Kenko Tokina, the world’s largest manufacturer of photographic filters, announced that it has acquired 100% of the share capital of Formatt Hitech Limited (Formatt-Hitech), the world’s leading producer of ND filters for photo and cinema.

Kenko Tokina President Mr. Toru Yamanaka stated, “I am thrilled to welcome Formatt-Hitech to the Kenko Tokina family of brands. Formatt-Hitech’s technical knowledge in the development of advanced ND filters and their excellent reputation in both photo and cinema make them the perfect fit for our portfolio of world leading brands.”

David Stamp of Formatt Hitech stated, “We are very proud to have joined the Kenko Tokina family and to become part of the world’s leading filter group. The undoubted manufacturing expertise and financial strength of Kenko Tokina will enable us to maximize the potential of our exciting Firecrest product line in both the photo and broadcast / cinema production markets”.

The new Snowball appliance is purpose-built for efficient data storage and transfer. It is rugged enough to withstand a 6 G jolt, and (at 50 lbs) light enough for one person to carry. It is entirely self-contained, with 110 Volt power and a 10 GB network connection on the back and an E Ink display/control panel on the front. It is weather-resistant and serves as its own shipping container; it can go from your mail room to your data center and back again with no packing or unpacking hassle to slow things down. In addition to being physically rugged and tamper-resistant, AWS Snowball detects tampering attempts.

There is a usage charge of $200 per job, plus shipping charges that are based on your destination and the selected shipment method. As part of this charge, you have up to 10 days (starting the day after delivery) to copy your data to the appliance and ship it out. Extra days are $15 each.

https://aws.amazon.com/ru/blogs/aws/aws-importexport-snowball-transfer-1-petabyte-per-week-using-amazon-owned-storage-appliances/

Sony Corporation has been implementing a series of measures to reinforce its Devices segment, a key growth driver for the Sony Group. As part of these measures, Sony will adopt a new operational structure for its Devices segment. The aim of this new structure is to enable each of the three main businesses within this segment, namely the semiconductor, battery and storage media businesses, to more rapidly adapt to their respective changing market environments and generate sustained growth. The Devices segment will continue to be overseen by Tomoyuki Suzuki, Executive Deputy President and Corporate Executive Officer, Sony Corporation.

In the semiconductor business, where image sensors are a primary area of focus, Sony will establish Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation ("Sony Semiconductor Solutions") to further reinforce this business, and concentrate on sustained growth. R&D, business control, sales and other operations related to the semiconductor business, which are currently overseen by business groups and R&D units within Sony Corporation, will be transferred to Sony Semiconductor Solutions. The new company will aim to commence operations on April 1, 2016. As part of its mid-term corporate strategy announced in February 2015, Sony outlined its intention to sequentially split out the business units currently within Sony Corporation and operate them alongside existing Sony Group companies. The aim of these measures is to ensure clearly attributable accountability and responsibility from the perspective of shareholders, management policies with an emphasis on sustainable profit generation, and the acceleration of decision-making processes and reinforcement of business competitiveness. The decision to establish Sony Semiconductor Solutions forms part of this strategy.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201510/15-082E/

• 26% smaller than brute-force crushed PNG files,
• 35% smaller than typical PNG files,
• 37% smaller than lossless JPEG 2000 compression,
• 15% smaller than lossless WebP,
• 22% smaller than lossless BPG.

Specs

• Lossless compression
• Greyscale, RGB, RGBA
• Color depth: up to 16 bits per channel (high dynamic range)
• Interlaced or non-interlaced
• Interlaced files can be decoded quickly at lower quality/resolution (“Responsive By Design”)
• Progressive decoding of partially downloaded files
• Animation support
• Encoding and decoding speeds are not blazingly fast, but they are in the right ballpark

Site - http://flif.info/

Source - https://github.com/jonsneyers/FLIF

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/camera/warranty/panasonic_lumix_extended_warranty_offer_Q2_2015-07-29b.pdf

