Colorfront, the Academy and Emmy Award-winning developer of high-performance, on-set dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, high-end episodic HDTV and commercials ,have announced Colorfront Cloud Services.
This breakthrough business model combines core elements of Colorfront’s industry-leading technology with flexible, high-performance, cloud-based computing options. With Colorfront Cloud Services users can enhance productivity by remotely centralizing processing tasks and storage using a standardized workflow, broaden the collaborative possibilities between creative stakeholders during cinema and TV production and post production, and make significant cost savings by being able to distribute workloads.
Colorfront Cloud Services were developed by Colorfront in response to, and via creative cooperation with, leading Hollywood studios and post production facilities. The power of Colorfront Cloud Services positively impacts, and brings greater flexibility to, workflow design and throughput. This new, distributed service model allows much more efficient use of personnel and technology. Now producers have a wider choice in how workloads are split between on-set, near-set, in a facility or in the cloud, plus powerful tools to control and manage assets in the cloud during the different stages of production.
Using the CopyCentral feature, part of the upcoming 2014 release of Colorfront Express Dailies and On-Set Dailies, users can quickly and securely upload original camera footage, and the associated metadata, to a choice of cloud servers, and then perform and automate a range of key services via a browser/player interface. Encryption provides security of all production media. Initial services to be offered include dailies transcoding, deliverables rendering and visual effects pulls, plus turning over reels for final DI. Users can also harness Colorfront Cloud Services for remote colour grading. Uploaded material and metadata are immediately available to selected stakeholders in the production chain – such as producers, directors, DPs, plus editorial, VFX and audio teams.
Colorfront Cloud Services can be used in conjunction with key partners used in professional productions today. These include the Codex Vault, PIX and DAX dailies viewing systems, workflow production tools such as Shotgun and Creative Cartel’s Joust, Aspera high-speed file transfer, as well as asset management systems from 5th Kind.
“The ever-increasing bandwidth available in many production locations today ushers in the reality of remote, centralized processing and storage, and the irresistible prospect of greatly enhanced workflow efficiencies,” said Bill Feightner CTO of Colorfront. “Colorfront Cloud Services enables a new, powerful and streamlined distributed post-production model. It enables the creatives to focus on the art of the image, rather than having to join the dots with today’s fragmented set of technologies and workflows.”
Colorfront Cloud Services are conveniently accessed via Miso, a Colorfront-developed remote browser and player, allowing only authorised members of the production team to connect to a Colorfront Cloud Services project database and join in the use of the system. Users can collaborate locally or around the world. Miso allows simple laptop-based, secure connection to the project database to view proxies and search all same-day-shot media and metadata. Users can also specify selects and create job templates with burn-in options; create custom bins for review screenings by the director, camera crew, studio executives, plus the VFX, editorial and sound teams; render VFX sequences and conform EDLs; check job statuses, and generate a variety of user-definable QC and progress reports.
Colorfront Cloud Services can be implemented in several flexible ways. Users have the choice of basing their service around Colorfront’s own secure cloud service in Los Angeles, a preferred private data center or facility house, or a range of public, cloud-based servers, such as Amazon Web Services. Using a Gigabit internet connection, one hour of encrypted HD episodic TV footage (such as ARRI Alexa ProRes 4444) can be securely submitted in 15 minutes, while 4K RAW camera footage for a motion picture can be uploaded faster than realtime.
With Colorfront Cloud Services, projects and tasks can now be split between being performed on-set, in a facility, or ‘in the cloud’. For example, the daily essentials of data wrangling, such as ingesting and verifying media, review, playback and QC of material, LTO and disk archival, can be still be achieved on-set. Colorfront Cloud Services can be used to centralize media and metadata, and automate dailies transcoding and on-going deliveries to the editing room, VFX house and other review systems through the lifecycle of a production. Calibrated and color-managed remote viewing and grading for the DP is available as part of the system, using Colorfront’s On-Set Color app for the iPad or the MacBook Pro, to foster the collaboration between the cinematographer and colorist. Producers can choose whether precision color grading and other dailies processing tasks are performed at a local separate location, or use Colorfront Cloud Services to allow these tasks to be distributed to a preferred editorial or grading facility.
“Colorfront Cloud services meet today’s ‘whatever, wherever, whenever’ expectations,” said Aron Jaszberenyi, managing director of Colorfront. “Now, original camera material and other assets can be stored, worked on and managed all in one place. Heavy-iron processing does not need to happen on-set, it can be done easily and cost-effectively in the cloud. Creatives and facilities can collaborate more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Ultimately, producers can make new choices about when and where different tasks and process happen – new efficiencies that will ultimately save time and money.”
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