Light Blue Optics Raises US$26 Million to Accelerate Development of Laser-based Miniature Projection Systems

"Light Blue Optics (LBO), the industry-leading developer of holographic laser projection technology, today announced closing a US$26 million Series 'A' funding round, led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Capital-E. Existing investors 3i plc, who led LBO's US$3.5 million seed-funding round, and NESTA also participated.

Founded in 2004, LBO has developed an innovative holographic laser projection technology that allows full colour, high-quality video images to be projected onto flat or curved surfaces. LBO's novel approach to projection delivers a unique combination of enabling features including an ultra-wide throw angle, in-built laser speckle reduction, infinite focus, low power consumption, no moving parts and a robust design that naturally lends itself to miniaturisation and low cost manufacture. The Company estimates that the total available market for miniature projection systems will exceed $5 billion by 2012.

About Light Blue Optics:
LBO’s holographic laser projection technology creates full colour, high-quality images that remain in focus at all distances. The term “holographic” refers not to the projected image, but to the method of projection. A diffraction pattern of the desired 2D image, calculated using LBO’s patented holographic algorithms, is displayed on a phase-modulating Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) microdisplay. When illuminated by coherent laser light, the desired image is projected.

Rather than blocking light, the phase-modulating LCOS microdisplay steers the light to exactly where it is needed, making the system highly efficient. Unlike conventional projection systems, LBO’s technology does not require a projection lens. Instead, a demagnification lens pair expands the diffracted image from the microdisplay, producing an ultra-wide throw angle greater than 90º. The projected images are in focus at all distances from the projector, eliminating the need for a focus control.

The diffractive method of projection naturally lends itself to miniaturisation and low cost implementation. It allows images to be projected onto curved and angled surfaces without distortion, and is highly tolerant to microdisplay pixel failure – essential in safety critical applications in markets such as automotive."

Source: Light Blue Optics

SMPTE Symposium Highlights 3-D

"The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers will open its annual Technical Conference & Exhibition with a pre-conference symposium on stereoscopic 3-D production, which is scheduled for Oct. 23, and sponsored by Sony and Texas Instruments.

The event was developed to explore the core technologies, applications, and challenges of 3-D and provide a roadmap for 3-D deployment. Speakers on the 3-D session include: Jason Goodman, president, 21st Century 3D; Rob Engle, stereographer/digital effects supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks; Buzz Hays, senior VFX producer, Imageworks; Phil McNally, stereoscopic supervisor, DreamWorks Animation; Jim Mainard, head of production development, DreamWorks Animation; and Chuck Comisky, 3-D visual effects specialist, Lightstorm Prods. Representatives from Real D, 3ality Digital Systems, Dolby Laboratories, In-Three, Insight Media, Lightspeed Design Group, MKPE Consulting, Pace, and Quantel, are also scheduled participants.

The SMPTE conference will be held Oct. 24-27 in Brooklyn."

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

MovieLabs Shows Results of Fingerprint Testing

"The MPAA and MovieLabs, its R&D arm, spent months testing a dozen software programs designed to identify copyrighted videos from brief samples of their data. Each "fingerprinting" program was fed about 1,000 test files of wide-ranging format and quality, including a number of camcorded movies and other bootlegs downloading from the Net. Of the technologies submitted (11 by firms and one by a Scottish university), the MPAA said, three successfully identified more than 90 percent of the files with no false positives. In other words, when they erred, it was in not spotting a copyrighted movie within a file, rather than identifying a movie that wasn't there.

Steve Weinstein, CEO of MovieLabs, summarized the results as follows: "This stuff works." Of course, that's just in a laboratory setting. The next step for MovieLabs and the MPAA, in addition to testing more iterations of the technology, is to try out the technologies in the field, where commercially important issues such as scaling (how well they handle a large volume of ID requests) can be measured.

Weinstein and other officials declined to say which firms had scored highest in the test. That honor was claimed by Santa Clara-based startup Vobile, although executives from two more established competitors, Gracenote and Audible Magic, also said their technology performed well. Other contenders included Thomson and Philips.