Recent subjective studies showed that current tone mapping operators either produce disturbing temporal artifacts, or are limited in their local contrast reproduction capability. We address both of these issues and present an HDR video tone mapping operator that can greatly reduce the input dynamic range, while at the same time preserving scene details without causing significant visual artifacts. To achieve this, we revisit the commonly used spatial base-detail layer decomposition and extend it to the temporal domain. We achieve high quality spatiotemporal edge-aware filtering efficiently by using a mathematically justified iterative approach that approximates a global solution. Comparison with the state-of-the-art, both qualitatively, and quantitatively through a controlled subjective experiment, clearly shows our method’s advantages over previous work.

http://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/temporally-coherent-local-tone-mapping-of-hdr-video/

1. An impressing, fast rendering planar and 2D / 3D tracker for a good price for adobe after effects: http://www.fayteq.com/fayin/

2. A great portable LED-Light with an CRI of 95: http://brothers-sons.dk/products/pipeline-reporter/

3. Sony TVs with HDR: http://presscentre.sony.eu/pressreleases/sony-confirms-hdr-is-coming-to-bravia-tvs-1145385

4. Adobe Audition news: Remix to make a song fit the perfect length, Loudness updates (EBU R128 and other inc. loudness match function), speech generator with speech synthesis: http://blogs.adobe.com/audition/#.VfgT-_ntlHw

5. iZotope RX 5: I know the RX4 for audio repairs, but the RX5 improves sound quality and clarity and smoothes out volume inconsistencies. https://www.izotope.com/en/products/post-production/rx-5-audio-editor/

So to all the others in this forum: which products on the IBC impressed you most?

Sony CEO spoke about the company's super successful digital sensor business and he mentioned that most of the images you see today on social networks and broader use Sony image sensors. Yes iPhone 6 uses one too.

Mr Hirai said that this fiscal year Sony is investing 1.5 billion Euro, five times what they invested last year. They want to meet the increasing demand for high end image sensors in the smartphone market. We heard that there was shortage of the high end sensors this year, as most vendors want to get their hands on them. They make phone photos rather great in the nice lighting environment. Good sensor helps you create great photos with your phone.

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/38666-sony-ceo-says-company-invest-1-5b-to-sensor-business

Canon Europe, a leader in imaging solutions, today announces that its parent company, Canon Inc., is developing an APS-H-size (approx. 29.2 x 20.2 mm) CMOS sensor incorporating approximately 250 million pixels (19,580 x 12,600 pixels), the world’s highest number of pixels[1] for a CMOS sensor smaller than the size of a 35 mm full-frame sensor.

When installed in a camera, the newly developed sensor was able to capture images enabling the distinguishing of lettering on the side of an airplane flying at a distance of approximately 18 km from the shooting location[2]. With CMOS sensors, increases in pixel counts result in increased signal volume, which can cause such problems as signal delays and slight discrepancies in timing. The new Canon-developed CMOS sensor, however, despite its exceptionally high pixel count, achieves an ultra-high signal readout speed of 1.25 billion pixels per second, made possible through such advancements as circuit miniaturisation and enhanced signal-processing technology. Accordingly, the sensor enables the capture of ultra-high-pixel-count video at a speed of five frames per second. Additionally, despite the exceptionally high pixel count, Canon applied its sensor technologies cultivated over many years to realise an architecture adapted for miniaturised pixels that delivers high-sensitivity, low-noise imaging performance.

Video footage captured by the camera outfitted with the approximately 250-megapixel CMOS sensor achieved a level of resolution that was approximately 125 times that of Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) video and approximately 30 times that of 4K (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) video. The exceptionally high definition made possible by the sensor lets users crop and magnify video images without sacrificing image resolution and clarity.

Canon is considering the application of this technology in specialized surveillance and crime prevention tools, ultra-high-resolution measuring instruments and other industrial equipment, and the field of visual expression.

There will be no GH5. It will be called GH6 and it will have all the full sensor redout, and 10bit internal but only on 1080p they said.

Then the other new camera will be a new GH series of camera with super 35mm sensor the varicam one. It will be expensive, but will be video orientend machine. The price of both cameras where not dislosed.

