9 November 2007
Peter Jacksons Park Road Post Production, the leading New Zealand post production facility, has purchased a second Quantel Pablo 4K non-linear color correction system as well as Quantels revolutionary Genetic Engineering teamworking infrastructure. The new set-up will enable Park Road to work simultaneously on several projects, dramatically improving workflow, and deliver sparkling results to clients in much shorter timescales.
Double handling big data files is slow work and inefficient – and time equals money, says Adam Scott, Park Roads Head of DI. By installing a second Pablo and Genetic Engineering, we can share jobs between suites – perhaps conforming in one, doing the grade in the theatre then finishing back in the original suite. With Genetic Engineering, all the media is available instantly to every connected suite; its a much more elegant approach. Clients are a lot more techno-savvy nowadays and demand a better, faster and cheaper result. Thats just what were giving them.
Park Road has also purchased the Sam data server as part of the Genetic Engineering set-up, which will allow its Shake, Combustion and After Effects suites open access to all stored media, further improving workflow. We are also looking at scanning direct into the GenePool from our Spirit datacine, Scott continues, and early next year may also hook it all up to the ARRI scanner and recorders at (sister company) Weta Digital via a dark fibre link.
Park Road recently completed its first 4K project on Pablo, grading Peter Jacksons Crossing the Line short film, which was shot on the Red camera. The speed of Pablo impressed everyone. Operationally in the color grade session it could have been 2K – nobody could tell. In fact there were comments about how fast it was at 4K, recalls Scott. There really isnt anything as fast and complete as Pablo. Now with Genetic Engineering, its a no-brainer; its a great addition to our world-class DI infrastructure.
9 November 2007
Looking to help video professionals easily capture high-quality digital images from either standard- or high-definition video footage, Thomson has announced a low-cost PCI-Express card for PC workstations. The new Grass Valley Pegasus PCI-Express card offers real-time capture of SD and HD video, as well as VGA screen playback. This is made possible because for the first time the powerful Grass Valley HQ software codec from Thomson is now available as a hardware encoder, enabling HD capture to be performed in real-time.
The Pegasus card is perfect for anyone creating or repurposing high quality video content for corporate presentations, or distribution via the Internet or mobile applications. It comes complete with image capture software and a Software Developers Kit (SDK) for system integrators.
This Pegasus card offers HD quality video capture, but without the prohibitively high storage overhead, said Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Thomsons Broadcast & Professional Solutions business unit. This new capture card will enable a broad range of professionals to produce the quality they need to satisfy their clients demands while allowing them to work with both SD and HD source material.
Capturing HD video is very data-intensive, requiring expensive RAID storage. The Pegasus card uses the HQ codec, with its sophisticated compression algorithms, to provide huge storage savings without sacrificing picture quality. The Pegasus PCI-Express card leverages a specially designed HQ-based hardware encoder chip to capture images natively at up to 1920 x 1080/60i and 1280 x 720/60p resolutions. It can also natively display digital signals on a PC at up to 1280 x 1024/60p without down converting the image, and capture video from HDMI, DVI, S-video, and component sources.
In addition, because Pegasus can capture the PC screen display in HD quality, the Grass Valley Pegasus card is the perfect tool for creating training videos and instructional DVDs. The input quality is so clean that subsequent conversions to other distribution formats for example, to mobile phones or the web are cleaner too; and created much more efficiently.
9 November 2007
WORLDSPACE Satellite Radio, one of the world leaders in satellite-based digital radio services, today announced results for the third quarter of 2007 ended September 30, 2007. The Company ended the quarter with 177,644 subscribers worldwide, a loss of 12,689 from the close of the prior quarter, reflecting loss of subscribers in India and the planned cessation of marketing efforts in Europe ahead of the company’s efforts to test and subsequently commence mobile service in Europe. In India, the Company lost 8,713 net subscribers during the third quarter of 2007, reflecting reduced marketing in that region, ending the period with 164,902 subscribers in India, 19% higher than at the end of the third quarter of 2006.
As previously announced, WorldSpace and Fiat Group Automobiles signed a first ever distribution and marketing agreement for satellite radio in Europe. WorldSpace expects that, beginning in late 2008, it will offer customers in Italy, through aftermarket equipment installations available through Fiat’s vast dealership network and other outlets, a mobile satellite radio service with 40-50 channels of music, sports, news and entertainment programming. OEM or factory-installed equipment for Lancia, Fiat and Alfa Romeo models is expected to be available in late 2009. During the quarter, in order to shore up its liquidity, WorldSpace has been engaged in discussions with a variety of potential investors and partners, strategic and financial, about equity and debt financings. The Company hopes to conclude a transaction in the next few months.
WorldSpace Chairman and CEO Noah Samara stated, “We are very pleased with our continuing progress in Italy, as we have now lined up the right partners to make this launch successful, between Fiat, Telecom Italia and Fraunhofer for receiver development. We see great opportunities in this market for a robust mobile service offering, and are confident that, with our partners, we can devise a strategic course to implement our strategy and acquire the financial resources to support it.
“In India, we are operating on a restrained basis,” Samara said. “We are postponing marketing spending until we secure a repeater license that will enable us to provide seamless service to automobiles. We will then be in a position to leverage our streamlined presence in India to launch a successful mobile service there. Over all, we remain confident in the long-term viability and opportunities that our business represents and are encouraged by our initial discussions with a series of potential investors about additional financing.”