For the studios, though, the important thing is that several firms actually seem to be able to do what they claim. That could raise the pressure on networks with a large amount of unauthorized copying, such as user-generated video sites and college campuses, to deploy fingerprinting technologies. In fact, Joshua Metzger, a senior vice president at the UGC site Veoh.com, said at the conference that his company would add fingerprinting technology within 30 days.

A lot of details remain unsettled, and the courts have yet to weigh in on whether copyright law actually obliges anyone to install fingerprinting technologies on their system. But a fingerprinting technology that works well enough to satisfy the studios could be the key to advertiser-supported sites such as Veoh and YouTube striking major content deals and ramping up their ad sales. After all, one of the things holding back revenues at UGC sites is uncertainty over liability. If fingerprinting settles that issue, that's a powerful motivator for companies to deploy it. On the other hand, if it chokes off so much content that users run away, then it's a lose-lose situation."

Source: Los Angeles Times

Codex Digital Delivers Universal Support for Data Cameras

"Codex Digital, specialist in high-resolution media recording systems, is extending the capabilities of its HD 2K 4K recording systems to support the capture of the data output from many leading digital cameras for broadcast and motion picture cinematography.

The Codex Recorder and forthcoming Portable field recorder will interface with the ARRI D-20 in data-mode, unleashing the full potential of this camera. By recording the D-20 in data-mode, Codex extends the camera's capabilities to levels way beyond HD: Codex captures and stores the raw, unprocessed data from the camera's 4:3 sensor, making maximum use of its 2880 x 2160 resolution and 12-bit bit-depth, with real time unsqueezed playback of anamorphic material. This results in far superior picture resolution than when using the D-20's 1920 x 1080 HD video output, as all the image data captured by the sensor is retained.

Codex also features the ability to demosaic and downsample the Arri D-20's Bayer pattern images in real time. This feature – already used when recording from the DALSA Origin 4K data-mode camera – means that material captured with the D-20 can be viewed and passed onto editorial without the need for lengthy, time-intensive de-Bayering and downconversion. Codex produces on-demand HD proxies for review and editorial via its Virtual File System, whilst storing the raw, unprocessed sensor data from the camera for best-quality processing at the conforming and finishing stage.

Codex already integrates with a huge range of leading digital cinematography cameras, such as Sony's HD series - including the Sony F23 - Panavision Genesis and Thomson Viper FilmStreamTM and will fully-support data-mode recording from cameras such as Vision Research's high-speed Phantom range and Red Digital Cinema's RED ONE as data-mode outputs become available from those devices.

Codex Digital's uncompressed data-recording enables users to record the highest possible resolution and dynamic range that each of these cameras can deliver, then send the captured material, ready for immediate use, directly into the post-production chain. The material is complete with required metadata, in any format required for effects and finishing.

The Codex Recorder can capture well over 1 Gigabyte/sec (8Gigabits/sec) of raw data – up to three times faster than other systems suitable for field use, and enough for completely uncompressed recording of HD or 4K cameras even at higher frame-rates. It also offers dual camera inputs, enabling two cameras to be used either independently for A & B camera shoots, or locked together for applications such as 3D stereoscopic production.

Codex has already streamlined the entire workflow for HD-based productions of every scale from low budget to multi-million dollar productions. For example, principal photography has recently completed on a $200 million Hollywood production, shot in Germany. Connected to six Sony F23 cameras, Codex and its partner Sohonet provided immediate recording, transcoding and storage for every aspect of the production from instant Avid MXF proxies to full-resolution files sent at high-speed to the effects facility in Los Angeles. Each unit was able to monitor, review and generate edited, full-resolution sequences literally overnight, for viewing before the next day's shooting."

Source: Stereoscopy

MOG Solutions Toboggans For NBC Beijing Olympic Coverage

"MOG Solutions has been selected by NBC Olympics to provide tools for enabling integration between NBC Olympics’ Media Asset Management System, editing suites and video servers during the network’s coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing, China.

Following the success of the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter Games, where MOG Solutions provided MXF Proxy Encoders to NBC for capturing on-the-fly metadata in a real-time MPEG-4 MXF file, MOG Solutions will now be providing NBC with the Toboggan, a full set of tools that will enable NBC Olympics’ New Media production group to share media and tasks between the operations located in Beijing and in New York. The new Toboggan product line provides a set of automation tools that will conform the live event coverage video and metadata, managed in NBC Olympics’ Blue Order Media Asset Management system, and export these for further processing to Avid edit stations or transcoding engines for eventual delivery to multiple distribution platforms. Toboggan will be a key element used by NBC Olympics to create a fully optimized and interoperable system for New Media production for the Beijing Olympics."

