Used on Star Trek Discovery and Amazon Prime’s Upload
Colorfront, the Academy, Emmy and HPA Award-winning developer of high-performance dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, broadcast, OTT and commercials – has revealed details about its long-term collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in support of Colorfront Cloud Platform for feature film and high-end TV content creation.
Since it began working with AWS in 2013, to launch its breakthrough business model, Colorfront Cloud Platform has grown significantly in popularity, particularly during the global Covid-19 pandemic, and is now accessible to content creators across all AWS Regions and Availability Zones around the world. Among an expanding client base, renowned companies such as Company3, Sim Digital and Technicolor are regular users of Colorfront Cloud Platform. Features including Disney’s Mulan, award-winning TV series such as Mr Robot (Universal) and Star Trek Discovery (CBS), plus the critically-acclaimed sci-fi comedy Upload (Amazon Prime Video), are some examples of the many hundreds of productions that have taken advantage of Colorfront Cloud Platform in their post-production workflows.
ALT Systems is the exclusive distributor for Colorfront products in the Americas.
Colorfront Cloud Platform leverages the power of AWS to offer multi-GPU interactive Colorfront Transkoder instances in the cloud. Through this collaboration, Colorfront has produced innovative developments, such as auto-scaling and distributed rendering across multiple GPUs, combining to deliver ever faster, more flexible and efficient cloud-based processing services, available by subscription, for a wide range of operations. Studio and post-production companies can upload and centralize project media and metadata on AWS, in whichever AWS Region or Availability Zone production or post is taking place, and use Colorfront Cloud Platform to playback camera formats including OpenEXR, Alexa LF ARRIRAW ARX, Sony Venice RAW and Red 8K R3D RAW. Users can also perform a variety of additional tasks in faster-than-realtime – such as dailies transcoding, QC, rendering, multi-version packaging and mastering – on the full gamut of UHD/4K/8K, IMF/DCP, SDR/HDR, DolbyVision/HDR10+ projects. Multi-level encryption provides security of assets.
Additionally, Colorfront Cloud Platform can be used by other stakeholders in the production chain – including producers, directors, cinematographers, plus editorial, VFX and audio teams and OTT vendors.
“Since launching Colorfront Cloud Platform some eight years ago, we have enjoyed an attentive and incredibly responsive relationship with AWS and its system architects,” said Brandon Heaslip, global support and operations manager Colorfront. “The AWS team are very proactive and have built an impressive infrastructure that can handle the needs of our users around the world. What started off as a service used initially by clients to distribute VFX pulls has blossomed into far wider range of operations including QC, dailies and mastering.” Heaslip added, “There has been a dramatic uptake in interest in Colorfront Cloud Platform during the global pandemic, with many more companies now using cloud licenses in their workflows for feature and HDTV projects. What they are discovering is that it is easier than ever to implement and use cloud-based workflows.”
Bruno Munger, director of business development at Colorfront, commented, “The ever-increasing bandwidth available at production and post-production locations worldwide means that the cloud has become easily accessible and feasible. Heavy-iron processing does not need to happen on-set, it can be done just as easily and cost-effectively in the cloud. Using Colorfront Cloud Platform, creatives and facilities can collaborate more quickly and efficiently than ever before, wherever they are located around the world, and ultimately benefit by saving time and money.”
About Colorfront: Colorfront is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary, with offices in Los Angeles, plus sales partners worldwide. The company’s popular, award-winning on-set dailies and transcoding systems are utilized by small, medium and large companies alike, to process and deliver media for Hollywood blockbusters, high-end episodic TV and OTT internet entertainment. The firm was founded in 2000 by Mark and Aron Jaszberenyi, who were instrumental in the advent of non-linear DI color grading. Combining in-depth expertise in image color science with a pedigree in cutting-edge software development, the company’s R&D team earned an Academy Award in 2010 for Lustre, Autodesk’s DI grading system, and a Primetime Engineering Emmy in 2012 for Colorfront On-Set Dailies. Colorfront has since become renowned for the innovation, excellence and performance of its camera-to-post products, which include On-Set Dailies, Express Dailies and Transkoder. The company has leveraged its technology to successfully offer Colorfront Cloud Services, and also owns and operates a state-of-the-art DI and post-production facility, of the same name, in Budapest. www.colorfront.com.
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