FOR-A Corporation of America has built integrated live production solutions that combine its HANABI series of video switchers with Variant Systems Group replay systems, ClassX graphics and playout software, ODYSSEY Insight video servers, and Brainstorm Multimedia virtual studios.

“Together with our technology partners, FOR-A is creating live production systems that make integration easier and more reliable,” said Ken Truong, President of FOR-A Corporation of America. “With the combined expertise from these companies across the professional video industry, we can offer best-of-breed solutions that improve workflows while delivering broadcast-quality results for HD, 4K, and beyond.”

Variant’s Envivo Replay offers a cost-effective sports and live event replay solution, with an intuitive user interface and continuous multiple iso-channel recording capabilities. It offers simultaneous clip storage of multiple angles, playlists for highlights playback, built-in branding capabilities, and direct publishing to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms. FOR-A is the exclusive distributor of Envivo Replay in North America.

FOR-A – the exclusive distributor of ClassX in North, Central and South America – also combines the latest ClassX real-time 2D/3D HD/4K CG and live motion broadcast graphics and playout solutions with its HANABI video switchers. An expansion I/O card for HVS-100, HVS-490, and HVS-2000 production switchers enables a close integration of the ClassX graphic playout from any HANABI video switcher directly by the switcher operator. ClassX’s real-time graphics playout software suite is popular with TV channels, news broadcasters, live event productions, and live sports productions.

Madrid-based pro audio specialist Mastering Mansion Pro Audio has been appointed as a local dealer by UK speaker manufacturer PMC, with responsibility for selling and supporting the company’s range of professional studio monitors.

Headed by Mastering Engineer Nick Litwin, who established the company 16 years ago, Mastering Mansion Pro Audio supplies equipment and offers technical support to all types of recording professionals, from producers and engineers to mastering and mix engineers and self-producing artists.

Mastering Mansion will use its in-house mastering room as a demo facility for PMC products so that potential customers can hear them in a working environment. The company will supply PMC’s entire professional range and for demo purposes it will stock PMC IB1S and twotwo series monitors including the twotwo Sub. It will also demo and supply PMC’s award-winning result6 compact nearfield reference monitors that have becoming very popular thanks to their ability to deliver high quality audio at a cost effective price.

Other high end manufacturers that Mastering Mansion Pro Audio represents include Cranesong, Grace Design, Gyraf, Josephson, Lavry, Mercury, Millennia, Mytek, Pendulum, Tree Audio, Trinnov, Vovox, Weiss and Zähl.

Colorfront (www.colorfront.com) – the Academy, Emmy and HPA Award-winning developer of high-performance dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, broadcast, OTT and commercials – will showcase the powerhouse capabilities of its products to enable color-consistent 4K/6K/8K SDR/HDR acquisition-to-post workflows during the 2020 HPA Tech Retreat, 17-20 Feb, Rancho Mirage, CA. The company will also participate in the groundbreaking, cloud-based, live production of “The Lost Lederhosen” short film, and share details of its pivotal role in the making of this mini-movie during the Retreat’s “HPA Makes A Movie” Supersession on Feb 18th.

mediaClass, a globally active provider of OTT TV everywhere solutions, has announced its own developed AI-based recommendation Engine.

”We have been testing and measuring the success rate of the engine for some time," says mediaClass CTO Stilian Tchlakov. "For this release we have settled on two operator-selectable modes, both of which offer excellent results."

"Without giving too much away technically, mode one is based on AI analysis of personal preferences and searches; mode two is based on studying and machine learning the watching-behaviour of hundreds of thousands of anonymous subscribers” adds mediaClass Head of Research and Development Youri Kalinov. "The mediaClass AI Recommendation Engine uses state of the art technology from Liberate AI to predict and deliver viewer-specific television content recommendations. This is a step change from what has been possible in the past."

“Judging from the measurement results I have seen, the Liberate AI machine learning technology certainly gives us a significant edge," details mediaClass EVP Manelli Hosseini. "We will be providing the engine as an integral part all mediaClass deployments. We now have to decide whether to market the recommendation engine as a standalone package to offer its advantages for non-mediaClass deployments.”

Following the appointment of Matthieu Straub as the company’s technical and operational consultant to France and the Benelux countries in the summer of 2019, FilmLight is delighted to announce that it has now established a permanent presence in Paris. By sharing premises with ARRI France, FilmLight is developing a strong hub for creative and technical knowledge and events.

The hub will host the first of FilmLight’s Colour Day workshops in 2020, on 28 January. One of the advantages of sharing the centre with ARRI is that it underlines the seamless workflows from camera to finish, using the BLG format for render-free viewing and creativity. The BLG grading metadata is stored in the ARRIRAW and QuickTime headers, ensuring the content and its look are permanently linked.