Source: BroadcastBuyer

MOG Solutions Licenses MXF Technology to Adobe for Premiere PRO CS3

"Adobe Systems has licensed MOG Solutions MXF development tools which will enable Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 to feature expanded MXF support.

Adobe Premiere Pro will now benefit from MXF compatibility through optimized workflows ensured by MOG Solutions’ tools. The release of Adobe Premiere Pro, the start-to-finish solution for efficient video production, integrating MOG Solutions’ MXF technology will be available soon."

Source: BroadcastBuyer

On-Set Digital Recording Options Expand at CineGear

When CineGear Expo opened in West L.A. this summer, one of the hottest product categories was solutions for tapeless acquisition from cameras running at resolutions of 2K and above. Debra Kaufman hoofed it from tent to tent to get a look at the latest offerings from Codex Digital, S.two, Colorspace, and Wafian.

Watch the Video

File-based Production: Making It Work In Practice

An interesting white paper from BBC R&D.

Abstract
"Many organisations are moving from video tape based television production to file-based production. A number of difficulties arise during this migration including unexpected costs, workflow complications and lack of equipment interoperability. Such difficulties can be solved in practice using novel applications of low-cost IT equipment, software tools and industry standards for file formats.

This paper describes a number of problems of file-based production which arise in practice and demonstrates the techniques used to solve them using real-world examples from BBC productions.

The application of commodity PCs to achieve flexible real-time software encoding in a multi-camera TV studio is shown. Software tools to overcome incompatibilities between different MXF implementations are described. The design and format of MXF files for long term programme archival on LTO-3 data tape is explained. We show how file-based systems can be interfaced to legacy broadcast equipment. Finally, the problem of migrating from SD to HD production is shown to be mitigated by the HD capable nature of many IT components."

Pixel Instruments - LipTracker

LipTracker is a non-invasive measurement tool for in-service lip sync analysis. After detecting a face in the video, LipTracker compares selected sounds in the audio with the mouth shapes that create them in the video. The relative timing of these sounds and corresponding mouth shapes (called Mutual Events or MuEvs) is analyzed to produce a measurement of the lip sync error. Audio offsets of up to ± 5 video frames can be measured. This unique approach of analyzing real time video and audio content does not require the insertion of cues, codes or watermarks into the program material. Therefore, LipTracker can be used at any point in the transmission path.

Download video presentation (32.90 MB)

CloseVU Garners IBC 2007 Pick Hit Award

"CloseVU was awarded the IBC 2007 Pick Hit Award for its brand new CloseVU Live Producer solution.

CloseVU Producer allows content editors to easily transform conventional HD and SD media to produce rich content for a compelling mobile experience. "Smart Zoom" technology lets editors frame and zoom to adapt images for mobile TV delivery. "Smart Zoom" computes framing parameters, focuses on the object of interest, fine tunes and stabilizes the images for a "natural" camera view that optimizes small screen viewing.

CloseVU Live Producer is a unique solution to deliver enhanced, high quality video coverage of live events, such as action-packed sports matches, to mobile devices. With the simple-to-use CloseVU Live Producer editors can re-frame and re-size their content within the safety of a predetermined buffer, to show the best camera angles and close-ups for the small screen. The software allows editors to zoom in on the action in just a few seconds and deliver a mobile-friendly version with smooth, natural camera angles and quality close-ups. CloseVU Live Producer will easily integrate into production workflows with SDI or Analog video connectors.

CloseVU is an innovative start-up that develops production tools that allow editors to adapt video content to formats that are optimized for viewing on the small screen of Mobile TV. CloseVU products are aimed mainly at content creators, television stations, and mobile telecom operators. CloseVU has developed unique image processing algorithms and technologies to adapt and repurpose original HD or SD video content to Mobile TV."

