Nokia and Disney announced a partnership whereby Disney filmmakers and marketing teams will use Nokia’s 360-degree OZO virtual reality cameras to create VR content across all the studio’s brands. The studio has already used the OZO for two promotional pieces for “The Jungle Book,” one of them a 360-degree roundtable interview with director Jon Favreau and the cast, the second a red carpet experience at the film’s Los Angeles premiere. Other Disney brands that could use the OZO are Marvel and Lucasfilm. Continue reading Disney to Produce More VR Content with Nokia OZO Camera

At NAB 2016, Globo Play TV program manager Marcos Rayol described that the Brazilian broadcaster’s OTT effort, Globo Play, offers simulcast, VOD and 4K in the cloud. Developing the concept was the most difficult part. “We spent a lot of time developing interfaces,” he said. “Once we began coding it, it was very straightforward.” Brazil has 115 million people with Internet access, 38 percent of whom have broadband connections. Of the 80 million with smartphones, only 34 percent accessed video in 2015. Continue reading TV Globo Brazil Debuts OTT Simulcast, VOD, 4K in the Cloud

Two companies at last week’s NAB Show, Sphericam and Liquid Cinema, are making interesting contributions to the advancement of VR Cinema. Sphericam is preparing to launch a 6-sensor, 4-microphone spherical camera the size of a baseball into the prosumer market. The camera can internally stitch at 30 fps and, with an attached PC, output 60 fps live video. Liquid Cinema has developed a comprehensive yet simple-to-use software package for editing VR footage, adding effects, and, most interestingly, re-establishing the director’s intent for where viewers should look at cut-points within the video. Continue reading NAB 2016: Sphericam and Liquid Cinema Look to Advance VR

In a panel on the business of VR during ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB 2016, moderator Scott Lenet, president of Touchdown Ventures, asked panelists what will determine critical mass for VR. “All these new industries start with a lot of confusion over the right business model and technology,” said Reality Lab chief executive Halsey Minor, who is also chair/co-founder of Voxelus. “VR is right in the middle of that early confusing stage. But I do believe that this wave will move faster than any before it — by a longshot.” Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit Dives Into the Business of VR

During ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB in Las Vegas this week, panelists, moderated by Fox Networks Group executive vice president of technology solutions Chris Blandy, considered the challenges in their experiences in producing live streaming VR. Fox Sports Media Group senior vice president of field and technical operations Michael Davies reports that, there are “some things you might think are captivating that aren’t.” “Some things surprise you,” he suggested. For example, “Boxing was great — we got a great camera position.” Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit on Live Streaming Production

A compelling panel on audio technology during ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB emphasized audio’s importance to effective VR storytelling. Moderator Jacqueline Bosnjak, Q Department chief executive/partner, recalls how, when she saw “Catatonic,” a VR experience from Vrse, she immediately knew she had to work in virtual reality. She asked panelists about their approach to VR projects. “The thing we’re all exploring is bringing depth to the timeline,” said Felix & Paul Studios director of sound technology Jean-Pascal Beaudoin. Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit Stresses Importance of Audio

ConductorIO VP of business development and operations Monique Bradshaw talked about the paradigm change from local, on-premise infrastructure to the cloud. “The paradigm shift means a fundamental change in approach of underlying assumption,” she said during an ETC Cloud Innovation Conference keynote at NAB. “We’re seeing a big change in the ways that companies are looking at their rendering.” In five years, she noted, 90 percent of respondents to a survey think they’ll have at least some of their rendering in the cloud, up from close to 60 percent today. Continue reading Cloud Conference: Moving From Local to Cloud Infrastructure

During ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit at NAB 2016, ETC VR/AR program lead Phil Lelyveld explained the continuum from augmented reality to virtual reality, adding that most of what we’ll be seeing is a mixed or blended reality. VR is predicted to be worth a tremendous amount of money: Goldman Sachs estimates $18.09 billion in entertainment by 2025, and DigiData puts that number at $30 billion. Among the top things that consumers would like to do with VR now, according to Ericsson ConsumerLab, is examine items when online shopping. Continue reading ETC’s Virtual Reality Summit Details the Current State of VR

