One of Visual Data's core services is content preparation for distribution platforms, primarily OTT and streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and others, as well as European distributors.

Tiffen announces that new Blender® XL LED lights are now shipping. The bi-color Blender XL puts out a tunable narrow flood beam—up to four times brightness of a traditional 1x1 panel light—yet its durable metal housing is compact enough to hold in one hand. It’s a soft light with punch, ready to be dialed to an infinite choice of color temperatures for diverse location uses.

Spectra Logic, a leader in data storage and management solutions, today announced that ColorTime, a post-production studio that provides world-class creative digital media services for television production projects, deployedSpectra’s StorCycle®Storage Lifecycle Management software to automate cleanup of their production storage area network (SAN) and free up space for their incoming digital content. At the same time, ColorTime also installed a Spectra® BlackPearl® Converged Storage System, a Spectra® BlackPearl Object Storage Disk System with 500 terabytes for quick recall of active projects, and aSpectra®Stack Tape Library to ensure safe, scalable and economical preservation of its high-resolution digital media.

On the heels of Redshift’s exciting April release that included support for MacOS Metal, the M1 and OSL, Maxon is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Redshift 3.0.46 which includes robust support for OpenColorIO v2, enabling users to achieve more accurate and filmic color through the use of ACES and other custom color profiles. For users this offers significant enhancements to workflow with lots of new options and additional parameters including when employing ACEScg rendering space Redshift will automatically use the correct color space for blackbody temperature on lights, melanin on hair, dispersion in the rsMaterial and the physical sun/sky. This latest version of Redshift also supports the ability to choose colors within a color space in those host applications that already support OCIO.

FilmLight, the leader in colour management technology, has announced a new programme of awards which will honour colourists and the art of colour worldwide. The awards are being organised in association with professional bodies and are open to colourists using any grading technology, with the winners announced at EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2021 in Poland.

SMPTE® will launch its new SMPTE + series with "Expanding the Color Universe: The Next Frontier in Imaging," a hybrid of interactive events and on-demand content exploring expansion of color systems beyond RGB toward the outer limit of what the eye can see and the "colors in-between the colors." This first of four SMPTE + events slated for 2021 will feature a half-day of live presentations, chats, demos, and panel discussions featuring technologists, creatives, and NASA experts, plus a complementary content library that allows SMPTE + subscribers to delve more deeply into the topic. The live programming will begin at 10 a.m. EDT on June 3.

Amsterdam based 3D animation studio Colorbleed used Fusion Studio to create trailers for the announcement and launch of the video game 9 Monkeys of Shaolin.

The 15th annual HPA Awards took place online on November 19, celebrating fifteen years honoring brilliant and transformational work by the individuals and companies raising the bar on storytelling.

Teradek announced today the compact Bolt 4K LT and integrated Bolt 4K RX Monitor Module--powerful additions to their groundbreaking Bolt 4K wireless HDR video platform. Powered by the same revolutionary 4K chipset found in the previously released Bolt 4K, Bolt 4K LT delivers significant image quality and performance enhancements to the prior HD generation of Bolt products, at no additional cost to consumers.

Barnfind Technologies, an international leader in fiber transport solutions, has announced that it’s delivered fiber communications infrastructure systems to several hospitals in Eastern Europe. Working in cooperation with its Czech Republic partner, KASO TOGA s.r.o. Barnfind has provided products from its BarnOne and BarnMini series to be used for the integration, control and routing of video signals to/from a variety of operating rooms and hospital auditoriums, offices and theaters. Barnfind’s technology is an essential component in the conversion, transportation and routing of images up to 4K/60fps standard, critical requirements in Telemedicine applications.

Autodesk today unveiled Flame® 2021, introducing new features aimed at innovating and accelerating creative workflows for VFX, color grading, look development, and editorial finishing. Flame 2021 increases workflow flexibility for artists, expands A.I. capabilities with new machine learning-powered human face segmentation, and simplifies finishing for streaming services with new functionality for Dolby Vision HDR authoring and display. By popular demand, the release also adds a new GPU-accelerated Physical Defocus effect as well as finishing enhancements to make it easier to adjust looks across many shots, share updates with clients, and create beautiful work, faster. Flame®, Flare™ and Flame® Assist 2021 are available at no additional cost to Flame Family 2020 subscribers. To learn more, visit: https://www.autodesk.com/flame/

Barnfind to Offer SFP-16 Option that Brings More Interfaces and Additional Future-Proof Functionality to BTF1-41 12G Frame at NAB 2020

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.

One of the most awaited drama series of 2019, His Dark Materials, produced by Bad Wolf for BBC and HBO, was finished at Technicolor in London. With a story set in a parallel universe that seems like the Britain of a century ago, and with fantastic elements such as giant armoured polar bears and ever-present “daemons” – animal representations of the human soul – the production is a tour de force of visual effects, and therefore somewhat demanding of the colourist, Jean-Clément Soret.

“Over the eight episodes of series one there were four directors and DoPs,” Soret explained. “Justin Brown was DoP for the first two episodes, and I had worked with him a lot in the past on commercials so we had a strong understanding of where we wanted to go. I was really happy to be able to collaborate with him again.

“Justin shot some tests – with the real locations, actors and costumes – in both 35mm and digital,” he continued. “It always surprises me how different film looks! What the tests did was allow us to create a core feel. The decision was also made to add a bit of subtle film grain throughout the episodes. The Technicolor colour science team in LA then created a LUT for Baselight, which gave us that same film feel with the digital footage.”

One of the challenges of the story – based on a trilogy of novels from Philip Pullman – is that each human character has a daemon, and humans are rarely seen on screen without their daemons around them. That meant a large number of VFX shots to insert the CGI daemons. “I found that when it came to the integration of the VFX, contrast and colour was key. The film LUT, together with the control of sharpness and softness from Baselight, was a great help.”

The first series – based on Northern Lights, the opening novel of the trilogy – moves from an Oxford college bathed in warm sunshine to “The North”, Pullman’s name for the Arctic, where the first battles take place. “We may have set the feel in the first episode, but the story develops through different worlds and different eras, so the grade naturally develops,” Soret said.

“With different directors and DoPs across the series, the colourist has to provide the backbone of the look, to create consistency while respecting each cinematographer,” he added. “Baselight allowed me to set the key looks then develop them naturally, freeing me from a constrained palette and allowing us to create a convincing visualisation of this rich and complex story.”

As well as remarkable creative control, the Baselight grading facilities at Technicolor also provided critical support in the workflow, by giving free access to all the raw footage from the series as well as the VFX shots as they developed. The practicalities of creating eight hours of premium drama in a television timescale meant that grading on specific episodes took place when directors and DoPs were available for supervision. That meant that Jean-Clément Soret could be working on three or four episodes at any one time.

The result is an engaging, enthralling drama that looks ravishing and chilling in turn. This first series is broadcast on BBC1 and HBO in November and December, while the second series is already in production.

Coinciding with Apple’s launch of the latest Mac Pro workstation, 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 – today announced a new, annual rental model for Colorfront Express Dailies that dramatically reduces the cost of operating the software.

Launching in Q1 2020, Colorfront’s subscription service enables users to rent Express Dailies 2020 for an annual fee of $5,000 USD, including maintenance support, updates and upgrades. Additionally, the availability of Apple’s brand-new Pro Display XDR, designed for use with the new Mac Pro, makes on-set HDR monitoring, enabled by Colorfront systems, a more financially viable proposition than ever before.