonald and Russian Arm operators including Russell Prior and Dan Crosby.

Filmotechnic is a leader in R&D of camera car systems and technologies. Founder Anatoliy Kokush is a two-time Academy Award Winner in the 78th Annual Scientific and Engineering Awards. The Academy awarded Kokush, Yuriy Popovsky and Oleksiy Zolotarov the Sci-Tech Award for the concept and development of the Russian Arm Gyro-Stabilized Camera Crane and Flight Head. The Academy also awarded Kokush a second Sci-Tech Award for the concept and development of the Cascade Series of motion picture cranes including the Traveling Cascade Crane.

  • Thursday, Jul. 23, 2015
Malone, Hutcherson set to star in short for Ron Howard, Canon’s Project Imagination: The Trailer
Ron Howard
Kat Candler to direct "The Rusted," a short inspired by contest winner/college student Mark Mukherje
MELVILLE, NY -- 

Canon U.S.A. Inc. announced that “The Hunger Games” actress Jena Malone has signed on to co-star with Josh Hutcherson in a short film for Canon’s Project Imagination: The Trailer, a consumer contest helmed by Ron Howard. Josh Hutcherson and Howard have selected the winning trailer, “Tainted Water” created by Mark Mukherje, a college student from South Florida, to act as the inspiration for the film, “The Rusted,” which will go into production this week.

“The Rusted” is a psychological thriller, a new genre for Josh Hutcherson, written and directed by Kat Candler (“Hellion”), and tells the story of a brother and sister who begin renovating their childhood home into a recording studio, when strange happenings force them to face memories of the past.

“Being part of Canon’s Project Imagination and working with Ron, Kat and now Jena have really allowed me to express my passion for storytelling,” said Hutcherson. “I’m excited to bring the vision to life as a producer on the project and acting opposite a dear friend.”

“When Josh presented me with the script, I thought it would be fun to do something different together like a psychological thriller and it’s hard to pass up a project with Ron Howard behind it,” said Malone. “I also love that the film is part of this very cool, creative experiment tapping into consumers to inspire and elevate our imaginations.”

Project Imagination: The Trailer is the third iteration of Project Imagination, Canon’s ongoing initiative to empower creativity in everyone. The program, which launched in February 2015, also marked Howard’s third time partnering with Canon, a brand that aligns with his conviction that people’s everyday lives are visually and cinematically worth recording, bringing high quality and ease to photo and video capture with Canon cameras and lenses.

  • Thursday, Jul. 23, 2015
Aframe partners with ROOT6 Technology to integrate workflow with ContentAgent
Aframe video platform
WESTFORD, Mass. -- 

Aframe, the cloud video platform, has partnered with broadcast supplier, ROOT6 Technology, to provide a seamless workflow for customers using its automated file-based management system, ContentAgent.

ContentAgent provides a centralized hub from which customers can manage and automate all aspects of their file-based workflow from ingest to delivery, while its resolution independent transcoding ensures that files are easily transformed into the file formats needed. Users can set up ContentAgent to create a workflow and then add Aframe via the desktop app. By using the combined solutions, customers can now benefit from automated uploading and the ability to use Aframe out of the edit without interrupting their workflow.

Outside broadcast and UK post facility, Timeline North, is just one customer who has been using both solutions together with great success. Eben Clancy, postproduction director, Timeline North, explained, “We use ContentAgent to transcode the rushes [dailies], and then we can move the files straight from there to a drop folder using the Aframe desktop app. Once it’s in the drop folder, Aframe uploads it immediately. It has completely taken away a lengthy manual process and made the workflow very easy and straightforward.”

As well as the ability to have an automated workflow, which improves efficiency and saves time, the partnership allows customers to be able to view a low res proxy, along with the time code and file name, from any location and use the Aframe interface to link it back to the high res file and the online edit.

“ContentAgent allows us to set up rules and workflows, for example ensuring that everything that we drop in to the Aframe folder gets uploaded immediately, so the whole process is extremely simple,” said Clancy. “After a day of filming, we usually get a batch of rushes at around 6pm and the team on the late shift would then look after things from there. Now, the whole process is automated which means it is less of a burden on our resource and everything can be done faster.”