I have and idea that GH6 will be arround $1500. And the varicam GH camera arround $4500 to $5000.

From my point of view, i think ill pay arround 5k for such compact camera with the varicam sensor. And about GH6 it sounds like a winner, bummer its not 4k 10 bit internal, but sounds like a progress.

Seven leading Internet companies today announced formation of the Alliance for Open Media – an open-source project that will develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest. The Alliance’s founding members are Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix. The new Alliance is committing its collective technology and expertise to meet growing Internet demand for top-quality video, audio, imagery and streaming across devices of all kinds and for users worldwide.

The Alliance’s initial focus is to deliver a next-generation video format that is:

• Interoperable and open;
• Optimized for the web;
• Scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth;
• Designed with a low computational footprint and optimized for hardware;
• Capable of consistent, highest-quality, real-time video delivery; and
• Flexible for both commercial and non-commercial content, including user-generated content.

This initial project will create a new, open royalty-free video codec specification based on the contributions of members, along with binding specifications for media format, content encryption and adaptive streaming, thereby creating opportunities for next-generation media experiences.

“Customer expectations for media delivery continue to grow, and fulfilling their expectations requires the concerted energy of the entire ecosystem,” said Gabe Frost, the Alliance for Open Media’s Executive Director. “The Alliance for Open Media brings together the leading experts in the entire video stack to work together in pursuit of open, royalty-free and interoperable solutions for the next generation of video delivery.”

http://aomedia.org/press-release/alliance-to-deliver-next-generation-open-media-formats/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/01/amazon-netflix-google-microsoft-mozilla-and-others-partner-to-create-next-gen-video-format/#.5xk91r:kJKP

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/global/file/insight/2015/08/SolutionBrief_Consumer_DCSDSLR-0.pdf

https://www.eisa.eu/awards/photography.html

Blackmagic Design today announced it will make the optical fiber connection on its Blackmagic Studio Camera models a user installed option allowing the company to reduce the retail price of the camera. The HD model will reduce in price by $300 and the Ultra HD model will reduce in price by $500.

Based on user feedback, many customers are not using the optical fiber connection and had asked if a model without this premium and costly option could be released. With the optical fiber now excluded from the camera, the camera can be sold for a lower price. This suits the many customers who simply want to use the camera via its regular BNC SDI connections. The SDI connections on the Blackmagic Studio Cameras feature cutting edge technology and are 12G-SDI for up to 2160p60 on the Ultra HD model.

When a customer decides they want to add optical fiber, they simply purchase any SMPTE standard optical fiber SFP module and plug it into the camera. This then allows extremely long cable lengths which means that cameras can get close to the action and be located as far away from the switcher as required. The HD Blackmagic Studio Camera model is now $1,695 and the Ultra HD Blackmagic Studio Camera 4K model is now $2,495. Both models are available now.

When you read the comments on their announcement, you can see that this has already sparked interest in the developers of the Daala video codec. Both groups have already exchanged some source code with each other, and they seem to assume that they will one day come up with a joint (rather than competing) proposals for the NetVC standard. (Historically, a similar joint effort of the Vorbis and Silk developers was successful in turning Opus into the InterNet audio codec of IETF choice.)

And while traditional broadcasters and hardware vendors are still deeply invested in H.264 and H.265, the ever increasing popularity of streamed video content on the InterNet might one day push the scales of relevance in favor of IETF codec standards.

From Alan Kohler, ABC News Australia

Google has been trouncing Apple in smartphones and its share price has gone up 60% in 12 months. and it's now valued at 300 billion dollars. Apple is still a bit bigger at 394 billion but Google is catching up fast.

Post Focus will enable users to select an “in-focus” area after shooting with a simple interface. This function has been developed as a further evolution of 4K Photo technology to prevent out-of-focus errors and offer additional creative freedom.

By combining high-speed, high-precision DFD (Depth From Defocus) auto focus technology and the 4K Photo burst images in 4K resolution are shot at 30 fps while shifting the lens to set focus on approx. 50 areas (*TBC).

