Archive for April 18th, 2007

Tarzana, CA, April 19, 2007- AvatarLabs, a full-service motion graphics and online design studio for the entertainment industry, has appointed Brick Rucker, Art Director, it was announced today by the company‘s Creative Director/Producer/Designer Rex Cook.

In his role as Art Director for AvatarLabs, Rucker will oversee art direction and design for various Internet movie marketing campaigns on behalf of the company‘s diverse clientele. Currently he is helming the MySpace site for Disney‘s and Pixar‘s newest film due out this Summer, “Ratatouille”. more

NEW YORK, April 19, 2007 – HBO Archives, which launched in 2002, announces its new website, hboarchives.com, enhanced to enable users to conduct dual footage and text searches, as well as accessing showcase reels. “High-speed search, the ability to view and download, and access to tens of thousands of clips, this is a huge step forward for us,” said Rick Bernstein, senior vice president and executive producer, HBO Sports. more

Post House Delivers New Tune-In Promo Each Week For The Nation’s Top-Rated Country Music Program

NEW YORK, NY – Every Thursday night at 10pm on USA Network the drama that unfolds on Nashville Star – the network’s popular talent show with a twang, hosted by Jewel and now in its fifth season – is intense.

Not unlike the intense post-production sessions that unfold every Friday at SoundHound (www.soundhound.com), the award-winning post house responsible for the on-going promo campaign for the show. more

Ciprico, a leading storage solutions provider for content creation, management and delivery applications, will demonstrate a new class of Direct Attached Storage (DAS) using the new PCI Express external cabling standard at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas, April 16-19, 2007.

The new system, based on Ciprico‘s RAIDCore software RAID stack, allows end users to seamlessly add storage in a high-performance switched-DAS-like environment within a single storage cell, creating an extremely high performance storage pod of up to 64 TB based on current hard drive storage capacities. The combination of a performance switched DAS cell with a more scaleable SAN based network allows a cost effective two-tier scalable storage system that meets the demands of bandwidth hungry HD, 2K, and 4K resolution video applications. more

Continuing to redefine its premium display line, JVC is excited to introduce two professional broadcast monitors, the DT-V24L1DU, 24in. monitor and the DT-V20L1DU, 20in. monitor. Featuring 16:9 aspect ratio, wide viewing angle, high-speed LCD and precise color reproduction, these monitors are ideal for broadcast and post-production facilities where image accuracy is vital.

“These multi-format professional monitors were created to meet the demanding needs of broadcast applications where ultra-high resolution, advanced signal processing and color reproduction are extremely important,” says Edgar Shane, senior product engineering manager, JVC Professional Products Company. more

JVC Professional Products Company is introducing a high efficiency Full HD microwave equipped camera system that, for the first time, brings affordable HD microwave capabilities to the ENG/EFP market. The ProHD Libre system provides native 60P HD capture, recording and transmission through a compact, onboard camera-back transmitter developed for JVC by Broadcast Microwave Services (BMS). A fully equipped system, complete with camera, lens, microwave transmitter and receiver can be configured for under $30,000. Previous systems with this capability began at more than $100,000. more

Grass Valley, CA April 16, 2007 – Ensemble Designs today announced the introduction of its BrightEye 90 series of palm-sized HD up/down/cross converters for use in broadcast, sports and mobile applications. The nine new units will be unveiled at booth #SU2326 at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention held April 16-19 in Las Vegas.

The units encompass a variety of feature sets, including up, down, cross, and aspect ratio conversion. Each is equipped with HDMI connectors, which interface with most LCD monitors for convenient confidence monitoring of signal feeds. In addition, each BrightEye can be controlled through either front panel, or Mac and PC software access. more

3D Tool Quickly Takes Root in Pipeline After Artists put it to the Test

San Mateo, Calif. — April 16, 2007 — Luxology® LLC, an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software, today announced that modo™ was used by the Los Angeles-based visual effects company, Zoic Studios, for the FOX action series, “Drive.” An action-packed drama that follows an intense cross country road race, “Drive” relies heavily on movie-quality photorealistic CG shots to amp up the suspense as the actors race for their lives en route to a $32 million prize. Zoic Studios was awarded approximately 120 shots for the series opener and relied upon modo to model and texture several hero elements including a 1970′s Ford pickup truck, a Dodge Grand Caravan and the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse (located in Florida). more

High-quality, Royalty-free Footage Helps Bring Ideas to Life; Many Clips Available in HD

Las Vegas — April 16, 2007 — Artbeats, the industry‘s leading provider of high-quality royalty-free stock footage, today announced the immediate availability of dozens of new collections and solo clips at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention (NAB), booth SL8012. Shown for the first time at NAB, some of Artbeats‘ newest titles include: Burning House; Grow!; Lightning Storms; Storm Clouds 2; Mayhem HD; Code Rage; Timelapse Flowers 3; Protestants; Catholics and many more. Artbeats will also debut dozens of new royalty-free solo clips, which are sold individually and are not part of a specific collection. more

XL Video supplied Production North with plasma and LED screens and a Version 4 Catalyst digital media server, all of which were used as an ‘ambient‘ video system for the Lemar theatre tour. Production North‘s Steve Levitt and Sarah Hollis (also the tour‘s production manager) came up with a set design which also incorporated the video screens. more