Client News

Wasabi for media-scale cloud storage solutions

GB Labs, innovators of powerful and intelligent storage solutions for the media and entertainment industries, is now a member of the Wasabi partner network. Wasabi is known for its Hot Cloud Storage, a disruptively simple storage technology that delivers speed, productivity and price benefits.

“Everyone is talking about cloud storage, but the typical cloud model does not match what media users need,” said Howard Twine, chief product officer at GB Labs. “Our industry needs to store a lot of large files, potentially for a long time, and it needs to be able to download those files when it needs to broadcast or repurpose content. The Wasabi cloud model plays straight into those requirements, making it the perfect fit for media.”

Wasabi has disrupted the cloud storage model by significantly reducing costs and eliminating the egress charges that distort the offering for media users and their large file downloads. Add faster and ready access, and Wasabi offers a simple route to effectively infinite storage capacity. This makes it ideal for media applications, and particularly for archive storage.

GB Labs identified Wasabi as an ideal partner for its Unify Hub appliance. This media management platform applies intelligence to combine on premise storage – from GB Labs and other vendors – with the cloud, providing a working environment which is simple and fast, with tools for maximum productivity in production, post production and continuing storage. Unify Hub’s ability to intelligently manage data presents all content as a single, secure and coherent source, while minimising delays in moving material between the user and the cloud.

“Unify Hub and Wasabi make a perfect partnership, because our software brings intelligent management of storage, moving content between local stores and the cloud, taking capacity and speed of access into account, so you get to be as productive as possible,” said Twine.

The new partnership, already benefitting one leading US production company, means that users can create their own Wasabi account online, which takes moments, and immediately integrate it into a Unify Hub network. Users without Unify Hub can still get all the benefits of Wasabi cloud storage by linking it to GB Labs on-site storage hardware.

GB Labs sets out vision for the future at HPA

GB Labs, innovators of powerful and intelligent storage solutions for the media and entertainment industries, is proud to be involved in the inaugural 2021 virtual HPA Tech Retreat (15 – 24 March) as a gold sponsor. Through debating the change, turmoil and incredible technological advancements seen last year, and being planned, GB Labs is looking forward to being part of this year's HPA sessions – giving a thought leadership presentation, as well as discussing how remote and home working can co-exist with top-end creative media workflows.

“We are taking a very active role in the HPA Tech Retreat this year because it is widely recognized as a place where professionals in the industry come together and really share knowledge and experience,” Dominic Harland, CEO/CTO GB Labs said. “The open and collaborative atmosphere reflects what we are looking to achieve in creating shared production workflows. We are excited to be part of a broad sweep of industry leaders debating the creative future.”

As well as presenting on how vision and ambition can work in harmony with powerful and intuitive technology, GB Labs is also hosting a number of roundtables debating the storage challenges of the future and how remote working can be designed for ultimate and secure workflows.

Full information on the event can be found HERE.

Cinegy expands further with Akratek joining Cinegy AŞ Business Partners

Cinegy GmbH, global leader for broadcast playout software in the cloud, is pleased to announce Akratek as the latest of its business partners. Cinegy AŞ opened in Istanbul at the beginning of 2020 and since then, the Turkish office has been busy expanding its business relationships with local service integrators and representatives.

Akratek is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary and has been serving the media industry for many years both as a system integrator and as a provider of a wide range of locally produced equipment. CEO Selahattin Acaroglu from Akratek said, “Throughout our 10 years’ of business, we have worked with dozens of local, satellite and national TV channels, have helped set-up most of the university radio and television studios located in Turkey and have had the opportunity to work closely with foreign TV channels of Middle Eastern origin.”

Acaroglu went on to describe how they have been following Cinegy's product developments for many years. “We are delighted that we can now offer the whole suite of their integrated and modular solutions to our customers. Cinegy AŞ has been quickly established with strong staff who know both the products and the broadcast industry very well.”

Soon after the partnership agreement was signed, detailed training was given by Cinegy to the Akratek project team, enabling them to quickly get to know the products and solution opportunities - Video Server, News Automation, Archive, Editing, Graphic CG, Prompter, etc.

"Technology brands and products are very close in terms of functionality and quality” Acaroglu continued, “And in the field of automation, it is not easy to find companies who can provide a wide range of integrated solutions. Cinegy, as a brand, can satisfy customers easily with an efficient workflow, ease of installation and local support.

