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Thursday, Apr. 23, 2015

Deluxe, Technicolor enter into digital cinema joint venture

LOS ANGELES --

Deluxe and Technicolor have entered into a binding agreement to create a new digital cinema joint venture, Deluxe Technicolor Digital Cinema, which will specialize in theatrical digital cinema mastering, distribution and key management services.

This joint venture in digital cinema will bring together best-in-class technologies, personnel, work processes and facilities to provide seamless and exceptional services to its customers on a greater global scale.

Both Technicolor and Deluxe will be committed to the operational and financial success of the new business which will be managed by Deluxe and based in Burbank, California. All other lines of business will continue to operate independently of one another.

“As the global entertainment industry continues its transition to 100 percent digital distribution and delivery, this transformational partnership will be optimally positioned to offer our companies’ existing and future customers industry-leading digital cinema services with greater efficiencies,” said David Kassler, CEO of Deluxe Entertainment Services. “This is yet another example of Deluxe expanding our partnerships to deliver a suite of next generation digital cinema services to our industry customers.”

“This partnership puts us in a stronger position to offer industry-leading digital cinema services around the world,” stated Tim Sarnoff, president of Production Services at Technicolor. “At Technicolor we have committed ourselves to services that are driven by creative talent and technology, creating the next generation immersive media experiences our customers have come to expect from us.”

This joint venture is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2015.

Monday, Apr. 20, 2015

Nice Shoes enters into remote partnership with Crawford Media Services

NEW YORK --

Production and post studio Nice Shoes, based in New York, has launched a remote partnership with Crawford Media Services in Atlanta. The installation of Nice Shoes’ proprietary Remote Viewing technology connects Atlanta-based clients with the company’s talented color and finishing artists in New York as well as in their new studios in Chicago and Minneapolis.

“Crawford prides themselves on offering more choices than anyone else in the Southeast. We’re extremely honored to be adding to that array of choices with our colorists and finishing artists,” said Nice Shoes CEO Dominic Pandolfino. “Atlanta is a sophisticated market that is producing great work and we are very excited to be a part of it.”

A display calibrated to match exactly with the monitors in New York has been installed by Nice Shoes engineers at Crawford, along with a secure connection to the studio’s colorists working on FilmLight’s Baselight system, allowing for efficient, real-time collaboration, with no delay between New York and Atlanta. Clients can also connect for projects with any of Nice Shoes’ finishing or VFX artists as well.

“Clients want to be able to work with New York talent and this offers them the opportunity to put their money on the screen instead of into travel budgets,” said Crawford’s Kathleen Fitch, sr. VP, COO Creative Services.

The companies will celebrate the partnership with a launch party at Crawford’s Atlanta facility on April 30. “We feel it’s an important start to build the relationship with our remote partners and clients,” added Pandolfino. “We always want the opportunity to get to know everyone in person in order to develop the trust to work remotely.”

Sunday, Apr. 19, 2015

Silverdraft to build supercomputing lab in Hollywood

Ted Schilowitz, president of Silverdraft

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. --

Silverdraft LLC plans to create a unique supercomputing lab in the heart of Hollywood, slated to open in the fall of 2015. Located at the historic Jim Henson Studios, The Silverdraft Center For Content Creation (SC3) will enable freelance artists, and creators of content, such as games, Virtual Reality (VR) and immersive cinema, to post-produce and render their projects using the fastest, most highly-optimized technology in the industry. It will offer a 4K screening theater, as well as multiple creative bays running professional systems for postproduction and rendering workflows for 3D animation, VFX, Digital Intermediate (DI) and finishing, as well as VR content creation for platforms such as Oculus Rift.

The SC3 will give content creators first-hand experience with state-of-the-art workflow tools typically associated with high-end facilities, while enhancing the quality and production value of their projects and decreasing turnaround times.

The SC3 will also serve as a showcase for Silverdraft technologies, where artist feedback will go directly into the pipeline for future product development. Each of SC3’s creative bays will contain a combination of Silverdraft Devil & Demon supercomputers and workstations featuring, high-performance Micron components, to power their workflows. Meanwhile, all artists will have access to a shared 4K screening room. The Silverdraft team will collaborate with artists as they create their projects to deepen the understanding of workflow bottlenecks and challenges, and to deliver new solutions.

