• Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015
Syracuse University Implements Avid Workflow For Communications Students
BURLINGTON, Mass. -- 

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) announced that The Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University has embraced Avid Everywhere as part of an $18 million renovation. The school has implemented a workflow powered by the Avid MediaCentral Platform for its studio production facilities at The Newhouse Studio and Innovation Center, to help prepare students for real-world production environments.

The Newhouse School has invested in Avid Artist Suite and Storage Suite solutions to keep its labs and edit suites current as part of its efforts to replicate real-world experiences and enable students to work with the tools that they will depend on when they make their transition to the industry.

“The Newhouse School is committed to training the next generation of storytellers and Avid makes great tools for storytellers,” said Neal Coffey, studio manager, The Newhouse School. “Our partnership with Avid leads to student success both while they’re in school and when making the transition into the real world.”

Newhouse has been teaching the industry-standard nonlinear editing system Avid Media Composer to students for 15 years, but the center’s labs and edit suites are now home to the latest version of Media Composer and the Avid ISIS® | 5500 shared storage system.

“The ISIS storage system will help students share media between edit suites and bring that media into the training labs for demonstrations and critiques,” said Coffey. “Our smaller ISIS installations at Syracuse University have proven to be so reliable that we really didn’t consider any other storage systems. Our only requirement was that we needed our editing storage to be compatible with Media Composer, Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro.”

The school has also connected the industry-standard digital audio software Avid Pro Tools to the ISIS storage systems, which enables students working out of the music recording studios to compose, record, edit and mix with ease.

“By embracing Avid Everywhere and implementing state-of-the-art production workflows, The Newhouse School is able to help prepare its students to become leaders in a rapidly changing media industry,” said Avid’s senior VP and chief marketing officer, Kyle Kim-Hays. “Educational institutions that offer access to real-world tools and workflows are able to give students the best chances of success in their future careers.”

  • Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015
Kodak Launches Global Super 8 Filmmaking Challenge
Entrants can win up to $12,500 in prizes and have their Clips Screened at Slamdance
ROCHESTER, NY -- 

As part of Kodak’s ongoing celebration of 50 years of Super 8 filmmaking, the company has launched the Kodak Super 8 Filmmaking Challenge , and is seeking submissions now through December 21. The inaugural online contest, which is free to enter, is designed to showcase the wide range of creative uses of this small gauge format by passionate shooters from all walks of life who revere its unique look.

Filmmakers, home movie aficionados, documentarians, sports enthusiasts, musicians, promo/spot creatives and experimentalists from all over the world are invited to submit clips that were originated on Super 8 film and range from 15 seconds to 5 minutes. Entries will be taken in one of three categories: POV (fiction), Action (lifestyle) and Flashback (non-fiction).

Once the submission period ends, there will be two rounds of voting open to the general public. The semi-finalist round will begin December 22. The top three videos in each category based on audience votes, along with two semi-finalists from each category chosen by a jury, will be screened at a Kodak event at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2016. Fifteen films will be chosen in total.

The second stage of voting will determine the overall first, second and third place Audience Award winners. A professional panel of jurists assembled by Kodak will select the Jury Award semi-finalists and winner.

Prizes will range from a Kodak PixPro SP360 Action Camera and a Pro8mm Rhonda Super 8 camera, to film stock, processing and swag, valued at up to $12,500.

The Kodak Super 8 Filmmaking Challenge is hosted on The Audience Awards contest platform. Entrants will need to create a valid Audience Awards account, free of charge. Viewers can also sign up for free to watch and vote for their favorite clips from December 22 to January 25, 2016.

All submissions must be shot on Super 8 film, either with or without sound. Hybrid productions need to be comprised of a minimum of 50% Super 8 footage. Clips can be from any year, original pieces of work or excerpts of longer form projects, and previously exhibited or distributed.

  • Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015
Autodesk rolls out monthly, quarterly and annual subscription options for Flame
Previews Flame 2016 on the Mac
SAN FRANCISCO -- 

Autodesk is announcing new Desktop Subscription options for Autodesk Flame software. The new subscription pricing for Flame starts at $750 per month and can be accessed annually for as low as $500 per month (prices are U.S. only and suggested retail price; actual prices determined by reseller). Autodesk also announced Flame support for OS X as part of the Autodesk Flame Extension 2 release, available late November 2015. Autodesk Flare and Autodesk Flame Assist software are now available as standalone products with monthly subscription prices, starting at $400.

Key new developments for the Flame Family include:
-- New monthly, quarterly and annual Subscription options for Flame, Flare, Flame Assist and Autodesk Lustre
-- Unrestricted ability to purchase Flare and Flame Assist licenses with no requirement to own Flame software already
-- Customers may source their own qualified Linux hardware for Flame Family products
-- New support for Flame on OS X in addition to Linux and the announcement of the Flame Family 2016 Extension 2 release available later in November

With these changes, Autodesk is evolving the entire Flame Family to meet the needs of a growing base of creative professionals including freelancers and smaller facilities that need access to powerful 3D visual effects and finishing tools to tackle tough jobs. The new subscription offerings provide a lower cost for facilities expanding their creative capabilities and for smaller studios and individual freelancers who work on a project basis. Autodesk plans to continue to sell perpetual licenses of Flame Family.
-- Early next year: sales of Flame as a turnkey system will discontinue.
-- Today: Flame will be available as a software only product. Customers can choose their own qualified Linux hardware.
-- Late November: license Flame on the Apple Mac OS X. Recommended configuration specifications for Flame running on OS X will be available soon.

“The changes we are making allow us to continue to provide our Flame users with the tools they need to grow and transform their businesses, now and in the future, as well as to ensure that our business continues to serve them. With the new Flame business model, it’s never been easier for artists and studios to access these powerful tools they need for the high-end finishing their customers demand,” shared Marc Stevens, VP, Film & TV, Autodesk . “Community feedback is vital to the future of Flame, and these changes reflect what our customers want; they’ll also allow us to meet the emerging needs of staff artists, freelancers and facilities by offering more choices, just like the rest of Autodesk.”

Flame Family 2016 Extension 2 
Autodesk has also announced the upcoming Flame Family 2016 Extension 2 release that will be available to customers later this month. It brings new format support and stunning performance gains in color grading workflows. Lustre Reactor brings new GPU acceleration to color grading workflows and significantly improves performance when using blur, keying and softness controls for both preview and rendering operations. Other enhancements in Lustre include 32-bit floating point GPU rendering locally, via Shot Reactor and when using Autodesk background rendering software; performance enhancements when working with Open EXR source media with embedded mattes; UI support for high DPI monitors (4K); and new Print View and Print LUT support when using AJA SDI output. Across the Flame family of products, when importing media, artists can take advantage of new support the full DNxHR media family by using either QuickTime or MXF containers, as well as updated support for R3D media files including R3D SDK 6.0.3, allowing Flame to directly support the new Dragon 6K sensor and Rec 2020 color space. When exporting media, the extension supports Sony MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Studio Profile (SStP) encoding in an MXF wrapper, supporting a variety of formats and presets.

Desktop Subscription Pricing and Availability
As of today, the 2016 versions of Flame, Lustre, Flare and Flame Assist are available for purchase as software subscription only through an Autodesk Reseller or Autodesk Sales Representative. For more information, visit here

  • Monday, Nov. 9, 2015
Sony expands line of XDCAM HD 422 shoulder camcorders
PARK RIDGE, NJ -- 

Sony has rolled out the newest addition to its PXW series of shoulder-mount camcorders---model PXW-X400-- which delivers stronger network and wireless capabilities, improved weight balance, XAVC-Long 60P recording and pool feed functions to give ENG and field production professionals a versatile and high-performance tool.

“This new camcorder combines all the capabilities pro shooters need--connectivity, ergonomics and high performance--into a true production workhorse,” said Alex Rossi, marketing manager, content creation systems, Sony Electronics. “The addition of features like XAVC 60P recording and pool feed make the PXW-X400 a perfect fit for today’s demanding field content creation requirements.”