With the Post Focus function, the best image can be selected from the 4K burst images shot with different focus areas. Once the composition is fixed, you are free from the job of serious focusing. In addition, this function can be used for creative photography such as landscapes or portraits. Users can pull different impressions out of one picture by changing the subject to enhance it with focus. The operation of the Post Focus function is quite easy – just touch the point where you want to set focus while playing back the image, no matter where the original focus area is, and the image with different in-focus area will be produced as a separate photo.

Panasonic will introduce this Post Focus function via a firmware update for LUMIX GX8, LUMIX FZ300 and some other models in late 2015 and 2016 will study to integrate it into upcoming LUMIX digital cameras as well.

Well, it is same feature that is available on smartphones for long. Nothing new and it is limited in use.

This is made for mobile users, made with High Quality Standards, Privacy, and for All.

The online platform for video sharing and video messagging is now just alive

Full Press Release here: http://www.cinemartin.com/webmail/201507_videus.htm

Tony

SAN MATEO, CA (June 6, 2014) – GoPro, maker of the Emmy® Award-winning HERO® camera and enabler of some of today’s most engaging professional video content, announced today that the core technology behind the GoPro CineForm Codec has been standardized by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) as the SMPTE ST 2073 VC-5 video compression standard – the new open codec standard for video acquisition and post production.

The GoPro CineForm Codec is a high-performance video codec widely valued in video post-production as the industry’s highest quality compression format. It is well established in the professional filmmaking marketplace and has been extensively used in Hollywood feature films, including Slumdog Millionaire and Need for Speed.

SMPTE standardization of the GoPro CineForm codec as the VC-5 standard now means the professional production and post production community can access SMPTE-standardized codec technology for presenting high resolution imagery with a high speed, low-compute intensive workflow. The new VC-5 standard will provide a more efficient, cost effective and higher-performance workflow, delivering an 8x performance boost over the current JPEG 2000 format with higher resolution.

That's huge - I was hoping for this since quite a while. Looking forward to finally get rid of ProRes. Cineform is so much better.

https://www.smpte.org/news-events/news-releases/gopro®-cineform-codec-standardized-smpte®-vc-5-standard

I would really like to use one of these for my scenery videos.

Video talking about it.

Video directly from the rig:

Thunderbolt3 is the fastest, most versatile connection to any dock, display, or peripheral device – including billions of USB devices. “Thunderbolt™ 3 is computer port nirvana – delivering two 4K displays, fast data, and quick notebook charging”, said Navin Shenoy, vice president in Client Computing Group and general manager of Mobility Client Platforms at Intel Corporation. “It fulfills the promise of USB-C for single-cable docking and so much more. OEMs and device developers are going to love it.”

Users have long wanted desktop-level performance from a mobile computer. Thunderbolt was developed to simultaneously support the fastest data and most video bandwidth available on a single cable, while also supplying power. Then recently the USB group introduced the USB-C connector, which is small, reversible, fast, supplies power, and allows other I/O in addition to USB to run on it, maximizing its potential. So in the biggest advancement since its inception, Thunderbolt 3 brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at 40Gbps, fulfilling its promise, creating one compact port that does it all.

A Thunderbolt 3 cable will look like the current USB-C cables and will support the same power and data transfers, but it will also be capable of much higher throughput (40Gbps) in Thunderbolt mode.

https://thunderbolttechnology.net/blog/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-does-it-all

Result is "8K" provided by Sharp X8-Master Engine PRO upscaling SoC.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925432/sharps-latest-4k-tv-adds-yellow-subpixel-for-8k-resolution.html

Apple® today updated the 15-inch MacBook Pro® with Retina® display with the new Force Touch trackpad, faster flash storage, longer battery life and faster discrete graphics, delivering even more performance and capabilities to the MacBook Pro line. Apple also today introduced a new $1,999 configuration of the 27-inch iMac® with Retina 5K display featuring a breathtaking 14.7 million pixel display, quad-core processors and AMD graphics, and lowered the price of the top-end iMac with Retina 5K display to $2,299.