“As a freelance artist, I’m always pushed to deliver more, but with less time and for less money,” said editor and digital artist Brian Fox. “I’m really excited to take my project to the new SC3 lab to see firsthand how supercomputing technology can help me break that cycle. Real-time client attended sessions, with dramatically faster render times, will allow me to finally meet both the creativity and productivity requirements at the same time.”

Powered by leading-edge memory and flash storage developed by Micron, Silverdraft Devil & Demon supercomputers and workstations are highly application-optimized and are claimed to deliver significantly faster performance at lower prices than off the shelf systems. This optimized performance significantly accelerates the postproduction process by decreasing render times and powering real-time client-attended VFX and DI review sessions.

“Silverdraft’s Devil & Demon supercomputers and workstations have built a strong reputation by delivering scalable performance and flexibility that is unmatched by off-the-shelf PCs, but at a lower price,” said Ted Schilowitz, president of Silverdraft. “Independent content creators love our products because they need a never-ending supply of faster performance, but their budgets are always very constrained. The SC3 puts our technology to use and creates a blueprint for how supercomputing can change the way we design workflows. Our deeper understanding of the way artists work will help us to develop even better products in the future. We believe the SC3 will inspire and empower many up-and-coming content creators as they help to deliver the next generation of great stories.”

Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2015

SMPTE, HPA issue call for entries for Student Film Festival

WHITE PLAINS, NY --

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the Hollywood Professional Alliance (HPA) have issued a call for entries for the SMPTE-HPA Student Film Festival. The film festival will be held during the SMPTE 2015 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition (SMPTE 2015), Oct. 26-29 in Hollywood, Calif.

“SMPTE is committed to supporting the next generation of technologists, and the SMPTE-HPA Student Film Festival is a rich addition to our existing student engagement programs,” said Barbara Lange, executive director of SMPTE. “The event will showcase the impressive creative talent of the Society’s youngest members.”

Festival entries must fit into one of three award categories:
• Best creative use of technology to engage the audience in the story (run time 5 minutes, 30 seconds)
• Best portrayal of entertainment technology in the film — documentary format (run time 5 minutes, 30 seconds)
• Best creative use of virtual reality in storytelling (run time 3 minutes)

A fourth award, for best in show, will be voted on by the festival attendees and awarded on the evening of the festival.

“The merging of creativity and technology, at the heart of the combination of SMPTE and HPA, is also driving the future of content creation,” said Leon Silverman, president of the HPA. “We want to encourage the next generation’s vision and ability to tell stories in new and exciting ways.”

The SMPTE-HPA Student Film Festival is open to full-time students currently enrolled in an accredited college, university, or film school. This is an international festival, and entries from all parts of the world are encouraged. As the festival focuses on technology, students should ideally major in an area that emphasizes engineering, science, advanced technologies, or fundamental theories associated with motion imaging, sound, metadata, and workflows consistent with SMPTE’s field of interest. Eligible students are required to have completed four courses toward their major course of study and be in good academic standing. Supporting documentation and identification must be presented in order to qualify.

The application form, requirements, and rules and regulations are here. Entries will be accepted now through Sept. 9.

Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2015

Shotgun Software announces Shotgun 6 and RV 6 at NAB 2015

Shotgun 6 and RV 6.

LAS VEGAS --

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2015 in Las Vegas, Shotgun Software unveiled Shotgun 6 and RV 6 which now work together without any required end-user configuration. Shotgun is the cloud-based production tracking, review and asset management software for film, TV and games, recently expanded via acquisition with RV, the widely adopted desktop image and sequence player. Shotgun 6 will now include direct access to RV 6 at no extra cost to users, with the latest releases of both Shotgun 6 and RV 6 also offering new features to boost production efficiency.

“Just months after bringing our friends from Tweak on board and announcing a new pricing model, we’ve built some really great new functionality into both Shotgun and RV that helps artists and supervisors collaborate around their work much faster,” said Don Parker, co-founder of Shotgun and Autodesk senior director. “Including RV as part of Shotgun and adding RVX and RVIO at no additional cost is a win-win for all of our customers.”

