Pronology, a developer of tapeless workflow solutions, will showcase its full range of digital asset management tools at the 2014 IBC Show (Hall 10, Stand A26). The Pronology suite simplifies the task of content creation and distribution for today’s tapeless workflows.
“Pronology was built upon our industry experience, which has allowed us to provide a flexible solution to accommodate the wide range of potential workflows that exist in today’s production environments,” said Mike Shore, co-founder of Pronology. “We are eager to expand our outreach to industry professionals and specifically to the European market, as we feel they can benefit from the features of our easy-to-use, collaborative, Web-based environment.”
Pronology provides users the option of working in the cloud, via an internal intranet or a secure Pronology-hosted network. By utilizing a standard Web-browser as its primary interface, Pronology allows a limitless number of users to perform multiple functions simultaneously and remotely.
Pronology’s custom-designed, hardware-agnostic ingest-control application can directly manage recording devices from industry leading manufacturers. In addition to giving users a single interface for starting and stopping multiple recordings, it also facilitates the entry of organizational metadata prior to and during ingest. This same information is used throughout the Pronology system, offering clear communication about a recording and its significance. This enables users to organize their content at the beginning of the process, minimizing human error. The system also includes a fully integrated transcode engine. Users can create proxies from imported material, or “normalize” all of their in-bound assets to a house format, all without the need to license and configure external transcoding software.
As part of the browser-based interface, users have instant access to a live Web proxy of the video and audio feeds being captured by the production’s record operation. These feeds can be logged instantly and time-coded accurately by multiple users, regardless of their physical location. User comments and log entries are immediately visible to all other (authorized) users, and can be associated with just one recording, or all recordings within a group. The log entries can be imported into an NLE environment and associated to the recordings as “locators.” As these entries are relevant to the high-, edit- and Web-proxy resolutions of the content, the editorial coordination between off- and on-line is greatly simplified. Pronology’s intuitive sub-clipping tool also allows users to select their ideal shots, and to sub-clip content into customizable bins for ease of organization and clear communication to the edit room.
Along with logging and sub-clipping, producers have the option to use the Web proxies to create a storyboard or “paper” cut of their projects. They can simply drag and drop the selected clips into a storyboard and send this as a “sequence” to their editor. Since these sequences can be associated to any resolution of a recording, the editor can load the Pronology storyboard into their NLE and link to the appropriate resolution for on- or off-line work. Pronology supports a range of NLE systems, including Avid, Adobe and Apple.
To manage project approval, Pronology enables post-production staff to e-mail a link to one or a group of producers/clients seeking comments and editorial authorization for recorded and edited content. This link is completely encrypted, allowing for off-site viewing while maintaining content security. Each link view is tracked in real time, showing the recipient time-stamped data for previews and approvals by each user. For added security, senders can specify a link’s “kill” date and require a login to view material.
As an extension of its approval functionality, Pronology also offers Web video hosting and advanced content-delivery services, including multi-platform distribution and VOD delivery for clients looking to monetize their content on the “other” screens.
And Pronology includes a complete archive solution. Imported and/or recorded content and its associated metadata can be preserved to both LTO data tape as well as to the cloud. Users have the option to control a single LTO tape drive or a multi-drive robot to create an open-standard LTFS-formatted backup manually or automatically. This gives users the ability to create full or partial restores of media directly from their browser. Included in the complete Pronology offering is the ability to extend all of the archive functionality to a cloud-based option.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More