Software and information technology infrastructures have become indispensable parts of the media world. Conventional device manufacturers cannot easily adapt to the fast-paced IT developments such as the move to UHD and 8K. Software-based products like those offered by Cinegy, however, are developing faster with high added value.

Murat Küçüksaraç COO of Cinegy AŞ confirmed, “We are delighted to strengthen our existing business by welcoming Akratek to our partner infrastructure. Their knowledge and experience perfectly complement the other partners, as well as our focus, and we are looking forward to working with them more closely in the future.

Cinegy's customer portfolio in Turkey consists of many of the largest local media groups, training institutions and corporate customers. With its business partners, Cinegy AŞ can better respond to its customers' ever-changing and developing workflow and transformation needs faster and with a better quality of service.

Bringing Australia Day to life remotely

Production automation specialists nxtedition worked with Talbot Productions and Broadcast Solutions to create a virtual, streamed gala evening for the UK’s celebration of Australia Day 2021. The event, streamed live to invited guests, included music, special messages from famous Australians living in the UK and even a wine tasting.

The Australia Day Foundation, which raises funds to provide financial help for Australians to further their education in the UK, holds an annual gala, on Australia Day (23 January), in Australia House in London. The ban on gatherings because of covid-19 ruled this out in 2021, but the organisers were keen to create the same atmosphere virtually.

While the host, comedian Bec Hill, and musical theatre star Daniel Koek and band were in Australia House, to maintain social distancing there was a minimum crew on location, with nxtedition technology providing remote production. The 1080p output of three cameras, plus the mixed live audio, were packaged using Dream Clip Barracuda encoders into an SRT stream and sent over the public internet to nxtedition’s data centre, 1000km away in Malmö, Sweden.

nxtedition’s Adam Leah, working from his home studio in Marieholm, a further 30km away, switched the programme live using nxteditions automation and shotbox to control the router, video servers, graphics servers, vision mixer and audio desk back at the Malmö data centre. He also played in pre-recorded elements of the evening to create the complete live event. As well as being delivered to the ticket holders, the nxtedition system also sent a reverse video feed of the live output back to London, again as SRT over the internet, along with the prompter script and Trilogy communications.

“The client wanted the same high production values as we are used to delivering in real life,” said Charlie Talbot of Talbot Productions. “I had worked with nxtedition before, and I knew just how incredibly powerful their remote production capabilities are. Everyone was really impressed with the way we tackled the challenges of creating an engaging and immersive virtual gala dinner. Even when we can ease the restrictions on people, remote production is going to be the way to go on events like this, reducing the crew we need on site without compromising quality or capabilities.”

For nxtedition, Adam Leah said “We created an entire evening’s event, with six people on site: three cameras, two lighting operators and an audio mixer. Because of the way that nxtedition is designed, I could monitor and switch the show based on the script, with pre-recorded inserts dropping in as we got to the right point in the show. Even though it was a long event and I was the only person in control of the production it was not stressful. This is another exciting demonstration of the capabilities of remote production to deliver very high standards to a whole range of events.”

diguise endorses StarTracker for xR

StarTracker is Mo-Sys’s precision 6-axis camera and lens tracking system, designed for use with xR stages, LED volumes, and green/blue screens, for broadcast or for film VFX production. Along with real-time photo-realistic graphics, and real-time compositing, these three technologies have enabled the current explosion in virtual production for both VFX-heavy feature films, television series, and sports production.

“We are delighted that not only has disguise selected StarTracker for demo usage in its local offices,” said Mike Grieve, Commercial Director of Mo-Sys, “but also that their customers are adopting StarTracker technology for xR shows, events, and virtual production.”

Virtual production, according to multiple industry reports, is set to grow substantially throughout 2021. Key cost savings over traditional production workflows include savings on locations, as these can be scanned using photogrammetry techniques and re-created as highly detailed real-time 3D environments. In addition, by capturing VFX shots in camera, post-production compositing is either reduced or removed entirely.

Tom Rockhill, Chief Commercial Officer of disguise, commented, “It’s important to us that disguise offers customers flexibility as they embark on a journey with our xR technology. Mo-Sys StarTracker is a great choice for customers looking to get into xR or virtual production. It’s a robust and well liked solution and many of our clients have made an investment in StarTracker to support their stage and LED volume builds.”