Watch video demonstration

Source: BroadcastBuyer

Streambox Earns IBC Innovation Recognition

"Streambox is among the key partners behind a CNN digital newsgathering project that has been awarded the 2007 IBC Innovation Award for content creation as well as the Judges' Award, the most prestigious award for innovation given at the yearly IBC trade show.

CNN's complete digital newsgathering project incorporates the Streambox ACT-L3 Portable Video Transport solution that was used by the network in its remote coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in July 2006. Utilizing Streambox's sophisticated encoding technology, journalists were able to file hundreds of live reports with portable IP transmission gear that fit neatly into a backpack and yielded images delivered over IP-based networks in tandem with satellite uplinks, which proved significantly better than earlier technologies.

The groundbreaking project has enabled CNN to deliver high-quality breaking news reports from around the world. The Judges' Award noted that it is the first complete newsgathering tool that works over any existing IP infrastructure, affording reporters ultimate flexibility in terms of live and store and forward transmission, real-time content editing and monitoring, as well as voice communication.

The Streambox ACT-L3 Portable Video Transport solution enables broadcasters to deliver high-quality live and stored broadcast video over low-data-rate connections such as BGAN, 3G networks, and other IP and satellite networks. Typically used for mobile newsgathering, Streambox's real-time portable video transport systems are ideal when mobility, flexibility, and a low power requirement are needed. Performance, reliability, and low end-to-end latency are hallmarks of Streambox solutions. These features, along with robust error correction technologies, ensure unrivaled video quality at low data rates."

Source: BroadcastBuyer

SquareHead Technology - AudioScope

SquareHead Technology has developed a high-performance audio capturing system that allows the operator to zoom in audio a particular object, in a similar way we are used to zoom in picture with a camera, and record the audio. The AudioScope is perfect for separate sound sources in a complex noisy environment. You can zoom in and hear audio you never have been able to hear before. In addition to real-time zoom function, the operator also has the freedom to move back in time and zoom in on an object in the same way as in real-time. This unique functionality is great for producing replays for sports broadcasting.

The AudioScope consists of one or more microphone arrays, a signal distribution unit, a signal processing unit and a storage system. Inside the microphone array there is a wide-angle camera to provide live video to the user interface. The massive signal processing power provide real-time processing of audio from hundreds of microphone elements in the array. The system works by using phase delay, spatial filtering, and being optimized for speech. As the cursor is moved the system automatically adjusts the phase delay of the 300 microphones to grab audio from upwards of hundreds of meters in quieter situations.

The system has a very intuitive user interface to enable fast and accurate operation of the AudioScope. The AudioScope control panel and a monitor is easily integrated in your production environment. The live picture from the integrated camera is displayed on the monitor and the operator simply uses the trackball to point where to zoom and capture the sound. It's all designed to make an uncomplicated production in an extremely hectic outside broadcast production situation.

Key functions:
- High directivity. Attenuates audio sources outside the audio focus with up to -30 dB.
- Real-time zoom. Zoom in players or regions at the field where the action is.
- Post event zooming for replay. Full functionality in post processing gives the producer the freedom to go back in time to capture an incident.
- Multiple static sound regions. Listen to the comments from the coach bench.
- Integration with industry standard cameras and tripods that deliver coordinates of the camera lens focus and zoom.
- Multi-channel system for 5.1 surround sound for HDTV.

Pricing for the system is approximately $210,000.

Tapeless Recording Media Storage Capacity Grows

"Tapeless acquisition systems continue to improve, providing more capacity and faster transfer rates in the same form factor.

There’s new word that Panasonic has increased the capacity of its P2 cards to 32 GB and Sony now offers a dual-layer blue-laser optical media disc. And, working with Iomega, Thomson’s Grass Valley REV Pro media is also rumored to be available in larger capacity cartridges soon. When all of this new data-storage media is available (only the new optical disc is currently), each system will offer more than twice the record time of a year ago.

Panasonic’s new 32 GB P2 solid-state memory card (model AJ-P2C032RG) will be available in November carrying a suggested list price of $1,650. A 16 GB P2 card ($900 list) has been shipping since May. With five 32GB P2 cards installed, the AJ-HPX3000 and HPX2000 P2 HD camcorders can record for up to 2.5 hours (over 3 hours in 24p) in AVC-Intra 100 or DVCPRO HD compression and 5 hours (over 6.5 hours in 24p) using the built-in AVC-Intra 50 or DVCPRO 50 codec.

