Dalet Digital Media Systems, a provider of software-based solutions for media organizations, has announced the release of Dalet AmberFin, version 10.5, which enables customers to make the best possible pictures with unprecedented flexibility for their businesses. This major update to the Dalet AmberFin platform marks the debut of Dalet AmberFin Dark enterprise transcode, Cinnafilm Tachyon GPU-accelerated frame-rate conversion (as part of (AT)3 toolbox), XAVC support, ARD-ZDF MXF Profiles and other significant features.
Ben Davenport, Dalet’s director of marketing, stated, “This significant release confirms Dalet’s investment and commitment to the AmberFin platform. Dalet AmberFin Dark is completely scalable, enabling businesses to start small and expand to an enterprise-grade solution. Meanwhile, unlike other vendors, who may only provide a single technology option for temporal conversions, the inclusion of Tachyon as a tool in the (AT)3 toolbox allows users to choose the best solution for their businesses or even a combination of different technologies.”
Dalet AmberFin is a high-quality scalable transcoding platform with fully integrated ingest, mastering, QC and review functionality, enabling facilities to make great pictures in a scalable, reliable and interoperable way. The inclusion of Tachyon within the (AT)3 toolbox gives Dalet AmberFin users the ability to perform faster standards conversion while maintaining the high quality pictures that the Dalet AmberFin platform is known for. The Dalet AmberFin Dark transcoder efficiently turns the content that owners have into the content their customers want. With all components running as Windows services, users can build transcode farms on commodity IT hardware as appliances–minimizing downtime, reducing maintenance costs and enabling complete ‘lights-out’ operation.
“(AT)3 is a real innovation from Dalet, acknowledging that different sectors of the industry and different content types require different approaches to frame-rate conversion,” explains Matthieu Fasani, Dalet AmberFin product manager. “Adding Tachyon to the collection of tools in the (AT)3 toolbox provides customers with the complete flexibility to address those different requirements. For the first time, users are also able to combine those tools in a single-pass operation to achieve unprecedented levels of conversion quality. (AT)3 is available as part of Dalet AmberFin Dark, which is supported with full redundancy, network licensing and Windows services architecture. The technology can be deployed in a data center. ARD-ZDF profiles are vital to helping to solve the problem of file interoperability for media facilities in Germany, in a similar way to Dalet AmberFin support for the DPP initiative in the UK, for which it gained compliance in September.”
Dalet AmberFin 10.5 feature highlights include:
Dalet AmberFin Dark – A new service-based architecture allowing users to build enterprise-scale, fault-tolerant transcode farms while enabling backwards compatibility in the API for existing customers
XAVC (HD) support for transcode-in and playback, increasing codec support, especially in the area of camera acquisition
Cinnafilm Tachyon – GPU-powered, motion-compensated frame-rate converter available as a technology option in the (AT)3 toolkit
ARD-ZDF MXF Transcode Profiles facilitate file interoperability for media facilities in Germany
And SCC Sidecar Transcode Output – 608 Caption data can be extracted from files during a transcode to a .scc sidecar
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More