Discover the disguise xR solution here: web.disguise.one/learnmore

Mo-Sys Forges AR Partnership With VividQ

Mo-Sys™ Engineering (www.mo-sys.com), world leader in precision camera tracking solutions for virtual studios and augmented reality, has joined in partnership with VividQ, pioneers in computer-generated holography for next-generation augmented reality (AR) displays. This allows 3D holographic projections to be placed precisely in real space, enabling users of future AR devices, like smart glasses, to explore virtual content in context with the natural environment.

Mo-Sys StarTracker is a proven and powerful camera tracking technology, widely used in television production and other creative environments for applications from virtual studios to realtime set extensions. It provides precise location for the camera in XYZ space, and with free rotation.

VividQ software for computer-generated holography is used in innovative display applications from AR wearables, to head-up displays. Holography - the holy grail of display technologies - relies on high-performance computation of complex light patterns to project realistic objects and scenes, for example in AR devices. VividQ generates holographic projections which, thanks to the precision location of Mo-Sys, can be displayed to the user at the correct place in the real environment. This is a major advance on today’s AR devices where flat (stereoscopic) objects are mismatched with the real world. By presenting holographic projections with depth, the user’s eyes can focus naturally as they scan the scene.

“The possibilities and applications of augmented reality in realtime devices are only just being explored,” said Michael Geissler, CEO of Mo-Sys Engineering. “We are at the cutting edge of camera tracking; VividQ is at the cutting edge of computer-generated holography, and we are excited to work together to bring some of these concepts to reality.”

Darran Milne, CEO of VividQ added “Our partnership with Mo-Sys is key to understanding the potential of computer-generated holography in future AR applications, developing experiences where virtual objects can blend seamlessly into the real world.”

All Typed Up Helps Audiences Engage with Media

All Typed Up, a well-established provider of transcription services to clients across the full range of service sectors, now offers a range of media subtitling solutions. From popular television programmes, documentaries to one-off video projects, All Typed Up draws on its many years of experience and technological capability to help audiences engage with media.

Based in the UK, All Typed Up specialises in the provision of digital transcription services and subtitling solutions. With over ten years of experience, it offers all the latest in digital technology coupled with solid and reliable customer service.

“With clients from the legal, financial and property sectors, market research firms across the country, as well as in the scientific, legal, medical and educational fields, All Typed Up has been increasingly asked to undertake subtitling work with a focus on post-production scripts for a raft of popular television programmes”, explained Victoria Siddoway, Founder, All Typed Up.

She continued, “All Typed Up has already provided post-production transcripts for UK media companies for a range of popular television programmes, documentaries and reality TV series that are broadcast on some of the major platforms such as Channel 4 and MTV Europe, so providing subtitling solutions was a natural progression.”

Various types of media subtitling options are available including closed or open screen captions with either verbatim transcript of dialogue and conversation with timecoding (along with non-verbal sounds such as sighs and exclamations) or simply the onscreen text version of the dialogue with no additional or contextual information as required.

Strict policies and procedures protect client data at every stage of the process and All Typed Up ensures ongoing compliance to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018.

From start to finish on all projects, All Typed Up provides 24/7 full client support and a streamlined workflow system with secure client access. For more information visit alltypedup.co.uk.

Aviteng Joins Cinegy AŞ Business Partners

Cinegy GmbH opened its Istanbul office Cinegy AŞ at the beginning of 2020 with the aim to provide faster and higher quality services to business partners, system integrators and customers in the local market around the Cinegy workflow offerings. In spite of the Covid-19 pandemic that emerged shortly thereafter, Cinegy AŞ successfully grew and is now pleased to announce the recent addition of Aviteng to its business partners.

Undertaking successful projects as a system integrator, Aviteng continues to expand its brand and solution range with the Cinegy products.

Yücel Bakkal from Aviteng said about the partnership with Cinegy, “Globally, digital storage prices have dropped significantly in the last few years. At the same time, while the processing power of IT hardware increased, it remained more affordable. As a result, while most systems require dedicated storage or dedicated server hardware, COTS solutions have enabled us to build our systems with more capacity, greater flexibility and much lower cost using standard IT equipment based on Intel CPUs with Windows or Linux operating systems. Considering the small number of staff trained in Broadcast IT in our country, Cinegy's open structure IT equipment and software allows IT teams to adapt quickly and with ease. It also speeds up the deployment process in terms of operation. We are very hopeful that we will execute a number of digital archive projects with Cinegy systems in the coming days.”

