Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/118463
26 Monday, April 8, 2013 BLACKTRAX AND RUSHWORKS ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR CAMERA OPERATORS Visitors to NAB have the opportunity to witness one of the most revolutionary collaborations of technology, bringing together automated tracking and robotic cameras. The award-winning BlackTrax tracking solution and RUSHWORKS VDESK robotic camera technology are now working together to deliver a truly automated production environment unlike anything on the market today. BlackTrax is a powerful, accurate and cost-effective tracking technology solution that delivers precise 3D and 6D positioning to controllers for interfacing automated/robotic technologies used extensively in event production. Using proprietary IR and RF, it delivers dynamic streaming positional data with six degrees of freedom (x, y, z, plus roll, pitch and yaw) to 3D and spatial audio, automated lighting, multimedia servers and robotic cameras―all at the same time, in realtime. Anything tagged with a flip phone sized battery-powered BTBeacon, which carries an IR LED, gyroscope, accelerometer, and tiny wireless radio, is tracked inside the space of up to 160 feet in diameter at more than 100 frames per second by overhead BTCams, while its orientation is communicated by RF directly to the BTServer. Should the IR line of sight become momentarily obstructed, the BTBeacon's onboard Inertia Measurement Unit (IMU) provides double-redundant 3D positioning via its tiny radio transmitter. RUSHWORKS is well known for its automation and production solutions, ALIST and VDESK, which are marketed to TV stations, municipalities, educational institutions, houses of worship and CINEFLEX: CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF QUALITY AND INNOVATION IN FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCTION When introduced in 2003, the Cineflex HiDEF set a new standard in digital cinema. An agile system that delivered clarity and precision with unparalleled gyro-stabilization, the Cineflex HiDEF became the premiere choice for aerial productions. Flash forward 10 years later and Cineflex continues to lead the industry in image quality and system versatility with the Cineflex ELITE. Through the integration of best-in-class cameras and lenses with a five-axis gyro-stabilized gimbal assembly, the Cineflex ELITE brings Super 35 Format digital productions to an entirely new level, by providing exceptional range-performance and unmatched precision and stability. Cinematographers count on Cineflex camera systems to capture the defining moments of high-profile sporting events, real-time news events, televisions series and blockbuster movie productions. Although originally designed for helicopters and fixed-winged aircraft, Cineflex's rugged reliability and compact, lightweight design allows it to be quickly and easily rigged to a variety of platforms, from boats to cars to rail systems and nearly anything in between. The superior range-performance and stability of the Cineflex family of camera systems ensures the accurate images and precision pointing that directors and cinematographers need. Whether traversing the top of Mount Everest or the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, Cineflex delivers the highest level of stability to LYRICAL LABS RAISES THE BAR ON ENCODING SOLUTIONS An interview with Ed Ratner, CTO/Founder, Lyrical Labs LLC. BSD: What does Lyrical Labs do? ER: We offer encoding solutions for modern video formats. Our offerings include an in-the-cloud service and a hardware appliance. BSD: What is unique or differentiated about the solutions offered by Lyrical Labs? ER: Our solutions are based on a proprietary approach to encoding and are protected by several pending patents. We are able to generate bitrates that are, on average, half the size of other H.264 encoders at comparable quality. BSD: Is this a new "codec?" Will there need to be a proprietary decoder? ER: Not at all. This is a novel approach to standards based-encoding that produces a completely H.264 standardscompliant bitstream which can be decoded by any standard H.264 decoder. Our HEVC solution also produces a standards-compliant HEVC bitstream. BSD: What H.264 profiles do your encoding solutions support? ER: We support high, main and baseline profiles along with the H.264 level specification. So any H.264 decoder that supports a given profile and level will be able to decode our streams encoded with those settings. Broadcasters Show Daily entertainment venues. The VDESK point-of-difference enables a single operator to produce multi-camera shows―with no camera operators required. RUSHWORKS controls virtually all makes and models of stand alone PTZ cameras using serial or IP protocol, as well as pan/tilt heads used with LANC compatible camcorders. So the combination of BlackTrax and RUSHWORKS integrated camera control provides an unbeatable production combination for robotic video tracking. RUSHWORKS camera control uses X-Y-Z positional data to create presets associated with user-named objects. Using a touch screen you just touch that object – represented by a picture of a person or an icon – and the camera goes to the preset coordinates in about one second. The dynamic positional data for the camera is determined by the preset coordinates or from BlackTrax when a camera is set for auto-tracking and LOCKED perform in the harshest of environments. In addition to its reliable performance in the air, on water and on rough terrain, the Cineflex family of products is exceptionally mobile. The Cineflex Media, Cineflex HiDEF and Cineflex ELITE each weigh less than 100 pounds, allowing cinematographers to affordably transport the equipment as excess baggage on commercial flights. Furthermore, Cineflex camera systems can be easily rigged by a single person in under an hour. This unrivaled capability provides directors, cinematographers and broadcast news stations with the ease-ofuse and flexibility they need to get the breathtaking images that capture viewers' imaginations. Designed with close collaboration between cinematographers and General Dynamics' engineers, the growing family of Cineflex products is delivered by General Dynamics Global Imaging Technologies, a provider of high-performance camera systems and compoBSD: What about audio encoding? ER: Our audio encoding is industry standard. We encode in both AAC and MP3 formats and, for AAC, we support surround sound encoding. BSD: What file formats do your encoder support? ER: For archived content, we provide .mp4, .flv, and .3gp file containers. For live encoding, we provide HLS and RTMP encapsulation. BSD: You say that your bitstreams are half the size of those produced by others. How was that determined? ER: At this point we have run more than a thousand test videos through our system for comparison with other encoders. We have done some of the comparisons ourselves, but most of the testing has been carried out in partnership with our ON™ a BTBeacon. So in either case, camera operators are not required. The same applies to automated lighting instruments receiving data from BlackTrax. No lighting operators are required either. Users simply boot up the BlackTrax server and attach the BTBeacons on whomever or whatever the robotic cameras and automated lights need to follow. Performers can move anywhere at any speed inside the designated space and the cameras and lights will follow. Demonstrations will be held in booth C5640 during NAB, and are sure to attract production professionals at all levels. For more information, visit booth C5640 at NAB. For information about RUSHWORKS, go online to www.rushworks.tv, call 888-894-7874 or email rush@rushworks.tv. For information about Blacktrax, www.cast-soft.com/blacktrax, call 877-989-2278 or email Reza Shokraie at rshokraie@cast-blacktrax.com. nents. With a decade of delivering the clarity filmmakers expect and the quality viewers demand, General Dynamics is committed to the growth and evolution of the Cineflex family of camera systems. From major motion pictures to broadcast television to high-profile sporting events, Cineflex will continue to develop innovative, quality products that capture defining moments and deliver crystal clear imagery to the world. For more information, visit booth C5046 at NAB 2013, call +1 530.271.2500, email info@cineflex.com and go online to www.cineflex.com. customers. They would encode test content using the encoder they had been using with their standard settings such as resolution, bitrate, profile and level. Then they would encode on our system keeping everything the same, but the bitrate. They would lower the bitrate until the quality of the two encodings matched. We have been compared to more than a dozen other encoders with a range of profile, level, and resolution settings. Our gains varied between 20 and 80 percent, with the average being about 50 percent. We welcome potential customers to try Lyrical Labs encoding for themselves with no cost or obligation. For more information, visit booth SU10624 at the NAB Show, go online to www.lyricallabs.com, call 630-621-9264 or e-mail info@lyricallabs.com.