Panasonic said the 32 GB card is fully compatible with the current 16 GB P2 card, so users who’ve upgraded their P2 products and computer system for 16 GB operation (a free firmware download) can use the 32 GB cards. P2 users who haven’t completed this upgrade must do so before using the 32 GB cards.

The 16 GB P2 card is compatible with all AG-HPX500 recorders and with AG-HVX200 camcorders carrying a serial number beginning with E7xxx0001. The 16 GB card is also compatible with AJ-PCD20 drives beginning with the serial number E7xxx0001.

At $60 per disc, Sony’s new dual-layer version of the XDCAM Professional Disc media more than doubles the storage capacity (from 23.3 to 50 GB) and recording capabilities of the original single-layer optical media.

The new dual-layer disc, model PFD50DLA, gives users up to four hours and 30 minutes of HD recording when shooting in MPEG HD 4:2:0 mode at 18 Mbps, or 3 hours and 20 minutes at 25 Mbps and 2 hours and 30 minutes at 35 Mbps. (It also captures in DVCAM mode, 25 Mbps, where shooters get about 3 hours and 10 minutes). The PFD50DLA media works with the Sony PDW-F355L XDCAM HD camcorder, PDW-F75 deck and PDW-U1 drive unit. It will not work with first-generation XDCAM SD or HD equipment.

Meanwhile, Sony announced that its PMW-EX1 XDCAM EX camcorder (which was previewed in prototype form in April) will also ship in November, recording to two solid-state Sony SxS flash memory cards. The new HD camcorder can accommodate two cards (an 8 GB card ships with the camera and a 16 GB will be available soon). The SxS memory cards, to be available through Sony or SanDisk, are provided in the PCIExpress form factor (not the PCMCIA format used in the Panasonic P2) with 800 Mbps data-transfer capability.

Company reps said they’re still unsure how many cards will ship with the camera, but two 8 GB SxS cards (at $500 each) offer about 90 minutes of record time at 25 Mbps and 45 minutes at 35 Mbps. The 16 GB cards (listed at $900 a piece) offer 140 minutes at 25 Mbps and 100 minutes at 35 Mbps.

Sony said the PCI Express card slot found in most new laptops and desktop computers will obsolete the PCMCIA card, and even offered a quote from a website that warns developers the format will not be supported going forward.

As for Thomson, production models of the Grass Valley Infinity camcorders will begin shipping soon, so demand for more storage than what the current 35 GB version (about 45 minutes of 1080i HD at 75 Mbps; more than two hours in 25 Mbps HDV), offers will be certain. The REV Pro disk cartridge costs about $70."

Source: HD Studio

U2 in 3D

"The 3D feature film U2 3D from directors Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington and directors of photography Peter Anderson (3D DP) and Tom Krueger (2D DP) rocked this year's Cannes Film Festival. U2 3D production company 3ality Digital and technology company Assimilate teamed to bring the experience to the 2007 IBC audience. A 55-minute, nine-song preview of U2 3D screened at IBC in September. Both this preview and the full-length version of the film were edited by Bluerock's Olivier Wicki. The film's opening title sequence, logo and movie poster were crafted by Spontaneous creative director John Leamy.

3ality's stereoscopic 3D technology coupled with Assimilate's Scratch real-time 3D data workflow and DI tool suite delivers a thrilling visual ride in which lead singer Bono reaches out toward the 3D camera and appears to step into the theater. U2 3D is scheduled for release to theaters this year.

The U2 3D concert film is the first non-IMAX project to be shot, edited and exhibited solely in 3D. Co-directors Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington pieced the feature-length film together from hundreds of hours of footage they shot of U2 at several South American shows during the band's 2005-06 “Vertigo” tour.

The film's producers from 3ality Digital Entertainment assembled nine Fusion 3D camera systems, the largest assemblage of 3D camera technology ever used for a single project, to film the band. Developed by Vincent Pace and Director James Cameron, each Fusion stereoscopic rig consists of two modified Sony HDC-F950 high-definition cameras mounted side by side, simultaneously recording left- and right-eye footage, as well as a complex set of software and servos that maintains appropriate intraocular distance for accurate 3D.