When a wireless LAN connection is unstable or unavailable, the new camcorder’s Ethernet interface (RJ45) enables direct connection to a network for file transfer, live streaming and control from a web browser. Near-field communications capability gives users a one-touch link between the camera and a mobile device. A Content Browser Mobile application enables users to preview or remotely control camcorder settings of various menu functions.

The pool feed function (HD/SD SDI) lets users record a 1.5G HD-SDI external signal on SxS cards, useful for recording a distributed signal from another camera on-site without a portable deck.

The camcorder body’s inner structure has a new design that improves the weight balance between the camcorder and lens, resulting in more comfortable shoulder-mount use, especially during long periods of shooting.

The camcorder’s “ONLINE button” lets users bypass a mobile device or the camera’s menu for direct on/off control over: direct streaming transmission of AV signals from a PXW-X400 to assigned destinations; auto-uploading of proxy files to cloud services and FTP servers; and on/off control over Sony’s PWS-100RX1 network server during shooting.

The low-power (22W) camcorder PXW-X400 uses a 2/3” 3-chip CMOS image sensor and supports several HD and SD formats including XAVC.

The new camcorder also supports Sony’s new HDVF-series Full HD OLED viewfinder (model HDVF-EL20/EL30).

The camcorder will come in three versions: PXW-X400, body-only, no lens or viewfinder; PXW-X400KC with a 20x manual focus lens, viewfinder and stereo shotgun mic; and the PXW-X400KF with a 16x auto focus lens, viewfinder and stereo shotgun mic.

All models are planned to be available in February 2016, at the following suggested list prices: PXW-X400 at $16,500; PXW-X400KF at $20,600; and PXW-X400KC at $21,100.

  • Monday, Nov. 9, 2015
Panavision to present cinematography workshops at Camerimage
Dan Sasaki, VP of Optical Engineering at Panavision
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. -- 

Panavision, a designer, manufacturer and provider of state-of-the-art cinema lenses and high-precision camera systems, will host two seminars at the 2015 Camerimage International Film Festival, which runs Nov. 14-21 in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Panavision’s Cinematography Workshop will feature demonstrations from Markus Förderer (Stonewall), Eduard Grau, AEC (Suffragette) and Ellen Kuras, ASC (A Little Chaos) shooting various scenes that compare spherical, anamorphic and larger sensor formats. The workshop will be held November 17 from 11-1:30 pm in the MCK – Orzel Cinema.

Later in the day, festival goers will have a chance to hear from Panavision’s Dan Sasaki, VP of Optical Engineering, on the technical and artistic characteristics of Panavision’s anamorphic and large format lenses, including Ultra Panavision 70. The discussion, which runs 3-4:30 pm, will give the audience a chance to see the different aesthetic options, hear about the technical aspects of each format, and ask questions.

Camerimage attendees will also have a chance to visit Panavision in the Opera NOVA exhibit area and see an array of optics including a sneak preview of the new T Series anamorphic lenses, which are designed exclusively for digital cameras. Also on display will be an expanded offering of Primo 70 lenses, which are optimized for large sensor digital cameras.

Additionally, festival goers will be able to get up close with the Millennium XL “Millennium Falcon” camera used by Dan Mindel BSC, ASC on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the Ultra Panavision 70 camera and lenses used by Robert Richardson, ASC on The Hateful Eight.

  • Monday, Nov. 9, 2015
PlayBox Technology promotes Petkov to CTO, Kande to CloudAir chief architect
Stanislav (Sunny) Petkov
HATFIELD, HERTFORDSHIRE, UK -- 

PlayBox Technology, an international communications and information technology company known for broadcast television playout and channel branding, announces two key additions to its board.

Stanislav (Sunny) Petkov has been appointed chief technical officer to oversee ongoing development of the TV automation solutions. Pierre Kande joins the board as CloudAir chief architect with special responsibility for developing the company’s exclusive new software product range.

