IBC Awards acknowledge 3D achievements

In a year when 3D stereoscopic display was a main talking point at the International Broadcasting Congress (IBC) in Amsterdam, the top prize IBC Innovation Awards went to Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert, the remarkable movie that broke a fistful of records when it opened earlier this year.

The IBC Innovation Awards celebrate excellence in technology, but more than that they reward the application of the technology. These are not engineering awards, but instead they honour complete solutions that meet a real commercial, creative or operational need. The prize goes to the user of the solution.

There are three categories in the Awards: for content creation, content management and content delivery. The Hannah Montana movie won for the stereoscopic post production workflow created by LA post house Fotokem Film & Video, based on technology from Quantel including its Pablo 3D and Genetic Engineering. It allowed Fotokem to meet the requirements of its client, Walt Disney Pictures, to complete the movie in an incredibly short timeframe.

“It was pure serendipity when Walt Disney Pictures presented us with this project,” said John Nicolard, head of digital production at Fotokem.

Quantel is one of the world’s leading developers of innovative, high performance content creation systems for post houses and broadcasters. We are passionate about creating the most powerful and efficient tools for the digital age. Quantel technology means business; its systems combine industry-leading performance with total scalability in both hardware and software across post production, graphics, digital intermediate, news and sports production for multiple resolution, team-working environments.

Quantel products deliver unrivalled performance, quality and workflow at SD, HD, 2K, 4K, stereoscopic 3D and beyond.

Together these deliver value systems with outstanding flexibility, capability and performance resulting in the creative, productive and profitable workflows that give post houses and broadcasters the edge they need to thrive and grow in today’s highly competitive global media market.

FotoKem is a full service motion picture post production facility which aims to provide the highest level of quality with the best customer service in the industry. FotoKem’s “one-campus” approach reduces the need to visit multiple facilities and move valuable original elements while finishing productions. FotoKem is known for its exceptional customer service, quality and flexibility in approach to the demanding world of post production.

“The requirements exactly complemented the technical capabilities we had only recently incorporated into our pipeline using Quantel’s 3D technology. The opportunity to work on a project with this magnitude of technical challenge was a deeply satisfying experience.”

The winner of the content management award was NBC Universal for its Micah production workflow. This project, with technical partners Digital Rapids and Signiant, helps NBC prepare and distribute its content for multiple platforms including the web, video on demand and electronic sell-through.

“NBC Universal has a rich history of technical innovation in media, and to have this project recognised amongst our international peers is a fantastic tribute,” said Rab Mukraj, director of digital media delivery at NBC Universal. “The Micah project is an outstanding example of how the close partnership between users and vendors can turn powerful technology into real-world benefits, and we could not have accomplished this without the exception efforts of Digital Rapids and Signiant.”

With the content delivery award the ceremony returned to music. The prize went to producer and distributor Control Room, for its efforts on the Live Earth day of music in 2007. The system, developed with technology partners MSN, Rhozet Technology, EVS, Intelsat, Akamai, Incited Media, Windows Media and QuickTime, delivered live streams and near realtime turnaround of video on demand content onto the MSN portal.

In the largest global broadcast in online history, the system used over 20 channels of video server ingest, 12 channels of playout and 60 encoders, in a workflow environment processing more than 80 hours of content in a 24 hour period.

At the end of the ceremony the whole Hannah Montana team was called back to the stage for the Judges’ Prize in the Innovation Awards. This time they were joined by Todd Cogan of PACE, whose company leads the world in 3D camera systems and shot the music movie.

“PACE is proud to have worked with Disney on every level of the project to raise the bar within 3D and revolutionise the production experience,” said Cogan.

“It’s a huge honour to be recognised in this way by our peers. This business is all about working closely with your customers; the creative partnership between Walt Disney and all those involved that brought the Hannah Montana project to such a successful conclusion in so short a time is a fine example of this philosophy in practice,” Ray Cross, CEO, Quantel. ASIAIMAGE