Hollywood Post Alliance Announces Engineering Excellence Award Winners

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Thu, 09/10/2009 - 20:00 -- Nick Dager

The Hollywood Post Alliance has announced that three groundbreaking technologies have been honored to receive the organization’s respected Engineering Excellence Award.  The recipients were chosen following a lively and well-attended presentation and judging session late last month at LaserPacific Digital Theatre in Hollywood.   Created to showcase and reward inventors manufacturers vendors and companies for outstanding product or technology application offerings entries had to represent a significant step forward for the post-production industry and were open to any individual group or company meeting the submission guidelines.  Interest in the awards has grown steadily since its launch and this year saw a record number of entrants in the Engineering category. The winners of the 2009 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are: DVS Digital Video Systems Clipster is a complete hardware and software turnkey finishing system.  Its hardware and software tools can be scaled and configured to meet specific digital intermediate finishing real-time RED workflow multi-format deliverable and DCI mastering requirements. Clipster’s unique hardware platform combines the flexibility of general purpose computing with custom designed image processing and acceleration hardware.  Uncompressed image processes up to 4K-resolution can be performed in real time. Clipster is the only single workstation system in the world that offers one-step faster-than-real time DCI mastering and real-time decoding and delayering of full quality RAW Red files. Erik Balladares general manager DVS says The Hollywood Post Alliance is comprised of the most brilliant members of the post community and has served as a longstanding beacon for our industry.  DVS is truly honored to accept this year's Engineering Excellence Award for our advancements with the company's flagship product Clipster.   Signiant Signiant’s Content Distribution Management software was developed to centrally manage secure accelerate and automate the movement of rich media content.  Through a web-based user interface all content transfers can be monitored secured and bandwidth utilization can be adjusted in real-time. Signiant’s workflow modeling engine employs a drag-and-drop method of linking components to create sophisticated sequenced workflows.  Signiant’s CDM software was first developed in 2000 and is used by hundreds of companies to manage the movement of rich media content for the media and entertainment industry. “We thank the Hollywood Post Alliance for this wonderful recognition for Engineering Excellence ” says Tom Ohanian Signiant’s chief strategy officer. “Signiant is dedicated to delivering world class solutions designed to solve the process automation needs of digital media content owners and we are thrilled to be named an HPA Engineering award recipient.” S.Two Corporation OB-1 Uncompressed Digital Recorder is a complete system for providing images from digital cameras to Post. Utilizing DPX based file recording using solid-state flash technology with metadata OB-1 is the smallest lightest uncompressed recorder. The OB-1 is compatible with all digital cameras that support SMPTE 292M or 372M Single or Dual Link HD-SDI.  The system provides for offline editorial deliverables dual uncompressed redundant archiving and integrated negative pull all with quality control points fully adaptable to post industry workflows.  The D.MAG system for post and archive has been used on Oscar winners official selections at Cannes and motion pictures around the Globe. “The team at S.two is proud to be honored by the HPA with an Engineering Award for our ground-breaking OB-1 solid-state on-board recorder for digital cinematography cameras ” says Steve Roach. In announcing the awards HPA president Leon Silverman says “The role of innovative technology in post production simply cannot be overstated; to put it simply it drives our industry. We saw a marked increase in entrants in the Engineering Excellence category this year and the quality of the competition speaks clearly to a superb caliber of engineering vision and talent in the HPA and in the community as a whole. The HPA Engineering Award honors those individuals and companies who have worked diligently and inventively to do something better and ultimately to support the elegant execution of a vision.  Companies like DVS S2 and Signiant propel the industry forward and their value is of vast importance to content creation.” Past winners of the Engineering Excellence Award include; Quantel for Pablo Stereoscopic 3D FastSoft for E Series Internet Accelerator Panasonic for AVC-intra 100 Video Codec Quantel for Genetic Engineering Digital Vision for DVO Image Processing Software MTI Film for Control Dailies and Sony for HDCam SR. The HPA Awards will be held on the evening of November 12th at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.   The HPA Awards recognize the outstanding contributions of post-production professionals working behind the scenes in a number of categories including color grading/DI audio post production compositing and editorial for television feature films and commercials.   In addition to the Engineering Excellence Awards two additional special awards will be given during the Awards ceremony; Paul Haggar one of the best-known names in the post-production community will receive the HPA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Charles S. Swartz Award will be given for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Post Production. Tickets for the gala event are on sale at www.hpaawards.net.