Petkov joined PlayBox Technology in 2006 from a technical operations role at Bulgarian broadcast Planeta TV. He has headed the PlayBox development team for many years, most recently as chief research and development officer, providing a high level of staff motivation, engineering expertise and continuity.

Kande joined PlayBox Technology from Cisco Systems in December 2014. As system architect, he has masterminded the CloudAir project, supervising the refinement of new-generation virtualized products which PlayBox Technology is developing alongside the established TV automation range.

The two new board appointments follow the recently announced promotion of Don Ash to president, Pavlin Rahnev to CEO, Phillip Neighbour to COO, Ananth Sam to director of solution sales and customer care, and Ben Gunkel to chief commercial officer. They come at a time when PlayBox Technology has achieved an over 30 per cent share of the total worldwide television channel playout market and a far higher proportion of the channel-in-a-box sector.

  • Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015
In Tech: Light field VR camera
This concept image provided by Lytro shows the Immerge camera. The spherical head unit includes hundreds of tiny cameras that measure light coming in from every direction, a technique known as light field photography. (Lytro via AP)
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- 

Recording live-action scenes for virtual-reality devices has been limited by the fact that cameras are stuck in one position and headset wearers can't lean their heads over to get a different view.

That'll change with a new camera called Immerge from startup Lytro. The spherical head unit includes hundreds of tiny cameras that measure light coming in from every direction, a technique known as light field photography.

The camera will allow viewers to do things like lean to their left or right within about a cubic meter of space (1.3 cubic yards) to look around real-life objects rendered in the virtual world.

Renting the camera will run in the low thousands of dollars each day. The fee includes servers to hold several terabytes of footage. Each set, about the size of a cabinet, is good for one hour of shooting. Servers can be swapped out while shooting.

CEO Jason Rosenthal says the resolution of the camera is close to four times better than the 4K standard known as Ultra HD and will also render images in 3-D. The current practice of using software to stitch together footage shot from multiple cameras isn't needed, he says.

- Ryan Nakashima, AP Business Writer

  • Monday, Nov. 2, 2015
Telestream acquires PandaStream, launches Telestream Cloud
Dan Castles, CEO of Telestream
NEVADA CITY, Calif. -- 

Telestream, a provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, announced the acquisition of Cloud-based encoding provider, PandaStream. The result of a comprehensive investigation of key suppliers in the cloud-based encoding market, the acquisition accelerates Telestream’s strategy for providing cloud services to complement its on-premise solutions.

As a direct result of this acquisition, Telestream is also announcing the launch of Telestream Cloud, a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that builds on Telestream’s significant position and long history in transcoding. This new platform makes the PandaStream encoding capabilities available under the Telestream brand today and will serve as the foundation for future offerings in the cloud.

PandaStream services and technology have been developed by a team of experts with significant experience in building scalable cloud infrastructure. PandaStream’s encoding at scale, ease of use and cost efficiency combined with Telestream’s broad set of encoding products means Telestream customers have access to the most advanced encoding portfolio available.

“After careful investigation of the market and consideration of various companies, we identified PandaStream as a very good fit for our needs. This acquisition fast tracks the development of our existing cloud strategy, enabling the immediate launch of Telestream Cloud. By acquiring PandaStream, we are achieving a quantum progression in our cloud development objectives for both our enterprise and desktop product families,” stated Dan Castles, CEO of Telestream.

Using the PandaStream architecture, Telestream Cloud offers a globally distributed, VOD encoding platform that dynamically scales in response to customer requirements. File transfer and encoding times are optimized from any location since Telestream Cloud leverages multiple cloud service providers including Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace.

“Telestream can now provide video transcoding anywhere and everywhere--on your desktop, in your facility’s server room or in the cloud,” said Shawn Carnahan, chief technology officer at Telestream. “In the longer term, this acquisition opens up new opportunities for Telestream customers across every market we serve.”

Existing PandaStream customers can expect the same products and services they have enjoyed under the Panda brand. Using the new cloud infrastructure, Telestream will be rolling out additional services over time. The PandaStream team will transition to a separate business unit within Telestream over the next couple of weeks.

