IBC 2008 – more bang for your buck

Visitors to IBC 2008 certainly got a bigger bang for their buck this year, as growth rockets all round the industry made every day a busy and exciting one.

Visitors got their fill with IBC Big Screen Experience, business briefings, the Digital Signage Zone, Mobile TV Zone, International Pavilion and IBC Awards.

The IBC Big Screen Experience featured an excellent surround system, the finest digital projection using state of the art technology, all tucked up in a Digital Cinema showing the latest demos and previews.

Business briefings are also took centre stage this year. Now in their third year, these briefings allowed exhibitors in the Mobile TV and Digital Signage Zones to get across their messages in new multimedia distribution channels.

Attendees also took in the sights at the Digital Signage Zone, where the latest developments in this area were showcased. Plus there was the Mobile TV Zone and International Pavilion with the New Technology Campus to enlighten and inspire.

Among the exhibitors, Microsoft highlighted advanced media platform technologies and broad partner ecosystem that enable the industry to create and manage endless varieties of media and deliver stunning entertainment experiences to customers. Its content creation and management solutions such as Microsoft Expression Studio, Interactive Media Manager, and enterprise search solutions from Microsoft subsidiary FAST attracted a great deal of attention.

Cintel International demonstrated new features for its range of film scanners and image enhancement tools. The new, faster 4K workflow utilising a dataMill film scanner and DVS’ Clipster running at 5fps allowed 4K data to transfer with the HSDL interface.

Simon Clark, Cintel’s business development manager said, “There are a number of fast 4K scanning speeds being suggested but we are able to achieve a sustained five frames per second without the need for expensive, and almost proprietary, interfaces or any specialised equipment.”

Cintel also showed, for the first time in Europe, the ‘X-Speed’ Digital servo system for the Millennium family of film scanners. This in-field upgrade consists of hardware and software to provide vertical and horizontal stability that exceeds any other constant motion film transport.

Crystal Vision’s new area of speciality, Picturestore gets its European launch at IBC. Picturestore combines the different strengths of solid-state fast reading and writing DRAM and Flash permanent memory to create a series of four picture storage products.

da Vinci showcased its CORE (Cuda Optimized Resolve Engine) technology innovation, introducing new color finishing products based on a high-performance platform. The new system - the R100 - provides an affordable colour grading solution for broadcasters, post houses, and production studios. The R700 is a fast color grading system that reflects da Vinci’s horsepower and features.

The R4K is a true real-time, 4K interactive color grading solution. The R4K’s intuitive interface enables colorists to exercise their full creative capacity while showing their clients pristine images in real time.

Stereoscopic 3-D has become an industry buzzword and da Vinci, in conjunction with its largest customers, has developed the ultimate in-context colour grading solution, the R3D. Using the power of da Vinci’s CORE technology, colorists are able to exercise their creativity while grading for the next generation of stereoscopic visual experience.

In addition to seeing Sony’s entry-level XDCAM EX PMW-EX3 solid state camcorder, visitors at IBC 2008 discovered new solutions for the acclaimed PDW-700 that include an extension of the range’s meta data management capabilities.

Sony’s stand at IBC 2008 showed how Sony’s environmental initiatives went far beyond the basic needs of legal compliance and range across the entire business value chain - from R&D and more efficient manufacturing processes to the use of renewable energy and the voluntary reduction in the use of hazardous substances.

“Managing the environmental impact of our solutions has been a central part of Sony thinking for many years,” said David Bush, director of marketing, Sony Professional Solutions Europe.

Thomson’s post-production solutions group demonstrated the latest developments for the Spirit and Bones product families - the all NEW OptiPin option for the Spirit 4K, Spirit 2K and Spirit HD and the latest Bones Dailies version 4.0. OptiPin is the latest option for the Spirit 4K, Spirit 2K and Spirit HD. This option addresses imperfections on the film side already in the scanning stage such as bad splices, flawed edges or instabilities.

Omneon displayed the MediaPort 5320 series which offers up to four channels of HD/SD record and play in a compact 1-RU package. Fully compatible with existing Spectrum media server systems, MediaPorts provide industry-leading channel density, with all channels available for either record or play in any combination.

Bright Systems showed its new BrightClip intelligent data recording technology integrated with a range of best of breed digital film systems. BrightClip is now integrated by leading manufacturers into their products, offering extensive cost-saving and efficiency benefits to post facilities. Front Porch Digital displayed DIVArchive v.6.1 CSM application, which delivers powerful functionality to meet the evolving needs of global broadcasters. DIVAprotect provides continuous monitoring of storage devices and media performance and warns of degradation before it results in catastrophic data loss while DIVAnalyze adds invaluable content-aware feature to the already rich set available in DIVArchive.

Finally, it was the 3D experience that left a lasting impact. IBC D-Cinema screened Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D, the first live action, narrative film shot in digital 3D.

“Taking Jules Verne’s novel and developing it into an up to date story using modern technology was a tremendously exciting opportunity,” said director Eric Brevig.