New Features in Shotgun 6:
-- RV in Shotgun: Download, install and start using RV with your existing Shotgun login. No extra fees, no need for a separate license, and accessible in a single click with no configuration.
-- New Project Templates: Templates help you manage different workflows for different projects, such as films, episodic TV series, or games.
-- Enhanced Navigation and Browsing: Choose how you organize the items you’re tracking (i.e. Shots by Sequence, or Asset by Type), then navigate between them using Shotgun’s new navigation widget.
-- Improved Flame Integration: Transfer content from Flame into Shotgun faster and more reliably.
-- Updated Loader: Artists can now find and load files faster directly from inside of their creative tools, such as Maya, 3ds Max and Nuke, using the new list view in the Toolkit Loader app.

New in RV 6:
-- Shotgun Login: A new licensing option allows users to access RV using their Shotgun username and password.
-- Built-in RVX Functionality: RV now includes features previously only available in RVX such as the ability to author image-processing operations - everything from simple color transforms to multi-input compositions and editorial transitions.
-- Export using RVIO: Users can now export movies or frame sequences with RVIO while running RV. No need for a separate RVIO license.

Both Shotgun 6 and RV 6 are beomg demonstrated at NAB 2015 in the Autodesk Booth (SL 3317). Shotgun 6 with RV 6 integration is expected to be available by the end of April. Shotgun Software is an Autodesk company.

Wednesday, Apr. 15, 2015

Avid rolls out connectivity partner innovations at NAB

LAS VEGAS --

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) announced a range of new and upcoming innovations for the Avid MediaCentral Platform, developed by Avid partners using the Avid Connectivity Toolkit. As leading technology companies create solutions integrated into the Avid MediaCentral Platform, the momentum of Avid Everywhere continues to build in the media industry. These latest innovations focus on helping individual artists and creative teams connect and create more collaboratively, powerfully, and profitably.

“The Avid Connectivity Partner Program delivers on the openness of Avid Everywhere and gives media professionals the flexibility to more easily integrate third-party products into their workflow,” said Chris Gahagan, sr. VP of Products and Technology at Avid. “Hundreds of third-party products developed by many of the world’s leading technology partners have either already been delivered or are in the process of being certified for the platform.”

The Avid Connectivity Partner Program gives developers access to the resources, documentation, certification, and services they need to create products and solutions that integrate with the Avid MediaCentral Platform ecosystem and sell them in the Avid Marketplace. New partner offerings include:

Increased flexibility for live sound production—Media networking manufacturer Audinate has joined the Avid Connectivity Partner Program, further expanding the partner ecosystem of the Avid MediaCentral Platform. Audinate is currently working with Avid to develop a new Dante option card for the Avid VENUE | S6L live sound system, which will provide customers with additional flexibility for connecting to a wide range of devices and networks.

Anti-piracy media security, for everyone—Leading digital security specialist Fortium Technologies is partnering with Avid to make anti-piracy media security available to all. Fortium MediaSeal® file encryption will be integrated into Avid Artist Suite solutions and sold through Avid channels, helping artists and creative teams to protect their valuable media assets against leaks caused by hacking, piracy, or accidental distribution.

Faster, easier creation of Dolby Atmos mixes in Pro Tools—Avid and Dolby announced plans to streamline editing and mixing workflows across Pro Tools software and Avid Pro Mixing solutions by developing deeper integration of Dolby Atmos in Pro Tools. The development of native Dolby Atmos metadata integration in Pro Tools will enable audio engineers to create immersive, detailed mixes faster and more easily.

Powerful, integrated high-resolution video production—Avid and Blackmagic Design have partnered to help video professionals meet the growing demands of high-res video production by introducing Avid Artist | DNxIO. Delivering complete hd and hi-res ingest and monitoring and the stunning images and efficient functionality of Avid DNxHR, Artist | DNxIO is a powerful and integrated high-resolution video production system that combines best-in-class hardware by Blackmagic Design with the industry’s preeminent Media Composer video editing software.

Streamlined music score composition—Avid announced that the new Sibelius music composition software enhances and streamlines music composition with optimization for the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet, touch gestures.