Clancy concluded, “What’s also great is the cloud aspect of Aframe. It means the team can start the upload in the office and then check it from home to make sure all the rushes uploaded successfully which is a huge benefit for all of us. It really has improved our workflow and that of our clients.”

  • Thursday, Jul. 23, 2015
Avid-commissioned indie study finds growing confidence in media asset management technology
Survey of 125 global media leaders shows that 66% lowered multi-platform distribution costs, 50% improved collaboration, and 54% enabled new revenue streams via MAM
BURLINGTON, Mass. -- 

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced new research findings that reveal how the leaders of major global media enterprises are using MAM to improve collaboration and operational efficiency, reduce costs, drive revenue, and deliver a higher return on investment (ROI). The independent study was conducted by Ovum and commissioned by Avid, one of the largest suppliers of media asset management (MAM) solutions in the marketplace, and the company behind Avid Everywhere. The research demonstrates that industry leaders are driving substantial gains by using MAM to enhance collaboration, lower multi-platform distribution costs, and open new revenue streams.

“Many content production and broadcasting infrastructures are built on disconnected solutions that lack the agility, scalability, and efficiency needed to monetize assets across every stage of the content lifecycle,” stated Jeff Rosica, sr. VP, worldwide field operations at Avid. “Ovum’s latest research convincingly demonstrates how cutting-edge MAM solutions, such as Avid Interplay | MAM, enable global media enterprises to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and effectively manage the entire media content lifecycle.”

“The data we collected shows that media executives are evolving their perception of MAM from a standalone rich media storage repository to an enabler of end-to-end integrated media asset production and distribution workflows,” said Kedar Mohite, senior analyst, Media & Broadcast Technology, Ovum. “By deploying a unified MAM system, media enterprises can streamline multi-platform asset distribution and monetize premium time-based media assets on multiple non-linear channels.”

The Ovum research shows that integrated digital content platforms are essential for competing in today’s content everywhere world. MAM boosts collaboration and productivity by enabling production teams to access media assets from any location. MAM solutions help media enterprises to reduce lifecycle costs and deliver content to audiences via new multi-platform delivery services. By using MAM as a strategic tool to accelerate multi-platform asset monetization, organizations can gain significant ROI.

Top data points include:

    MAM implementations are delivering strong results for top media organizations
        66% of surveyed executives lowered the cost of multi-platform distribution
        50% improved real-time collaboration of creative media professionals
        52% improved delivery of personalized content on connected devices
        54% enabled new revenue streams across multiple channels

    MAM can deliver strong return on investment and revenue growth
        50% of media executives plan to increase MAM spending over the next five years
        82% see MAM delivering more than 10% of ROI
        The ability to quickly introduce new online video services has resulted into average revenue increase of 17% on these new platforms

    MAM can reduce costs
        On average, media organizations are reducing multi-platform distribution costs 19-20% with their MAM deployments

The Ovum study also found that unified MAM systems enable media organizations to maximize content monetization and generate tangible benefits for advertisers in the form of contextual advertising, by delivering rich content across multiple screens.

  • Tuesday, Jul. 21, 2015
Imagination Studios deploys OptiTrack MoCap technology to create immersive experience for DreamHack Summer 2015
Imagination Studios’ Samuel Tyskling
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- 

Visitors at DreamHack Summer 2015 held June 13-16 in Jönkoping, Sweden, had the opportunity to go head-to-head with potato chip-eating vampires in an interactive 3D game developed and designed by creative services company Imagination Studios, a part of the Goodbye Kansas Entertainment Group, and integrated marketing agency Onemotion. Powered by an OptiTrack Prime 13 mocap system, the game enabled players to take down their foes in real-time with a UV light rifle. It was created on behalf of Swedish chip company Estrella for the popular digital festival, which attracted over 23,000 visitors.

