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Feeding Time at the Zoo
Tracks Rockin' The Monkey House
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View Article  Dolby Digital Plus added to ContentAgent
It always nice to see your name in print....but can i remember saying all that :-)

Root6 version of the release is here along with cheesy handshake picture.

Dolby Digital Plus added to ContentAgent

Root6 Technology has added Dolby Digital Plus to the post-production deliverables on its ContentAgent repurposing platform.

Dolby Digital Plus is a next-generation audio technology for high-definition programming and media.

ContentAgent support will allow extremely low bit rate multichannel sound to be delivered via the web.

The content repurposing platform currently transcodes a host of other commonly used audio formats including MP3, AC3, AAC, WAV, BWAV and AIFF.

ContentAgent product manager Kevin King said: "We are already fulfilling client demand for multi channel audio as part of an automated workflow and it's clear that further advances such as Dolby Digital Plus will play an increasingly important role in the HD content experience."

"Dolby Digital Plus combines the efficiency to meet future broadcast demands with the power and flexibility to realize the full audio potential of the upcoming high-definition experience.

"Built on Dolby Digital, the multichannel audio standard for DVD and HD broadcasts worldwide, Dolby Digital Plus was designed for the delivery formats of the future, but remains fully compatible with all current A/V receivers. With Dolby Digital Plus, you get even higher quality audio, more channels, and greater flexibility."

ContentAgent is used by production companies and broadcasters – including ITV and Pinewood Studios - to re-purpose and convert video and audio content for programmes, archives and online.



View Article  Time and Tide wait for no man
No I know how King Canute felt as the sea rose up, for years I complained and laughed saying it was vaporware, a public relations fantasy, a monumental advertiser lead dream.  I mocked and laughed at people even suggesting it would work that the vision would see the light of day but alas it came.

‘No one is so powerful that he can stop the march of time’

There comes a point in your life and you see something that makes you want to raise up, march for the cause, demonstrate against a goverment or join a rebellion you take up the arms and march and nothing is going to stop you. Once you have seen the light and crossed the line there is no going back as it was once said "
When the sword of rebellion is drawn, the sheath should be thrown away. "

I've only eaten humble pie a few times in my life but the announce I'm going to have to make on this blog next week will mean I'm stuff full for a long time. Look out for the ContentAgent press releases they are going to be very filling.

"Madam, if a thing is possible, consider it done; the impossible? That will be done." Charles Alexandre de Calonne 1734 - 1802
View Article  Real Time Media Networks
Broadcast Engineering the local parish magazine in this neck of the woods printed a Phil Crawley esk article on running media over networks. One of the great statements it makes it that "the indeterminate nature of an IT network is fundamentally at odds with its use in media applications. It could be argued that Ethernet and IP are the worst possible network technologies for real-time media systems." and that "A modern broadcast technologist must think in terms of both the broadcast engineering and IT domains when designing a networked infrastructure that must support real-time transcoding." So the next time our designing a broadcast IT network, don't let the spotty Dilbert from IT that fixes the email server design it, call in a qualified broadcast engineer. The Article in question http://broadcastengineering.com/storage_networking/real-time-media-networks/index.html
View Article  BBC to launch new Dirac codec at IBC

Well this could be a intresting stand to see at IBC

On its joint stand with NuMedia Technology, the BBC is set to show the latest addition to the Dirac family of open source video compression codecs. The Pro 270 application of Dirac allows the transmission of HDTV signals using the cable and infrastructure already used for standard definition TV. Which is quite sexy if I say so myself....

This requires more compression of HDTV signals than Dirac Pro 1.5, but the new Dirac Pro has the flexibility to achieve this with very little loss of quality. Broadcasters that employ the Pro 270 will have the ability to transform their programme output to HD quickly.

Other reasons to use it include the fact that 1080P50 HD islands can be connected between sites over existing links. And because Dirac is Open Source, the wider industry can use the technology, add to it, and develop other applications. This will be helped by the fact that Dirac is license free too.

1.588

View Article  Been tripping again
Maine OCT 2006New York Oct 2006INew York Oct 2006

I've been away for the last week in Boston, MA and New York, I've got to recommend Boston in fall the colours of the trees were amazing and you just know that the snow is coming in a few weeks. While we were in Boston I we went to see see MTI Films in Providence, you guys Rock!.[1] They make a product called Control Dallies hopefully we'll be able to do some crazy things with this great product.

[1] (c) James Clarke.
View Article  6 Airports in 4 days.. If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium
Today is Thursday......it must be Dallas. This mornings image...



Had a great day yesterday in Seattle, all I can say is what a cool city. Very chilled out people and what a great place to work.
Nice to show what a little company in London can do and have the big boys listen and lap it up. Anway back to the treadmill


View Article  ContentAgent 2.1
James the CTO of Root6 Technology post in his blog



ContentAgent 2.1 has just gone into the final stages of testing.  Some of the new features include:

CropperCapture[3]Avid MXF Writing Enhacements

  • Support for 28:1, 15:1 and 14:1 JFIF resolutions in PAL and NTSC
  • Insertion of Timecode metadata intro resulting MXF file

General Enhancements

  • Enhanced support for running ContentAgent on “Full” Windows XP (as well as XP Embedded)
  • On-screen keyboards throughout UI CropperCapture[12]
  • Touchscreen support in workflow designer
  • Template import from ContentAgent v1.3
  • Enhanced performance for browsing folders with large number of files
  • Improvements to the licensing system

Capture Enhancements

  • Visual adjustments for video cropping boarders
  • Input Proc Amp controls for Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Colour Gain, Colour Balance, Gamma
  • Vertical blanking support for handling 608 line capture (PAL) and 512 line (NTSC)
  • Improved input video format detection
  • Live capture for a set time period

Image sequence creation

  • Platinum Transcode engine can now transcode video to BMP, JPEG, TIFF, Targa, PNG, JPEG2000 and DPX file sequences CropperCapture[15]

MPEG Multiplexing Workflow node

AutoCropping on still frame grabs

Export clip metadata as XML

This release will be available as a free-of-charge update to all on software maintenance.

View Article  when is 2K not 2K
When your uprez'ing to DCI 2K from Standard 2K files, oh how many times am i going to refering to ...   more »
View Article  Gamma Curves
This was a post that Phil the Chief Engineer here at Root6 made in his blog regarding  Gama Curves and future developement of ContentAgent.....permlink to the post
View Article  Broadcast live
just having spent three days on a stand setting my purple flares 'hot wares' at Broadcast live www.broadcastlive.co.uk
at Earl Court Two, were the great and the good of the Television industry came to look at shiny boxes and electronics with blue leds on them, I  bumped into a few old faces and had a good time meeting some new ones and hopefully soon to be good customers as well. Had the wonder pleasure of showing the sales people at Sony how to dub one tape format to another with audio. The key to it guys is arming the audio tracks, giggles

He's a picture of top bloke Phil...is it all going well Phil?

 

Other pictures here and here