The Paris Colour Day on 28 January, aimed at creatives and technicians in production and post production, will see FilmLight’s workflow specialists, Straub and Thomas Eberschveiler unveil new FilmLight tools. Attendees will also hear from guest colourist Stéphane Azouze about his collaboration with directors Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertrand on the recent award-winning documentary ‘Woman’. Finally, colour scientist Florine Bel will share her image expertise and discuss her work developing film aesthetics, colour spaces and conversions.

The shared space has already hosted successful events, including a workshop day for DITs. Led by Straub, with guest speakers from Netflix and from post house Mikros, the group discussed the latest developments in colour space management and workflows. ARRI’s presence allowed the discussion to include ARRI Looks and how they can be incorporated into FilmLight BLG post production. In the demonstration area, they featured an ARRI ALEXA camera feeding Prelight and Daylight software, allowing the delegates to experiment with look development and make comparisons between standard and high dynamic range colour spaces.

Explaining the importance of bringing together creative artists and technicians, FilmLight’s Matthieu Straub said “My background is as a digital image technician, and I know how directors and cinematographers are increasingly relying on DITs to find technical solutions to their demanding creative requirements. “Our intention is to use our demonstration and meeting space here on the Rue René Boulanger to be a place where we can encourage the sharing of knowledge and experiences, to help the French cinema industry achieve ever greater things.”

mediaClass reports a sustained acceleration in demand for subscription based services offering video content directly to connected viewers. Bypassing traditional broadcast and satellite platforms, OTT services are typically streamed over the top – meaning over any internet connection rather than a proprietary network.

"Given the rapid changes in product offerings and market trends, the choice of OTT and streaming technology is absolutely key," says mediaClass EVP Manelli Hosseini. "The established OTT middleware products on the market are incremental improvements and add-ons to older IPTV-based systems. This leaves them with a heavy footprint requiring massive servers which are inefficient and inflexible."

"Using our detailed knowledge and long experience of TV services to develop a modern, agile architecture and approach, we invested heavily to develop a full product range from scratch. The key parameters for our customer-centric view were to speed up deployment and enable a low-cost legacy IPTV path for service providers and telcos who want to move to a world-class offer which is disruptively affordable. We have developed our own software modules for functions including a content management system, digital rights management and AI recommendation engines as well as CDN and mobile clients."

CVP, one of the UK’s leading production solutions providers, will be providing hands-on experience with some of the latest kit to reach the UK market at this year’s BSC Expo 2020 (Friday 31st January to Saturday 1st February, Battersea Evolution, London).

Featuring a set inspired as a homage to the BSC’s 70th anniversary, the showcase at BSC Expo will allow customers to compare like-for-like options and to get hands-on with the equipment they are interested in — along with all the necessary accessories — to find out how their creative desires can be best fulfilled.

Custom Consoles announces the completion and installation of eight control desks and a large MediaWall monitor display support system for NEP Media Solutions BV. Located in the master control room at the company's studios in Hilversum's Media Park, the desks are configured in front and rear rows for use by up to six and four operators respectively.

"The desks are similar in style and colour scheme to a suite we produced in early 2018 for another NEP television studio facility," says Custom Consoles' Sales Manager Gary Fuller. "The forward desk centres on a dual-operator bridge with a total of eight forward-sloping 4U equipment pods. This is constructed as a rectangular unit with space for two operators. Left and right of the bridge are two units of identical design to the bridge but angled to match the curve of the 13.9 metre wide six-frame MediaWall. The MediaWall itself is one of the largest we have produced to date, each of the six frames accommodating four 55 inch UHD displays to create an 11-wide by two-high screen array with two additional pairs of 32 inch screens."

Zixi, the industry leader for enabling dependable, live broadcast-quality video over all-IP, and award winning architect of the Software Defined Video Platform (SDVP), today announced that January 7^th through the 9^th at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show the company will be featuring with Version 13 extensive new functionalities from the four elements that enable the broadcaster video network to be intelligently and centrally managed using software and integrated devices regardless of the underlying IP network infrastructure including the preeminent Zixi Protocol and 14 supported protocols, the Zixi Video Solutions Stack, Zixi ZEN Master, and the Zixi Enabled Network.

Zixi, the industry leader for enabling dependable, live broadcast-quality video over IP, has been recognized with two industry awards: the Gold Award in the category of IP Broadcast Solutions – Distribution from Digital Media World, and a 2019 Product Innovation Award from TV Technology.

The cutting edge Zixi Software-Defined Video Platform was named the Digital Media Awards’ Gold Winner in the category of IP Broadcast Solutions – Distribution. The Zixi Software-Defined Video Platform is the tight integration of four crucial elements that enable broadcast-quality live video workflows to be intelligently and centrally provisioned, deployed, managed and monitored using software and integrated devices, regardless of the underlying network infrastructure. The Digital Media World Awards give recognition to companies that have used their products and services to push media opportunities forward and develop new techniques and possibilities in broadcast content creation, delivery and management.