  • Monday, Nov. 2, 2015
Sports media exec Jim Irving joins Forbidden board of directors
Jim Irving
LONDON -- 

Forbidden, makers of the professional video editing software Forscene, announced the appointment of Jim Irving as non-executive director. Irving’s immediate appointment to the board is a part of the company’s overall leadership restructuring designed to strengthen the commercial capability of the team.

Irving possesses a wealth of experience in developing and growing companies within the digital sports-production sector. His position with deltatre Media from 2008 to 2015 saw him responsible for all commercial activity in the U.K., South Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as for all of the company’s marketing and communication activity. Before joining deltatre, Irving’s background was in hands-on sports production, with roles including executive producer of the BBC’s football highlights program “Match of the Day” and head of digital production projects at BBC Future Media & Technology.

Irving recently founded Fanview Consultancy LLP, a sports content and technology business that helps rights owners maximize the value of their content through fan engagement. The company aims to design and build compelling and engaging sports-fan experiences by producing engaging content, creating new sports and fan concepts, building a social presence, and monetizing sports audiences.
 

  • Friday, Oct. 30, 2015
Aframe releases upgraded cloud-based video platform
Aframe's new cloud video collaboration platform
WESTFORD, Mass./LONDON -- 

Aframe has released the next iteration of its cloud video collaboration platform. Featuring new capabilities based on ideas and suggestions garnered from Aframe’s customer feedback program, the new release enables corporate marketing teams, broadcasters and producers to upload, transcode and store video footage, organize content and collaborate across locations and time zones at every stage of the production media lifecycle.

The fall 2015 release includes expanded file transfer capabilities and format support, new security controls and media library management features, enhanced audio features within the player and more updates that make managing professional video and production assets more efficient, accessible and cost effective.

Customers that have recently joined the Aframe platform include KPMG, Arsenal Football Club, A+E, and Telus International.  “Organizations appreciate the opportunity to contribute suggestions to the product roadmap,” said David Peto, Aframe’s Founder and CEO. “We’re continually expanding the platform to address the evolution of our customers’ cloud-based media workflows. This release delivers on key feature requests such as new security controls critical to corporate enterprises and administrators, more flexible transfer of large files and complex media structures, the ability to preview, share and annotate native OP-Atom MXF media directly in the browser, and more,” added Peto.

Key new capabilities include:

Faster, More Flexible File Transfer Experience – Aframe now supports fast and efficient HTML5 file transfer within the web browser; there’s no need for users to install applications or deal with continual Java updates, and they can upload directly from iOS and Android devices. To address more complex folder structure transfers, Aframe’s Desktop app now includes a new settings page that facilitates transfer management through protocol selection and network utilization controls to improve performance.

Audio Track Selection – Aframe continues to add functionality to its comprehensive media player, with the new ability to mute and enable audio tracks present in the original source media while previewing video in the browser; a feature particularly useful for international promotional and re-versioning teams.

Enhanced Media Library Management – A new media library model lets users batch-consolidate media files and copy them from one project space to another, to better support access and retrieval by content collaborators. Combined with cross-project search and organization functions, this new model moves away from strict project-based partitioning to facilitate storage, access and availability of high-value, in-demand assets.

Expanded Format Support on Ingest – Users can now preview, share and annotate native OP-Atom MXF media from Avid Media Composer and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve directly from their browsers. Digital dailies require no secondary transcode pass prior to upload, and can be delivered directly to editing as well as to production stakeholders for review and approval through the Share Link function. The new release also eliminates a significant pain point with support for spanned clips, presenting rushes/dailies that are part of a spanned selection stitched together as a single proxy, for continuous playback and improved metadata handling.

New Security Controls – Aframe continues to build on its metrics dashboard and user hierarchies, with a new page that enables administrators to configure services for all users within their accounts. From this consolidated management control page account administrators can now create custom roles and abilities for user types and apply them to all or a selection of users, mass-enable/disable features, and manage security settings across all interactions with customer content – providing complete visibility and control over the enterprise account and facilitating compliance with internal security policies.

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