Between two and nine 3D camera rigs were set up at different positions around the stadium to capture the action both on the stage and in the audience. Cranes and dollies were provided by Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment.

3ality CEO Steve Schklair explains that his company has created a 3D workflow that perfectly aligns footage recorded by the two separate digital cameras in the 3D rig. The 3D pipeline efficiently takes the video streams from the two cameras and manipulates them to become matched left- and right-eye data with appropriate convergence and intraocular distance. The technology also helps blend depth of field between scenes to make 3D viewing easier for audiences.

3ality Digital uses Assimilate Scratch software running on a BOXX workstation as the lynchpin of its real-time stereoscopic/3D digital workflow. On U2 3D, Scratch was used for conform, color grading, preview, dailies, playout, rough cuts and finishing.

Schklair says 3ality chose the Scratch DI software suite because of its ability to provide 3D screening directly from the system without additional processing. “With its speed, ease of use and quality results, Scratch enabled us to reduce the 3D post process from months or weeks to days or hours in numerous instances,” adds Schklair.

By using the dual DVI outputs on the Nvidia Quadro FX cards and the functionality of Scratch CONstruct, 3ality created a timeline with right-eye material on one layer and left-eye material on another. The two clips were edited as a single instance; color grading and other effects were easily applied and copied. Once the editorial fine-tuning and color grading were applied, the dual-stream stereo imagery was output directly from Scratch to the screen for review by the directors of photography, directors and client."

Source: DigitalCinematography

ENCO Releases Affordable Phonetica Search System For Broadcast Audio Archives

ENCO Systems has announced the immediate release of Phonetica2, a new phonetic-based search system for digital audio, targeted to the broadcast industry.

Phonetica2 is available as an integrated module in ENCO’s DAD Digital Audio Delivery system. The module allows users to search through a library of audio files containing spoken material and find specific words or phrases simply by typing them. Phonetica2 is a robust audio search tool incorporating the latest advances in speech technology offered at a price affordable by even small content producers.

Gene Novacek, President of ENCO Systems said, “With the release of Phonetica2, broadcasters can easily and quickly search massive libraries of news actualities, programs or other spoken material to locate material that using other methods would have required hours or days to find, in some cases, impossible. We think that Phonetica2 will be an ideal addition to news, talk and sports radio formats plus any broadcaster who archives large amounts of audio.”

According to Vice President of Sales and Marketing Don Backus, “Phonetica2 is truly accessible hightechnology. It’s simple to use, fast and quite accurate. You just type the words you’re looking for and press the SEARCH button. Then, in order of accuracy, your list of audio cuts where the words appear is displayed. You can then either press PLAY to hear the audio in question or click on EDIT and begin working with the targeted audio.”

Source: BroadcastBuyer

Ingex

Ingex is a suite of software applications designed to enable low-cost flexible tapeless television production. The functionality of the software includes SDI video and audio capture, real-time transcoding and wrapping in MXF, archiving to LTO-3 tape and network file serving of media files. The software was originally developed by BBC Research and Development in 2005 for series three of the BAMZOOKi BBC children's program and is now released under the terms of the GPL software licence.

Two white papers describing Ingex and its use for the BBC BAMZOOKi production are available. The first paper looks in particular at the use of MXF and AAF files in the system, while the second paper looks at the practical benefits achieved by the tapeless capture and logging system. An 8 minute video (63MB) has been produced demonstrating the use of Ingex for BAMZOOKi.

The software consists of the following components :
Ingex Studio - a multi-camera television studio ingest and transcoding system.
Currently supported SD codecs are :
- Avid-compatible JPEG codec resolutions known as 2:1, 3:1, 10:1, 20:1, 15:1s, 10:1m, 4:1m
- DVCPRO50 (50 Mbps)
- DV (25 Mbps)
- D10 50/40/30 Mbps
- Uncompressed SD video at 8 bits-per-sample and 10 bits-per-sample

Supported HD codecs are :
- VC-3 (DNxHD) at 120 and 185 Mbps
- DVCPRO HD (100 Mbps)
- Uncompressed HD video at 8 bits-per-sample

Ingex Player - software player for playback of MXF OP-Atom and MXF OP-1a files. Supports playout to computer monitor or over SDI I/O card. Features include quad-split, audio monitor, timecode display and jog-shuttle control.