Easy access to tested and certified audio plug-ins for VENUE and Pro Tools—Avid and Waves are working to bring support for Waves plug-ins to Avid VENUE | S6L through Waves SoundGrid, enabling customers to easily integrate tested and certified 3rd party technology into their workflow. Additionally, Waves will be offering customers easy access to their plug-ins through the Avid Marketplace, underscoring the growing momentum of Avid Marketplace adoption.

Monday, Apr. 13, 2015

Deluxe, Xstream team to offer turnkey solution for OTT services

BURBANK, Calif. --

Xstream, provider of OTT and TV Everywhere services as well as the video management platform, Xstream MediaMaker, and Deluxe OnDemand, a provider of video workflow and content-supply solutions, are teaming up to offer clients a powerful solution to create a compelling and personalized OTT service to their viewers, on all devices, anytime and anywhere.

The Xstream MediaMaker and Deluxe OnDemand joint solution spans the OTT ecosystem, from pre-ingest to play-out. The combined solution features best-in-breed internet TV software and personalized, interactive consumer applications with an extensive catalog of pre-encoded and pre-packaged video content of new releases, blockbuster titles, popular television series, favorite classics and more, available for streaming or download. By removing the complexity of the OTT supply chain, operators can now launch scalable and personalized multiscreen services quickly, at a lower cost, and with complete control.

“Together with Xstream, we’re providing operators and our worldwide customer base with an end-to-end service-based approach to enable them to get their OTT services to market faster with an extensive catalog of titles ready for multiscreen distribution,” said David Cornella, sr. VP of business development at Deluxe OnDemand. “The Xstream platform offers the level of flexibility and capabilities essential to bringing a turnkey solution to market.”

“When launching an OTT service, content operations can often become a problem area resulting in increased costs, quality issues and time delays. By teaming up with leaders like Deluxe, we’re able to offer operators an innovative end-to-end OTT solution to meet the growing demands for quality content on all devices, anytime,” said Simon Hoegsbro, CEO at Xstream.

The Deluxe OnDemand product suite includes a multiscreen ready, studio-quality video catalog that easily integrates into the existing supply chain to simplify the delivery of next generation video content delivery.

The solution will be integrated to Xstream’s video management system, Xstream MediaMaker where it will be integrated with the build-in module, MediaMaker Loading Dock. This module is a cutting-edge content supply chain management tool designed to solve many complex challenges, including; continuously varying distributor requirements, supporting large amounts of content and fragmented supply chain vendor deliveries, ensuring quality of assets (video and metadata), bridging the gap between legacy STB/IPTV and OTT / TVE, and screening and rating of assets for parental control. As a result, costs and resources spent to ingest and manage assets are reduced.

Monday, Apr. 13, 2015

Manfrotto showcases Digital Director At NAB

Manfrotto's Digital Director

LAS VEGAS --

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas, Manfrotto showcases the Digital Director, the only Apple Certified interface that helps users to intuitively manage their photo and video workflow, from the setting of the camera to the sharing of the pictures via a tethered iPad application. Digital Director is for pro and hobbyist photographers who are serious about videography and are Apple addicted. Composed by Hardware, Software (APP) and firmware, all gone through the Mfi (Made for iPad) Certification, this product is designed to make shooting photos and videos much smarter. By simply plugging the USB cable into the camera and turning on the App, photographers and videographers are ensured a reliable high-performance connection between their Canon or Nikon DSLRs and their iPad Air. A dedicated CPU embedded into the Digital Director provides an interface between the two devices, which via a cable enables the camera protocols to be fully understood and controlled by the iPad. Furthermore, Digital Director enables the user to place the camera even in the most awkward or difficult to reach positions and conveniently control it remotely.

Photographers and videographers can now enjoy a more detailed, enhanced control interface thanks to a much bigger and higher quality display. Digital Director turns the iPad Air into an external monitor taking full advantage of its High Definition Retina Display. The dedicated Digital Director App enables all the key parameters of Canon and Nikon DSLRs to be monitored and dynamically modified in real time (Exposure, ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, Manual Focus, WB, Image Quality, Focus Camera/Drive Modes, Battery status), allowing photographers and videographers to concentrate on creativity instead of settings. Shooting remotely via the iPad Retina Display, the App enables real time “Live View” monitoring and adjustments. The dynamic histogram and audio level display allows greater control, while the Focus control is guaranteed thanks to the Interactive Focus, which can be used to select the focus point anywhere on the screen. The digital zoom magnifies the selected focus point to ensure crisp accurate focus.