“We wanted to create a challenging and unexpected experience that would motivate attendees to give emerging technology a try in a simplified form. Beyond being technically feasible, the experience needed to be fun and also push the boundaries of our comfort zone,” said Imagination Studios motion capture supervisor and line producer Samuel Tyskling. “We hadn’t heard of anything similar being done before, so we decided to give it a go. We put our OptiTrack system to work and leveraged its flexibility and precision.”

From concept to completion, Imagination’s team drew upon established technical expertise in motion capture, 3D animation and previsualization to execute the project in under four weeks. To facilitate an interactive experience, the team developed the game in Unreal Engine 4 and then streamed live motion capture data from players on-site directly into the engine--a first for the studio. Outfitted in a mocap suit with reflective markers, each player in the volume was tracked by 12 OptiTrack cameras surrounding a 4m x 4m area. Using OptiTrack Motive software, real time skeletal data was streamed into Unreal using a third-party plugin from Ikinema. Each session was recorded with Blackmagic Design Media Express so that participants could share their experiences via Facebook and Instagram.

“We were pressed for time at DreamHack, especially because we wanted to give everyone a chance to try it, and our OptiTrack gear made everything run smoothly. Everything was quick and easy--from setting up the cameras, to calibrating the cameras and actors and creating actor skeletons. And there’s simply no way we could’ve captured that many players without Motive’s easy and fast workflow,” said Tyskling.

To effectively rotate participants through the game and account for a wide range of body types, the team pre-markered six motion capture suits and ten pairs of shoes in different sizes, as well as additional gloves and caps. By the end of the festival, the team captured data from more than 160 individuals ranging in age from 9 to 45 years and varying in height from 130 to 200+ cm, a feat that would not have been achievable without the OptiTrack cameras’ one-click subject calibration, considering full range of motion calibration can take up to 15 minutes per person.

Tyskling concluded, “This was our first time creating a live, interactive, immersive motion capture experience, and it went off without a hitch. We’re definitely looking forward to using OptiTrack technology in future projects.”

  • Tuesday, Jul. 21, 2015
CEO of Japan's Toshiba resigns over doctored books
Toshiba Corp. CEO Hisao Tanaka speaks during a press conference to announce his resignation at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Tuesday, July 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
TOKYO (AP) -- 

Toshiba's CEO and eight other executives resigned Tuesday to take responsibility for doctored books that inflated profits at the Japanese technology manufacturer by 152 billion yen ($1.2 billion) over several years.

Toshiba Corp. acknowledged a systematic cover-up, which began in 2008. Various parts of the Japanese company's sprawling business including computer chips and personal computers were struggling financially, but top managers set unrealistic earnings targets under the banner of "challenge," and subordinates faked results.

On top of its struggles in electronics, Tokyo-based Toshiba's prospects in nuclear power, one of its core businesses, were shaken after the 2011 Fukushima disaster set off public fears about reactor safety, making new nuclear plants unlikely in Japan. All 48 of the nation's working reactors are now offline.

Bowing deeply before flashing cameras at a news conference, CEO Hisao Tanaka kept his head lowered for nearly half a minute in a gesture meant to convey deep shame and contrition. Tanaka's predecessors, Norio Sasaki, now a vice chairman, and Atsutoshi Nishida, an adviser, also gave up their posts along with six other executives.

"We have a serious responsibility," Tanaka told reporters. The company will need to "build a new structure" to reform itself, he said.

The company said that the fraud continued through the fiscal year that ended in March, and work on revising the accounts to show the complete and true financial picture is not yet finished. It promised an emergency stockholder meeting for September, where it plans to deliver a genuine financial report.

The scandal highlights how Japan is still struggling to improve corporate governance despite recent steps to increase independent oversight of companies.

In 2011, Olympus Corp., which makes medical equipment and cameras, was embroiled in a scandal after its president Michael Woodford, a Briton, blew the whistle on a long-running cover-up of losses at the company.

Loizos Heracleous, Professor of Strategy at Warwick Business School in Britain, said corporate Japan is still lacking in areas such as transparency and board independence compared with the global standard.

"The Toshiba scandal will be seen in the context of the Olympus event, with investors wondering whether there is a pattern of account manipulation in corporate behavior," he said in a commentary. "Japanese regulatory authorities will need to reassure the markets that they are casting a watchful eye over Japanese corporations."