Cinegy's customer portfolio in Turkey consists of many of the largest local media groups, training institutions and corporate customers. With its business partners, Cinegy AŞ can respond to its customers' ever-changing and developing workflow and transformation needs faster and with a better quality of service.

Murat Küçüksaraç from Cinegy AŞ said about Aviteng's business partnership, “Despite the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, as Cinegy AŞ we continue to offer our services to our customers without interruption, as well as developing our projects and business partner structure. We are delighted to strengthen our existing business partner structure by working with Aviteng going forwards.”

Evolve Technology adds Mo-Sys StarTracker to its inventory and training schedule

Mo-Sys Engineering, world leader in precision camera tracking solutions for virtual studios and augmented reality, has established a partnership with Evolve Technology, which includes an initial purchase of several Mo-Sys StarTracker camera tracking systems. Evolve is a market leader in live events and virtual productions in the US, providing independent technical advice, sales and rental, and training workshops.

The Mo-Sys StarTracker system is unique in using “stars” (reflective dots) positioned at random, usually on the ceiling or lighting grid of the studio or venue. Once learnt, an automatic process, StarTracker can then provide ultimate precision in camera location and orientation through all six degrees of freedom. In conjunction with lens data, it means a virtual environment system, such as the Unreal graphics engine, can be matched to real images from the cameras with perfect stability.

Mo-Sys is the latest of Evolve’s “Trifecta” partnerships (rent, buy and learn). As well as having Mo-Sys StarTracker systems available for rent or purchase, they will also be used as a training aid and will play a key role in virtual production and extended reality workshops. Evolve also plans highly targeted courses on StarTracker lens calibration. These courses are expected to begin in April.

“Our job is to keep up-to-date with the best technology, doing all the legwork so you don’t have to,” said Tyler Mayne, CEO of Evolve Technology. “We looked at the market, and we saw Mo-Sys StarTracker as the versatile, user-friendly and cost-effective solution. We’re confident in pitching Mo-Sys because it’s a really robust platform.”

One trend Evolve is already seeing is the increasing use of technologies from the live events industry, like augmented and extended reality, used on film shoots, with VFX houses taking a key role to shoot and composite on set in real-time, rather than compositing in post-production, using new technologies such as LED panels.

“We can make things easier for the studios, because they are in the business of telling stories, not technology,” explained Mayne. “We can sell, rent or lease them the entire eco-system, based on the best brands, like Mo-Sys, which is why we are looking at tightening our partnership even further.”

To boost support for this emerging studio business, Evolve is building its first lab in Atlanta, to be shortly followed by a second on the West Coast. These will be fully fitted studios where Evolve will be able to demonstrate the technology, as well as giving VFX houses a place to test out their assets before the shoot.

“We are very excited by this partnership with Evolve,” confirmed Michael Geissler, CEO of Mo-Sys Engineering. “They are a perfect fit for us: not only are they across all the technologies, but they understand the rapid changes in the industry and the way that extended and augmented reality is developing into new areas. We look forward to solving many new challenges with Tyler and his team.”

VETERAN FILM-MAKER JOINS GB LABS TO SPEARHEAD NORTH AMERICAN OPERATIONS

Matt Scott has joined GB Labs, innovators of powerful and intelligent storage solutions for the media and entertainment industries, to further develop the company’s presence in the Americas. As Solutions Architect and Pre-Sales Engineer, Scott will be based in California, and work with both resellers and end users.

Matt Scott has a long career in creating content. As a post-production supervisor, he has created workflows and delivered drama, reality and documentary projects for theatrical, television, and new media. He is also professor of giant screen and IMAX film-making at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and has worked on multiple IMAX films around the world. That real-world experience makes him an ideal candidate to help other post professionals develop secure and powerful content infrastructures.

“This is obviously a challenging time to join any new company,” Scott said. “But the GB Labs suite of products offer many unique advantages for both on prem and remote workflows that position them for success in these uncertain times. I'm excited to start working with filmmakers and for the near future when I can visit the UK Headquarters and work with the rest of the team!”

Dominic Harland, CEO of GB Labs, added “Matt Scott has a great track record in post-production. GB Labs develops products and solutions that offer incredible performance. This is a match made in heaven, and we are all very excited to have Matt on side. He will be instrumental in developing ever stronger relationships with premium facilities in Hollywood and the whole of the North, Central and South American markets.”