http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/imac-retina

http://www.nabshow.com

Invitations

Free invitations (aka Guess pass Codes) from:

• Aputure - LV5295
• Skier - LV3989
• Some more codes: LV6726 , LV3457, LV9993, LV5787

http://nabshow.com/register code

Expected interesting things:

Canon

• Canon EOS C300 MK II, with 4K
• Canon EOS One ( thing like Sony AX100 with DSLR form factor).
• Some lenses

Panasonic

• Panasonic AF1000 (AF100 replacement)
• Some large cameras

Sony

• Can be some large cameras
• Nothing significant in low end

Companies location

• Schneider Optics - C6037
• Lanparte - C11735
• Skier - C12732
• MotionNine - C10345
• Redrockmicro - C9539
• Lishuai/Fotodiox - C9939
• Ruige - C9911

Leave a message if you plan to be at NAB.

• YouTube Creator Studio: Did you know that after Rebecca Black uploaded “Friday,” she went on a school trip, not knowing for several days the video was going viral? To help you manage your videos on the go, the new YouTube Creator Studio app lets you see analytics, manage your videos and more. The app is available now on Android and launching on iOS in coming weeks and you’ll see some redesign of the Creator Studio on desktop too.
• Audio Library, now with sound effects: You’ve used the hundreds of free songs in the Audio Library on millions of your videos. But until now, you’ve had to go through extreme lengths to make your own zombie screams and fighter plane sounds. To make your lives easier and videos better, from today you now have thousands of royalty-free sound effects at your disposal. We’ve also added more tracks to the Audio Library.
• 60 (yeah, six-zero) frames per second: Your video game footage with crazy high frame rates will soon look as awesome on YouTube as it does when you’re playing, when we launch support for 48 and even 60 frames per second in the coming months. Take a look at some preview videos on the YT Creator Channel. Make sure you’re watching in HD!
• Fan Funding: Your fans aren’t just watching your videos, they’re also helping support your channel through services like KickStarter, IndieGogo, Patreon and more. We’ll be adding another option for you, where fans will be able to contribute money to support your channel at any time, for any reason. A handful of creators are testing this feature soon on desktop and Android, including Dulce Delight, Fitness Blender, The Healthcare Triage, The King of Random, Soul Pancake, Steve Spangler Science, The Young Turks, and Thug Notes. If you’re interested in trying it on your channel, sign up here.
• Creator Credits: Collaboration is a key to great videos on YouTube. You’re already giving your collaborators shout outs in your video descriptions. But what if those text-based shout outs were tags that let viewers click through to their channels, or let you search for a collaborator based on their work and location? That’s our vision for Creator Credits, stay tuned for more.
• Subtitles contributed from fans: More than a billion people watch YouTube each month, but not all of them speak the same language and some are deaf or hard of hearing. Automatic speech recognition and automatic translation on YouTube can help, but your fans can do an even better job. In the coming months, your fans will be able to submit translations in any language based on the subtitles or captions you’ve created, helping you reach even more viewers. You can try this out now on Barely Political, Fine Art-Tips, Got Talent Global and Unicoos.
• Info Cards: Annotations are useful, but not as ridiculously good looking as say, Blue Steel. In the near future, you’ll see our new interactive information cards with a clean look, which you’ll beable to program once to work across desktop, phones and tablets.
• More ways to playlist: Along with playlists analytics we recently added to analytics, expect to see more ways to create playlists, so that all the time you spend building them translates into easier discovery for viewers and better results for you.

BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are:

• High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality.
• Supported by most Web browsers with a small Javascript decoder (gzipped size: 56 KB).
• Based on a subset of the HEVC open video compression standard.
• Supports the same chroma formats as JPEG (grayscale, YCbCr 4:2:0, 4:2:2, 4:4:4) to reduce the losses during the conversion. An alpha channel is supported. The RGB, YCgCo and CMYK color spaces are also supported.
• Native support of 8 to 14 bits per channel for a higher dynamic range.
• Lossless compression is supported.
• Various metadata (such as EXIF, ICC profile, XMP) can be included.
• Animation support.