Digital Director users will have total control of their workload plus the possibility to download the images to the iPad and check the high-resolution files. All the characteristics of the image, such as the focus, can be checked simply using standard iPad “gestures.” Digital Director also allows users to intuitively manage postproduction activities from the iPad; within the App, it is possible to work on the image, cropping and rotating it, modifying exposure, contrast and brightness, checking histogram and Exif information, rating and saving the image. Users will also have total control of their files, from image ratings to file organization (albums, shoot profiles and connection profiles).

Digital Director allows users to immediately share their images, direct to FTP, by E-mail and on social networks.

Sunday, Apr. 12, 2015

Avid introduces media management & shared storage tools, solutions at NAB

LAS VEGAS --

At the NAB Show, Avid announced innovations across the Avid MediaCentral Platform and its associated modular application suites. These new tools and resources let everyone, from individual artists and students, to creative teams in studios and post-production companies, to the largest media enterprises more efficiently create and distribute high-quality professional media content.

“Across the industry, Avid Everywhere is helping content creators and distributors of all kinds connect with their audiences more efficiently, powerfully, and collaboratively than ever before,” stated Avid chairman, president and CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr. “From announcing our vision in 2013 we went on to launch the most significant product innovations since our company inception and are seeing huge market adoption. In January we unveiled our first free tools that open the ecosystem to all, furthering our fight to help everyone in the industry thrive. At Avid Connect and NAB 2015, we are continuing to deliver what we promised by announcing landmark solutions and services that will continue to lead the industry forward.”

MediaCentral Platform innovations
Since Avid launched the Avid MediaCentral Platform at NAB 2014, the company has continued innovating, with the rollout of new tools and partner integrations that extend capabilities across live sound, music composition, video production, media asset management, and shared storage.

The latest platform innovation announcements include:
Artist Suite Innovations
        o   New benchmark for live sound production: Avid introduces the flagship Avid VENUE | S6L live sound mixing system, featuring a modern, intuitive touch-based interface that enables audio professionals to easily handle the largest, most complex tours and events.
        o   Affordable licensing and subscription options: Avid introduces the next release of Sibelius, the latest version of the world’s most popular music composition software, giving composers more choice over how they acquire and use their tools, create music scores, and collaborate with others. The release also offers new workflow and mobile features, including multi-touch gestures and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 support, and moves Sibelius on to the Avid MediaCentral Platform.
        o   Powerful, integrated high-resolution video production: Avid introduces Avid Artist | DNxIO, helping video professionals meet the growing demands of high-res video production with best-in-class hardware and the industry’s preeminent Media Composer® video editing software
        o   Free versions of industry-standard media creation solutions: Avid announced plans to open video editing to everyone with the upcoming Media Composer | First, a free version of the video editing software used by top Hollywood Oscar and Emmy winners. The company also announced that Pro Tools | First, the free version of its renowned music creation software, is starting to roll out to the more than 70,000 people who pre-registered for the product.

Media Suite Innovations
o Open, end-to-end, integrated media asset management: Avid introduces Interplay | MAM 5, enabling organizations both large and small to manage the entire content lifecycle and reduce media operation costs. This release completes the integration of all Media Suite modules into the MediaCentral Platform.

Storage Suite Innovations
o Proven real-time shared storage for smaller teams: Avid introduces ISIS® | 1000 shared storage, bringing small production teams the same collaborative power proven on blockbuster films, prime-time television, and mission-critical news broadcasts—customized for their needs, at a price they can afford.

The Avid Advantage
Avid announced another important milestone and continued momentum of The Avid Advantage, the company’s vision to transform expectations for service delivery in the media industry. With the introduction of innovative new professional service offerings, education delivery options, certification programs, and customer care enhancements, Avid is helping customers maximize efficiency, accelerate their return on media production technology investments, and deepen their joint collaboration with Avid.

