Winners Named for 2012 HPA Engineering Excellent Award

The Hollywood Post Alliance has announced the 2012 recipients of the organization’s HPA Engineering Excellence Award sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters Show. The winners Sony Electronics Cinnafilm Dolby Laboratories and Crossroads Systems were selected from a large and varied field of technology offerings. The coveted honor is an integral part of the HPA Awards which have become the standard by which creative and technical excellence in the art science and craft of post-production is measured. The 2012 HPA Engineering Excellence Award will be bestowed upon its recipients at a gala event scheduled for November 1 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Leon Silverman president of the Hollywood Post Alliance said “The Engineering Award not only represents the creativity of technology and technical innovation but also helps to enable the creative power of our artistic community. The products and processes that we honor with this award continue to demonstrate the important engineering work that is done ‘behind our industry’s scenes and screens.’ The HPA Engineering Award has become a mark of excellence within our post production community and we are proud to honor these organization with the recognition they have earned through hard work and achievement.” The winners of the 2012 HPA Engineering Excellence Award: Cinnafilm – Tachyon Tachyon the world’s first Standards Transcoder was created to eliminate time-consuming trips to/from SDI hardware when high quality conversions are needed in transcoding workflows. Broadcasters and web/mobile media content providers can leverage Tachyon to simultaneously perform the most complex cadence corrections mixed mode normalizations repair compositing errors and perform standards conversions while simplifying workflows and dramatically decreasing processing times. Crossroads Systems – Strong Box StrongBox is a file-based and fully portable storage solution for long-term data retention. The enterprise-level solution is the first to leverage Linear Tape File System (LTFS) technology combining the scalability of tape with the speed and accessibility of disk. Crossroads believes StrongBox is the industry’s most cost-effective answer to ever-growing data storage requirements seamlessly scaling for today while future proofing for tomorrow. Dolby Laboratories – Dolby Atmos Dolby Atmos delivers a more natural and realistic listening experience that moves sound around and above audiences transporting them into the onscreen adventure. It provides content creators with a new creative freedom to tell their stories and simplifies movie distribution with a single universal package to deliver to audiences the full impact of the artist's intent regardless of theatre configuration. Sony Electronics – F65 Camera Sony Electronics F65 CineAlta digital motion picture camera system derives true 4K resolution using a unique 8K CMOS sensor that has higher resolution increased exposure latitude and wider color gamut than any previous digital motion picture camera.  As part of an overall camera system based on Sony’s SRMASTER open platform the F65 is the gateway to an end-to-end 4K file-based mastering workflow. The F65 camera is currently in use shooting several motion picture and episodic TV productions.   Crossroads Systems is honored to receive a 2012 HPA Engineering Excellence Award for its StrongBox data archive product said David Cerf executive vice president of corporate and business development at Crossroads. This recognition from HPA underscores the impact that StrongBox can have in the media and entertainment industry.” The HPA is committed to supporting total workflows from lens to screen said Joel Ordesky marketing manager at Sony Electronics’ Professional Solutions of America group. “This is also a critical goal for Sony as we continue to develop our own 4K production technologies. The F65 camera system was designed to give production professionals not only the highest quality imaging but also a total and effective workflow solution from content creation through post-production. We’re proud to have our efforts recognized with an HPA Engineering Excellence Award.” Lance Mauer CEO Cinnafilm said “It is an honor to be considered for the HPA Engineering Excellence Award and to win is truly amazing.  We have worked tirelessly on Tachyon because we believe firmly in the importance of providing high quality standards and format conversions within the file-based transcoding workflow. To receive an award from distinguished industry peers at the HPA gives us validation that our research and vision really do matter.” “Dolby’s many years of engineering research and understanding how people perceive sound has led to a significant milestone in the development of Dolby Atmos. To have the Hollywood Post Alliance recognize this achievement is a true honor for Dolby engineers and scientists as well as the many people in the content creation community who helped us develop this new audio platform that will change the way people experience entertainment sound forever ” said Doug Darrow senior vice president cinema Dolby Laboratories. ,3545
Gradient Interactive Sandbox Wins HPA Post Award,2012-09-15, The HPA announced today that the organization’s distinguished HPA Judges Award for Creativity and Innovation in Post Production will be awarded to Gradient Interactive for their pre-visualization product Sandbox. The Creativity and Innovation Award recognizes companies and individuals who have demonstrated excellence in post-production whether in creative storytelling and/or technical innovation. Gradient was chosen from a large and varied field of entrants who provided presentations to a blue ribbon judging panel and will be on hand to accept the award during the HPA Awards gala on November 1 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles CA. Leon Silverman president of the HPA said “The Innovation and Creativity Award was created to honor those people or organizations that are pushing the envelope in post production forward. It was terrific to see the number of entrants and the response to this Award. I applaud the Blue Ribbon panel's decision to recognize Gradient's continued outstanding and innovative contributions. Gradient Interactive developed the software application Sandbox to offer near real time translation of on-set data into understandable production data ultimately creating a democratized workflow tool that allows users to Pre-visualize sequences. Gradient Interactive’s Sandbox is a mobile real-time previs system which enables users to scout virtual locations record camera moves and render simple animations from an iPad or Android tablet. Offering a great advantage to most of the key departments in production Sandbox supports the project from start to finish. A director can plan many of his shots without ever seeing location while the Camera department can plan placement lenses lighting and practice moves. The Production Design/Art Department can create storyboards place props and plan set extensions while the Visual Effects team can start creating those set extensions. For the Special Effects department Sandbox can help plan stunts and manage safety parameters. Gradient Interactive's Olcun Tan said “We are so proud to be recognized by our peers the organization and by the Committee.  The HPA and in particular the C&I award is extremely meaningful to us it represents what we strive for in all of our work and in particular the last three years of development of Sandbox. Thank you so much for this honor.”