Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Lightcraft Technology Receives 65th Primetime Emmy Engineering Award

VENICE, CA — Lightcraft Technology, developer of on-set virtual tracking equipment and visualization software, has been awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development for its Previzion Virtual Studio System.


Lightcraft's Previzion is a real-time visual effects system that provides a combination of high-precision camera tracking, sophisticated rendering, and VFX quality keying that makes it the ideal solution for use in on-set compositing of virtual backgrounds and CGI characters. The Previzion system can also provide accurate camera tracking metadata for use in post production rendering, as well as on-set visualization for feature films, commercials and high end television production.

Previzion's features combine all of the elements typically encountered in visual effects shots with on-set visualization. This helps producers decrease costs, speed up the turnaround of visual effects, generate on-set previews of complicated VFX shots, and provide better tools to the creative team while shooting. Productions want to get it right the first time, and by providing the DP and director an accurate rendition of a completed VFX shot while actually capturing the green screen elements, costly repeats can be avoided. Previzion is designed specifically to meet these demands in one complete system.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development Emmy is awarded for developments in engineering that are either so extensive an improvement on existing methods or so innovative in nature that they materially affect the transmission, recording or reception of television.

In the 65th Primetime Emmy Engineering Award announcement, the Television Academy stated, "Lightcraft's Previzion Virtual Studio System combines a revolutionary technique to optically track camera movement, with a technology for real-time keying, rendering, and compositing. The system can lock foregrounds and backgrounds with nearly any kind of camera move, including cranes, dollies, zooms, and Steadicam shots. With it, green or blue screen footage can be combined with complex computer generated models or moving HD footage using realistic focus and depth of field, with broadcast quality results. It gives productions the ability to shoot a virtual set with the same freedom they would have in a physical set."

Eliot Mack, CEO of Lightcraft Technology, states, "We are tremendously honored to have received this award from the Television Academy.  We are grateful to our forward-looking customers and partners in the visual effects industry who have helped drive the development of Previzion. Innovation is core to our being at Lightcraft, and we will continue to push ourselves and partner with our customers to create fundamental solutions that advance all aspects of virtual sets and production."

The 65th Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards ceremony was held on Wednesday, October 23, 2013 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, CA.

The 65th Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards are overseen by chair Wendy Aylsworth, SVP of Technology, Warner Bros. Committee members are Stuart Bass, A.C.E., Picture Editors Governor, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; Chris Cookson, President, Sony Pictures Technologies; Kevin Hamburger, Sr. Supervising Producer, "The Talk"; Eileen Horta, Sound Editing Governor, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; David Jensen, Partner, Monitor; Geoff Katz, Vice President, Watchwith; Frank Morrone, C.A.S., Sound Governor, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; John D. O'Brien, Video Control/Consultant "The Big Bang Theory"; Mark Scott Spatny, VP Digital Effects, Stargate Studios; Barry Zegel, Senior Vice President and General Manager, CBS Television City.

The original news item appears here

Monday, October 7, 2013

New Virtual Sets from April Broadcast shipping with Virtual Classic


The newly launched Virtual Classic, from DTeleSat, India has become the 2nd Virtual Studio product to ship with pre-loaded green screen Virtual Sets designed by April Broadcast Pvt Ltd. 

Virtual Classic is a low-cost, Virtual Studio solution focused at the Education and entry level Cable Television industry. Using a single HDMI video camera input and built on industry-standard Blackmagic design video I/O cards, the Virtual Classic is an extremely affordable for these segments.

Last month, NewTek Inc., USA started shipping the new series of the TriCaster, NewTek's versatile multi-camera live video production system, with pre-built green screen backgrounds designed by aprilbroadcast.tv

Additional Virtual Sets across various categories are available on the portal of April Broadcast.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London Selects NewTek TriCaster



NewTek's TriCaster 455 live production system has been chosen by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London to stream live events as part of its an ongoing project to enhance visitor and online experiences.

The Museum purchased TriCaster equipment to live-stream its events via the video channels embedded onto its various Websites.

The V&A team will also use TriCaster to stream content to projectors and screens throughout the museum, while providing video feeds to external websites.

Peter Kelleher, Motion Media Manager, V&A, said: "Bringing live streaming in-house has given us complete control of the production process and allowed us to tailor the service to our requirements. This equipment enables us to mix, encode and stream within a single unit, making it simple to use and cost effective. The graphics elements and transitions of TriCaster are also extremely useful as they add a professional look to our productions and allow changes to be made quickly and easily."

Andrew Lewis, Acting Head of Digital Media, Digital Media Department, said, "We have found video to be a very valuable tool for improving interpretation of objects, exhibitions, special projects and events, both on-site and online. Our Digital FuturePlan aims to create a world-class visitor experience using digital technologies while ensuring our digital products are developed to match the V&A's standards for design quality. TriCaster will be one of many brands that we will engage with to help us to fulfill these aims."

The original news item appears here.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

DTeleSat launches Virtual Classic in India



We welcome the latest entrant to the #VirtualStudio market - DTeleSat launches a single input Virtual Studio solution called Virtual Classic!

#AprilBroadcast is happy to announce that the green screen sets available on aprilbroadcast.tv are compatible with the Virtual Classic.