Visual effects and rendering in the cloud was the topic of an ETC Cloud Innovation Conference panel at NAB 2016, moderated by Google Cloud Platform senior product manager Srikanth Belwadi. The scope of the issue was made clear by the fact that “The Good Dinosaur” required 110 million compute hours and 300 TB of active data space. Panelists from Thinkbox, Shotgun, Rodeo FX, Avere Systems, and ConductorIO discussed the challenges to producing VFX in the cloud — but also its inevitability.
Continue reading Cloud Conference: Challenges to Rendering VFX in the Cloud

“Being There – Virtual Reality News and Documentaries” was the title of a panel on VR journalism at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. Panelists included senior journalists from Sky, RYOT, Condition One, and USA Today Network, as well as one of Google’s lead VR evangelists. Lessons learned include the importance of proximity (e.g. close-ups), making sure that everyone on the team has experience with the key steps in the workflow so they understand the process and can fill in for others, and the need to experiment and fail. The panelists hope that post-production tools improve soon so a greater portion of their time can be spent planning and shooting stories. Continue reading NAB Panel Addresses Impact of VR on News, Documentaries

At NAB 2016, Google president of global partnerships Daniel Alegre gave the closing keynote on how television is transforming. “If you search for the term ‘TV is dead’, you’ll find 338 million results,” said Alegre. The TV set and viewing of our childhood, he explained, is gone, as the TV evolves to incorporate a computer and the hours of video viewership continue to climb. “A newer better TV is rising from the ashes, better than ever,” said Alegre, who noted mobile video is predicted to be responsible for 80 percent of all Internet traffic by 2018. Continue reading Google’s Daniel Alegre on Perils and Promise of the New TV

At NAB 2016, RED Digital Cinema president Jarred Land gave the press an overview of progress the company has made with the 8K Vista Vision sensor for its Weapon Cinema camera. Land reports that “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” is shooting with sensors, which are not yet widely available. RED is also carving a new path of openness to third party manufacturers, including the announcement that its Weapon, Scarlet-W and RED Raven cameras can now shoot in Avid DNxHR and DNxHD recording formats via a free firmware update. Continue reading RED on 8K Production, Third Party Tools and Avid Integration

At NAB 2016, at the VR Pavilion in the North Hall, Assimilate introduced new tools for VR production, marking an ongoing maturation of the production workflow. The company’s big news was the introduction of user-friendly review and approval, which up until now has been a cumbersome and complex process. Also new from Assimilate for VR is real-time output to the Oculus Rift, support for mono and stereo footage, to output a secondary monitor in 360-degree mode, and some new VR grading tools. Continue reading Assimilate Introduces Client Approval Tool for VR Production

Sony DADC NMS (New Media Services) CTO and head of strategy Andy Shenkler keynoted ETC’s Cloud Innovation Conference at NAB 2016 in Las Vegas. Rather than talk pure technology about the cloud, Shenkler preferred a more unique angle: piracy. “The place I want to start is around competition in the OTT space specifically,” he said. “When we talk about OTT, the usual suspects are Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, HBO GO, and so on. But we’re not really looking at the biggest competitor out there: piracy.” Continue reading Cloud Keynote: Sony Exec Recommends Learning from Piracy

At ETC’s Cloud Innovation Conference at NAB 2016, Variety editor David Cohen led a discussion with Avid chief executive/president Louis Hernandez Jr. “It’s been a remarkable journey,” Hernandez said. “With Avid Media Central, we wanted to connect people. We took our standalone applications and put them where they could be shared. Now you’re seeing a rapid expansion of the apps you can purchase: We have a record number of third party apps indexed on a common operating system. This is the direction that things are going.” Continue reading Avid Chief Talks Third Party Apps at ETC Cloud Conference