Colorfront has launched a high-performance, remote working/cloud initiative enabling customers to continue working safely and efficiently as they seek to meet the growing global demand for content during the worldwide Covid-19 crisis.
Colorfront has continuously developed remote working practices, particularly cloud-based operations, over many years. Now, inspired and encouraged by the determined spirit of its customers to keep the industry moving, the company has accelerated development of these capabilities to deliver direct, remote interactive operation of either their existing in-facility Transkoder systems, or the use of high-performance, interactive Transkoders in the cloud. It means that studio and post companies can continue to QC, render, package and deliver their wide variety of UHD/4K, IMF/DCP, SDR/HDR projects safely and productively.
Colorfront’s remote working/cloud initiative has been trialed and beta-tested by some of the company’s major US clients. It is now being introduced with new licensing options to select for Colorfront Transkoder and QC Player customers with a minimum of five licenses on a valid subscription contract.
Remote and Cloud-Based TV and Filmmaking
“The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically increased demand for content, but it also poses acute challenges to the commercial operations and revenues of professional media companies globally, who need and want to keep delivering content,” said Aron Jaszberenyi, MD of Colorfront. “With our remote working/cloud initiative they can keep working safely and maintain crucial business continuity. These unprecedented times may also prove to be a new era for effective, remote/cloud-based TV and filmmaking workflows.”
For customers with in-facility Transkoders, Colorfront has enabled high-quality and low-latency remote-access that gives them access to the full functionality of their systems. For cloud-based workflows, Colorfront is putting its years of practical experience with Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud services to work, to offer multi-GPU Transkoder instances in the cloud for fast and efficient rendering, available by the hour.
Setting Up the Workflow
Colorfront has adopted the AJA Io 4K Plus I/O device and Kona5 video card to power the remote streaming client to output 12G SDI to professional 4K HDR broadcast monitors, plus UHD HDR via HDMI with HDR signalling. Colorfront is also recording Dolby Vision metadata in the video stream, which is output via Kona5 on HDMI.
Now, users can access interactive Transkoders, in their facilities or in the cloud, with professional, reference quality remote video output, up to 10-bit 444 UHD HDR, on broadcast monitors or consumer OLED HDR displays. They can submit renders to Transkoder Engines and securely deliver multiple packaged version files to cloud-based storage or directly to OTT vendors.
Working with media in cloud storage, such as Amazon S3, Colorfront’s initiative achieves real-time playback of IMF and DCP packages, as well as post and camera formats including OpenEXR, Alexa LF ARRIRAW ARX, Sony Venice RAW and Red 8K R3D RAW.
Cloud Licensing
Colorfront’s new remote working/cloud initiative comes with some new licensing options. Customers on subscription can ‘burst’ their licenses in the cloud for 90 days. To qualify, customers must own a minimum of five Colorfront Transkoder, Transkoder Engine or Colorfront QCPlayer hardware dongles.
Colorfront will allow them to burst up to the same number of licenses in AWS EC2 or Microsoft Azure with no license charges for 90 days. After 90 days they can renew their Colorfront cloud licenses quarterly or yearly. Usage charges for the hardware, storage and other cloud services, are billed separately by the respective cloud-service providers. http://colorfront.cloud/
“At Colorfront, we will continue to work with our customers and partners, and focus our resources on doing everything we can to help the industry keep moving forward,” said Aron. “We wish everyone in our community worldwide the best, and look forward to the time when the crisis is over.”
More information about how to use Colorfront’s remote/cloud initiative can be found at colorfront.cloud. http://colorfront.cloud/