Find the description, details and links at bellard.org.

For an online comparison of BPG with other still image codecs have a look at this demo.

BTW: Meanwhile, the Daala development team is still struggling to achieve intra-frame encoding on par with HEVC without using patent-encumbered technology.

Apple has acquired LinX, an Israeli camera tech company whose most recent offerings include multi-aperture camera models which can enable effects like background focus blur, parallax images and 3D picture capture.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/14/apple-buys-linx-a-camera-module-maker-promising-dslr-like-mobile-performance/#.5xk91r:sAx5

Only thing that Apple want is obtaining algorithms for images matching and morphing. They do not want any of the modules or any hardware.
It is also clear that smartphone cameras improvements came to the dead end (only RGBW lies ahead, but produce significant issues).
Camera modules are very high margins products with very low actual cost, so for large manufacturers it is possible to put 4 or even 16 of them without too much sacrifices.

LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 300 million members worldwide, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire lynda.com, a leading online learning company teaching business, technology and creative skills to help people achieve their professional goals. Based in Carpinteria, CA, lynda.com was co-founded in 1995 by Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin.

The transaction is valued at approximately $1.5 billion, subject to adjustment, in a combination of approximately 52 percent cash and approximately 48 percent stock. Subject to the completion of customary conditions, the acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter of 2015.

Through a subscription to lynda.com’s service, individual members and organizations have access to a comprehensive collection of top quality courses taught by industry experts, offered in English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. In addition to individual subscribers, lynda.com serves corporate, government and educational organizations through its lyndaEnterprise, lyndaPro, lyndaCampus, lyndaLibrary and lyndaKiosk products. lynda.com stands out as a leader of owned and operated premium skills content, offering a massive library of high-quality courses.

“The mission of LinkedIn and the mission of lynda.com are highly aligned. Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “lynda.com’s extensive library of premium video content helps empower people to develop the skills needed to accelerate their careers. When integrated with the hundreds of millions of members and millions of jobs on LinkedIn, lynda.com can change the way in which people connect to opportunity.”

"This is such an exciting moment in the 20-year history of lynda.com, and I couldn't imagine a better pairing than lynda.com and LinkedIn," said Lynda Weinman, co-founder and executive chair of the board of lynda.com.

"In LinkedIn, we have found an incredible partner who shares our vision and passion for empowering people around the world to make real change in their lives through access to information, learning and professional development," said Eric Robison, CEO of lynda.com.

Following closing, most members of the lynda.com team are expected to join LinkedIn.

Ryan Roslansky, head of global content products at LinkedIn, blogged in more detail about the acquisition here. Weiner wrote a post about the acquisition here, and Weinman posted about it here.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., - April 8, 2015 – HDMI Forum, Inc., a non-profit, mutual benefit corporation, today announced the completion and release of Version 2.0a of the HDMI® Specification. It is available to current HDMI 2.0 Adopters via the HDMI Adopter Extranet.

The specification has been updated to enable transmission of HDR formats, which provide enhanced picture quality by simultaneously enabling greater detail for both the dark and bright parts of an image. The HDR-related updates include references to CEA-861.3, CEA’s recently published update of HDR Static Metadata Extensions.

“We recognized that HDR would be a critical feature as the industry evolves. Our support for HDR enables our 800+ HDMI 2.0 Adopters to develop market-leading products that include HDR and will maintain interoperability across the entire HDMI ecosystem,” said Robert Blanchard, President of the HDMI Forum, Inc. “Along with the publication of the CEA extensions, the HDMI Forum continues to update the HDMI Specification and remain closely aligned with leading CE standards organizations.”

“By adding HDR, the HDMI Specification continues its history of supporting the latest formats and technologies planned for Hollywood content,” said Arnold Brown, Chairman of the HDMI Forum, Inc. Board of Directors

http://www.hdmiforum.org/press_release.aspx?prid=135