For the third quarter of 2007, WorldSpace reported revenues of approximately $3.3 million, roughly flat with revenues of approximately $3.3 million for the third quarter of 2006. Subscription revenue was approximately $1.9 million for the third quarter of 2007, up slightly from approximately $1.8 million in the third quarter of 2006. On a sequential basis, subscription revenues in the third quarter of 2007 were flat with the approximately $1.9 million recorded in the second quarter of 2007.
9 November 2007
The Voice of America’s (VOA) main Internet site, VOANews.com, is currently ranked third in the world as both a Number One Source and Home Page Source in Newsknife’s ranking of the top 10 news sites for the year so far.
Newsknife, a project of the New Zealand software development organization Industry Standard Computing Ltd (ISC), rates news sites on relevance based on analysis of the main Google News site.
For the first ten months of 2007, Newsknife rated VOANews.com as the third-ranked Top Source for news on Google News. VOANews.com was also the third most-cited news source (Home Page Source) on the Google News home page during the same time period. Twenty-five percent of traffic to VOANews.com comes through Google Search and News.
In October, Newsknife ranked VOANews.com as third Top Source for the two top stories on the Google News home page. During this month, VOA’s coverage of the crisis in Burma helped drive traffic to VOANews.com to an all-time high of more than 5 million visits. This is a 16 percent increase over our previous record of 4.7 million visits set in September.
9 November 2007
BBC Arabic has announced that it will host a series of interactive workshops called The World as You See It for aspiring broadcasters across the Arab world. The workshops are announced as the BBC prepares to launch its integrated Arabic-language multi-media offer, a first for the region, incorporating radio, TV and online.
Aimed at developing talented future broadcasters in the Arab world, The World as You See It workshops will be held at universities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Egypt and Morocco (read on for full details).
Experienced BBC journalists will share their knowledge and experience with media students, encouraging them to complete short video packages of stories they believe will be of wide interest. The best work will be featured on the BBC.
Hosam El Sokkari, Head of BBC Arabic, said, The BBC wants to support and develop talent in the region, and these workshops will be a first step in building relationships with the multi-media broadcasters of the future. I have no doubt that audiences to BBC Arabic in the years ahead will be enjoying some of the talent that emerges from The World as You See It. The initiative will also give us the opportunity to see a different young perspective on todays world.
The tutorials with BBC journalists will encourage individuals or teams to create video footage using on-campus facilities and guidance from their tutors. The BBC will provide additional support via online Q&As and downloadable tutorials. All submissions will be evaluated by BBC journalists. All The World as You See It submissions will be in Arabic and a maximum of three minutes long. Full credit will be given to students and their university.
Students at participating universities register for the tutorials online at bbcarabic.com.
The locations and universities are as follows:
UAE
United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain; Sharjah University, Sharjah
KSA
King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah
Palestine
Birzeit University, West Bank Palestine
Egypt
American University in Cairo, Cairo; Al Ahram Canadian University, Cairo; Cairo University, Cairo
Morocco
Mohammed V University, Rabat; Université Hassan II, Mohammedia, Casablanca
9 November 2007
NorCom Information Technology AG has gained a further customer for its NCPower Pro newsroom, planning and production system. An innovative new TV broadcaster based in Kempten, OUTPRO will be covering a wide range of outdoor activities when it goes live at the end of the year. It will be primarily offering high-quality reports, service-oriented contributions and exciting documentation for outdoor sports fans and Alpine lovers.
OUTPRO TV was looking for a media production solution containing all workflow components such as ingesting, research, scheduling, playing out and archiving while also being capable of processing video, audio, graphics and text files.
NorCom offers in NCPower Pro a long-term future-proof solution incorporating open standards meeting all of OUTPROs requirements and additionally permitting it to react flexibly to changes. All processes including research, copy-writing and editing can be performed. As well as this, the status of all contributions from the initial idea to scripts as well as broadcast scheduling and archiving can be monitored at all times. All tasks can be assigned electronically to internal and external, stationary and mobile staff and monitored efficiently. The NorCom solution is being installed on a total of 20 desks at OUTPRO. ‘We have set ourselves the goal of offering an innovative and cost-efficient solution by providing a suitable combination of editorial, technical and creative support,’ explains Viggo Nordbakk, CEO and founder of NorCom Information Technology AG.
OUTPRO is a special-interest broadcaster under the same management as Deutsches Anleger Fernsehen (DAF). After successfully installing NCPower Pro at the financial IPTV broadcaster DAF, NorCom has now additionally been awarded a contract for OUTPRO.
‘We are very pleased to have received the contract for OUTPRO as this confirms the strong trust being placed in NorComs NCPower Pro solution for this interesting project,’ adds Viggo Nordbakk. The decision-makers at OUTPRO were particularly taken with the open software architecture and platform independence. ‘The complete end-to-end integration of the Apple editing solution in NCPower Pro was one of the many strong arguments in favor of this product. Most of the systems which we looked at offered only individual standardized solutions. However, the integrated NorCom system contains everything that we were looking for,’
says Peter Rampp, Managing Director of OUTPRO TV GmbH.
