Intinor, Sweden’s leading developer of products and solutions for high-quality video over public internet, today announced that the Festival of German-Language Literature was streamed live using Intinor’s solution for remote production in an unusual way.

The annual festival normally takes place in Klagenfurt, Austria, and culminates in the awarding of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, one of Germany’s most prestigious awards for literature.

Pixel Power, the global leader in graphics production and playout automation, has appointed Sarah Deas to its head office team. Deas will provide internal sales support to the sales teams in the Cambridge base and regional offices in North America, South-East Asia and the Middle East.

Pixel Power is hosting a massive personalised customer engagement programme with a series of over a hundred one-to-one online meetings over the next six weeks. The aim is to replicate the best and most important aspects of a tradeshow - conversations with customers about their projects and how our technology can help.

“Listening to our customers’ needs is at the heart of what we have always done at Pixel Power – it’s why we are trusted to deliver on what we say we will”, explained James Gilbert, CEO, Pixel Power. “At this time of global lockdown and with all tradeshows either cancelled or postponed, we wanted to find an alternative method to replicate those confidential one-to-one meetings between our customers and technology colleagues”

Software-Defined Video Platform facilitates distribution of live sports streaming to media partners

Zixi, the industry leader for enabling dependable, live broadcast-quality video over any-IP, and award winning architect of the Software-Defined Video Platform (SDVP), today announced that Imagica Live, the innovator of the world’s first cloud-based media center for live sports streaming, has adopted Zixi and Zixi ZEN Master as the foundation of its robust worldwide video transmission network.

Since 2017, Imagica Live has operated the virtual media center for professional sports leagues and other major sporting events, ingesting and aggregating live streams from more than 60 stadiums and arenas across Japan over an IP network into a dynamic cloud video system. The real-time transcoding of those video streams is delivered in variable formats, allowing for the appropriate video to reach the teams, professional referees, Japan’s national and local broadcasting networks and overseas publishing points immediately.

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.”

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.