Avid Everywhere for Education
Avid Everywhere is driving the development of new solutions, training, and certification options that provide educators with more choice and flexibility and enable them to reach larger numbers of students. Students can now experience industry-leading Avid creative tools for free, and then step up to the full products with affordable subscriptions. Educators and students can collaborate and connect more effectively using cutting-edge cloud-based solutions. Additionally, it is easier than ever for students to get the industry recognized Avid certifications they need to succeed after graduation.

Sunday, Apr. 12, 2015

Autodesk unveils media & entertainment software lineup at NAB

Chris Bradshaw

Updates to Flame family, Entertainment Creation Suite are among the highlights

LAS VEGAS --

As teams become more dispersed geographically, and the data used in entertainment creation is growing in both size and complexity, Autodesk provides solutions to help streamline creative, collaborative workflows that will allow for greater experimentation with new cloud and mobile technologies.

“Our customers are the world’s best artists, and our tools would be nothing without them. This year, we worked hard to connect artists more closely with one another and across projects,” said Autodesk sr. VP Chris Bradshaw. “Our 2016 software is more intuitive, connected, powerful, scalable and accessible than ever before. Our tools’ expanded flexibility enables new and seasoned artists to more easily navigate industry disruptions so they can keep telling great stories, without compromising quality.”

3D animation improvements
This year, the 2016 3D animation portfolio is stronger than ever with significant updates to Maya and 3ds Max. Each release includes new features and improvements designed to boost performance, collaboration and simplify daily operations for advanced creativity.

Maya 2016: Significantly faster and easier to use
-- Supercharged animation performance with a parallel evaluation system takes advantage of the CPU and GPU to increase the speed of both playback and character rig manipulation.
-- An all new look and feel, and the updated hypershade showcase improve ease of use and artist-friendly workflows.
-- New capabilities in Bifrost, including adaptive foam and guided simulations, help deliver state-of-the-art, realistic liquid simulations.

3ds Max 2016: Procedural content creation, tools for better collaboration and ease of use
-- New Max Creation Graph: A new node-based content and tool creation toolkit integrated by user request. Empowers users to extend 3ds Max with geometric objects and modifiers. Users can package graphs and share them with other users.
-- New XRef Renovations: Externally reference objects to scenes and animate/edit material on the XRef object in the source file without having to merge the object into the scene, non-destructive animation workflows and improved XRef stability simplify collaboration among teams and throughout the production pipeline.
-- New intuitive Design Workspace and Template Systems: The Design Workspace provides easy access to object placement, lighting, rendering, modeling and texturing tools to create high-quality stills and animations; built-in settings for rendering, environments, lighting and units.
-- 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design are coming together.

Updates to Flame Family
The new releases of Flame and Flame Premium provide customers with a comprehensive, high-end VFX and creative finishing toolset, new look development tools, a connected workflow, faster, interactive performance and other user-requested improvements.

New Look Development Tools to help artists exceed customer expectations, including:
-- Lightbox- An interactive GPU shader toolkit for 3D color correction
-- Matchbox in Action- Applies fast, interactive Matchbox shaders to texture maps/textures for image treatments without leaving the 3D compositing scene
-- Color Management Workflow Enhancements

A more connected workflow for connected creativity:
-- Tighter Shotgun Integration: Quickly and easily send shots to other apps/exchange formats, share content for review/approval and load Shotgun projects into Flame.
-- Flame Desktop Enhancements: Artists can now create VFX in a faster, artist-centric environment with easily accessible and essential tools.

Interactive performance enables artists to work faster, meet deadlines and impress clients: New method to handle proxies in players; faster indirect module creation in action; and new foreground export

New improvements to the Batch Workflow address user-requests: MUX-node links are semi-transparent and links in batch setups are more articulated; easier access to operational information with image generators and basic operators; better handle inputs with different bit depths.

The 2016 Entertainment Creation Suite includes all the new features and updates to Maya 2016 and 3ds Max 2016, in addition to updates and enhancements in Mudbox 2016 and MotionBuilder 2016 that help improve the daily work of artists, developers, directors and cinematographers.
-- Mudbox 2016 with news sculpting tools and relax brush for smoothing surfaces
-- MotionBuilder 2016 includes story tool updates and enhancements.

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