COLORFRONT SHIPS TRANSKODER 2016 WITH CUTTING-EDGE UHD HDR TOOLS AT NAB 2016

8K benchmark performance unleashed and new cloud deployments unveiled

NAB 2016, Las Vegas, April 18, 2016 – Colorfront (www.colorfront.com), the Academy and Emmy Award-winning developer of high-performance, on-set dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, high-end episodic TV and commercials, continues to break new ground as it ships the 2016 version of Transkoder. Colorfront will demonstrate how its latest product seamlessly supports the huge variety of Ultra High Definition (UHD), High Dynamic Range (HDR) workflows, during at NAB 2016 c/o ALT Systems (Renaissance Hotel), and at partner booths on the showfloor – Panasonic (C3607) and Sony (C11001).

Colorfront products directly address industry demand for faster, more flexible processing of the very latest UHD HDR camera, color, editorial and deliverable formats in digital cinema, high-end episodic TV and OTT internet entertainment. With the shipping of Transkoder 2016 Colorfront is yet again pushing back boundaries with an abundance of innovations, and will set new performance benchmarks with 8K demonstrations and unveil powerful new cloud deployments.

Addressing the industry’s most important current themes, the brand-new, industry-leading capabilities of Transkoder 2016 and On-Set Dailies 2016, include:

Extreme performance – dual 4K@60p and 8K: Transkoder runs on the very latest Supermicro and HP workstations, and leverages the extreme performance from NVidia Tesla M60 and Quadro M6000 GPU graphics cards. It is also optimized for HFR HDR UHD/4K@60p display, with Colorfront demos running on Sony’s BVM-X300 and LG's latest 65" 65G6P OLED monitors. NAB 2016 will also see demos of real-time output of RED Weapon 8K material to an 8K Sharp broadcast monitor.

Support for the latest standards/deliverables: Transkoder 2016 includes the latest HDR delivery formats for internet entertainment channels including Amazon and Netflix, enhanced DCI-mastering with 2K, 4K, 3D and High Frame Rates, plus support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Cinema, as well as AS-11 X1 for DPP UHD deliveries and AS02. Transkoder 2016 outputs UHD HEVC deliverables with HDR signaling, at variable bit-rates, with automatic statistical metadata calculations, such as MaxCLL and MaxFALL, and also supports PCM/AC3 audio.

IMF mastering and delivery: Transkoder 2016 leads the market in digital cinema and IMF mastering with support for App2E+ 4K 12 and 16-bit HDR, content validation, HDR metadata inspection as well as frame-accurate playback, transcoding, trans-wrapping and QC-ing of IMF packages, with robust closed-caption and subtitle language support, plus invisible, forensic watermarking from Civolution NexGuard.

Support for HDR workflows:
All Colorfront products already support HDR workflows, and Transkoder 2016 further improves productivity with additional toolsets and support for the latest formats – combining to deliver the ultimate in end-to-end HDR workflow performance and IMF file-based interchange and distribution, including support for Dolby Vision.

• Transkoder features Colorfront Engine, the state-of-the-art, ACES-compliant, HDR-managed color pipeline, enabling advanced, creative on-set look creation and ensuring the color fidelity of UHD HDR materials and metadata through the entire camera-to-post chain.
• Colorfront Engine supports the full dynamic range and color gamuts of the latest digital camera formats and mapping into industry-standard deliverables, including Rec2020, PQ-curve at multiple light levels. By outputting concurrent, real-time grades on both HDR and SDR UHD materials to dual Sony OLED BVM-X300 broadcast monitors, Transkoder allows for concurrent display and HDR/SDR trimming and review, cutting down the time and cost of delivering multiple masters at once.
• The HDR mastering toolset for Transkoder 2016 is enhanced with new statistical analysis tools for immediate HDR data graphing, scopes for video and audio analysis, including vectorscope, HDR waveform, gamut warning and CIE XY monitoring in an analyzer.
• Precision mapping tools for various brightness levels and surroundings, in target color standards, are also supported, while maintaining the image integrity and quality for which Colorfront systems are recognized. Highlights include MaxCLL and MaxFALL calculations, and tone and gamut mapping for a variety of target color spaces including: Rec2020, P3D65, and XYZ, with gamma-based, PQ curve, and BBC/NHK's Hybrid Log-Gamma.
• Transkoder 2016’s brand-new HDR expansion capability will be shown, enabling re-mastering of existing library content for HDR displays.

New cloud deployments:
During NAB 2016 Colorfront will also reveal details of its latest work with leading cloud compute, networking and storage vendors to leverage Transkoder for studio cloud deployments. Transkoder is optimized to run on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud for IMF distribution and delivery, with automated conform, transcoding, automated QC-ing, visible and forensic watermarking, trans-wrapping, proxies, archival and disaster recovery.

Customers of Transkoder, Colorfront’s standalone, high-performance, file-conversion and mastering system include all major Hollywood studios, including Sony, Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Disney and Paramount, leading post houses such as Light Iron, Picture Shop, Deluxe and Technicolor, plus top broadcasters including BBC, NHK and Televisa.

For more information:
Ron Prince, Prince PR
Email: ronny@princepr.com
Tel: +44 7802 447 484

About Colorfront:
Colorfront, based in Budapest, Hungary, is one of Europe’s leading post production facilities. The company was founded by brothers Mark and Aron Jaszberenyi, who together played a pivotal role in the emergence of non-linear DI. The company’s R&D team earned an Academy Award for the development of Lustre, Autodesk’s DI grading system, and a Primetime Engineering Emmy for the Colofront On-Set Dailies. Combining this in-depth expertise with a pedigree in the development of additional cutting-edge software, Colorfront offers today’s most advanced technologies for scanning and recording, DI grading, conforming, digital dailies, VFX, online and offline editing, cinema sound mixing, mastering and deliverables. For further information please visit www.colorfront.com.