Toshiba has repeatedly apologized to shareholders and customers. It has set up an outside investigation group to analyze why the scandal happened and propose what needs to be done to prevent a recurrence.

The inflation of profits to meet targets was carried out not only on one or two projects, but across the board, sometimes because the projects weren't even breaking even, according to the report of an investigation.

"There was intense pressure to produce results under the challenge initiative," the report said. "So employees felt cornered into resorting to inappropriate measures."

Tanaka will be replaced by Masashi Muromachi, chairman of the board.

In the Olympus case, the company eventually acknowledged it hid 117.7 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in investment losses dating back to the 1990s. Woodford, the CEO, won some praise in Japan for his courage in bringing dubious old-guard company practices to light.

Japanese society is conformist and prizes team work so much it tends to frown upon whistleblowers, and their legal protection lags compared to those in the West.

Long-established companies such as Toshiba tend to have a highly hierarchical structure, making it difficult for employees to challenge top-down decrees.

Other systematic cover-ups at big-name companies have surfaced in Japan over the years. Unlike some Western accounting scandals, those in Japan, including Toshiba's, did not result in any enrichment of individual employees.

Instead, workers collaborated to "save face" for the company, such as hiding defect reports at automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp., which surfaced in 2000 but had been going on for decades. Another example of questionable accounting was at electronics maker Sanyo Electric Co., which surfaced in 2007.

Toshiba shares were up 6 percent, recovering recent losses, as investors took the resignations as a sign the company might right itself.

  • Tuesday, Jul. 14, 2015
Prime Focus wins media management honor from Frost & Sullivan
Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and CEO, Prime Focus Technologies
LOS ANGELES -- 

Prime Focus Technologies (PFT), the technology arm of media services company Prime Focus, has earned Frost & Sullivan’s 2015 Global Growth Excellence Leadership Award after an independent analysis of the Media Workflow and Resource Management market.

“It is an honor to be recognized by Frost & Sullivan for our commitment and advances in the media management landscape," said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and CEO, Prime Focus Technologies. "It is heartening to see that our vision to offer cloud-based, vertically oriented Media ERP for M&E companies being recognized. CLEARTM Media ERP, as one software, brings content to the center of the business, virtualizes the content supply chain and transforms silos to connected enterprises – much needed to succeed in the digital era.”

Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Excellence Leadership Award looks for companies that creatively and profitably deliver value to customers and ultimately set up their businesses for long-term, rapid growth. The two benchmark criteria include growth performance and customer impact.

“Prime Focus Technologies is modeling best practices in the global market by acting as a partner to customers globally, and helping them to increase efficiencies and monetization avenues,” said Mukul Krishna, senior global director, Frost & Sullivan. “The company has proven a deep understanding of the global media management landscape, a commitment to optimizing customer experience with its media workflow and resource management solutions, and a forward-thinking view of a rapidly changing digital market.”          

PFT helps companies through creative empowerment, improving efficiencies and reducing overhead cost with their flagship product CLEAR, a hybrid cloud-enabled Media ERP Suite. The aim of CLEAR is to facilitate a connected enterprise with one interface that extends across the content value chain. Customer benefits of CLEAR include workflows that can be run on the cloud anytime, anywhere; single MAM to cover multiple global locations; automated publish to new media platforms; and seamless distribution – all with no upfront capital expenditures and top-line security.

This award comes shortly after the announcement that PFT has signed a deal with HOOQ, a joint venture between Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros. Entertainment. PFT’s Operations Cloud, part of the CLEAR Media ERP Suite, will help package and deliver content on HOOQ. CLEAR Operations Cloud helps M&E companies deal with volume and speed needs to service content demand from the growing number of digital outlets globally.

PFT’s clientele includes The Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox-owned STAR TV, Warner Bros. Television Studios, CBS Television Studios, 20th Century Fox Television Studios, Relativity Media, Legendary Pictures, Starz Media, Lionsgate, A&E TV Network, Crown Media Family Networks, FX Networks and more.

Prime Focus is listed on the NSE and BSE in India.

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