Ingex Archive - ingest system designed for video tape archive preservation. Video tape is played back from a VTR, ingested over SDI, and stored as an MXF OP-1a file, including all audio channels, VITC and LTC timecodes and archive database metadata. Features include VTR-control, D-3 tape error recording, PSE analysis and H.264 browse generation.

MediaHarmony - a Samba VFS module which allows multiple Avid editing workstations to use low-cost commodity storage without conflicts around the .pmr and .mdb database files. This is particularly useful for workgroups of editors using Avid XpressDV.

The source code for the Ingex software is available for download.

Reach Out and Touch

An article about 3D by The Sunday Times.

CalDigit Breaks the 2TB Barrier Limitation for Windows Platforms

"CalDigit, a provider of RAID storage, has overcome the 2TB limitation normally associated with storage on Windows platforms. This is a big bonus for Windows users working with Matrox, Blackmagic Design and AJA capture products alongside the Adobe applications.

In the past, Windows used 32-bit block numbers in the lower storage stack. This effectively limited support for single disk devices-which might be hardware RAID sets, sometimes called virtual disks or LUNs-to being no larger than 2TB. To get storage unit sizes beyond 2 TB, one had to combine multiple LUNs using the Windows Disk Management. This problem would give those users no other alternatives than to combine with software RAID.

With the new HDPro driver and firmware from CalDigit, there is no longer a 2TB limitation with storage when using Windows platforms and editors can utilize the full capacity of the HDPro product as a single volume and manage media files effectively. Users who have purchased the HDPro product can take advantage of this breakthrough technology by downloading the latest driver."

Source: Digital Production BuZZ

Reuters Uses Viewdle to Recognise Faces in Video Search

"Reuters is using facial recognition to provide real-time indexing and searching of satellite television feeds. The news agency is demonstrating systems supplied by Viewdle, a start-up company that specialises in visual search. The technology is showcased on the Reuters labs web site.

The system looks inside the video stream, frame by frame, to find appearances of previously identified people on screen. It allows users to locate relevant footage and instantly cue to the right point.

Based in New York City, with offices in Kiev, Ukraine and London, Viewdle is building the world’s largest people-in-video reference database. The Viewdle engine is capable of simultaneously indexing multiple video streams. Initially focused on providing internal and private-label indexing and search capabilities to news and entertainment media, Viewdle is expected to launch targeted advertising solutions, developer tools, as well as a consumer-facing search site."

Source: Informitv

Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene Concert in 3D on Philips WOWvx 3D Displays

Philips has shown the well known Oxygène concert that was re-recorded by Alfacam, in 3D without glasses, to a private audience of media and financial analysts at the Eurocam Media Center in Lint, Antwerp.

Belgium-based Alfacam, the European leader High Definition television facilities, re-recorded Oxygène with four sets of stereo cameras. Oxygène is the former number 1 album with instrumental electronic music composed and produced by Jean Michel Jarre in 1976. Now, more than 30 years later, Philips makes it possible to view this concert in 3D, using their stereo-to-3D conversion tool, the BlueBox.

Philips has developed the BlueBox, a service suite of advanced 3D content creation tools that convert stereo and 2D video content to 3D. This empowers content creators by enabling efficient (semi-automated) and high quality offline conversion of existing 2D video content to the 2D-plus-Depth format, used in the Philips WOWvx 3D displays.

The 3D experience and its out-of-screen 3D effects fascinate and seduce viewers, making concerts in 3D much more immersive than in 2D. No glasses are needed to view the Philips 3D displays and it gives an element of surprise that leaves the target audience with an amazing and entertaining 3D multimedia experience.

Gabriel Fehervari, CEO of Alfacam and CEO of EURO1080: “Alfacam has always positioned itself as an innovator in the TV facilities world. We were the first to introduce HDTV in Europe and we were also the first to broadcast HDTV in Europe. Now we are taking it a step further by gaining experience with the newest 3D HDTV technology. To many, 3D might seem still far away, but to us the future started today.”

Source: BroadcastBuyer