By CAROLYN GIARDINA
Pandora, Kent, U.K., began shipping its Megadef color correction system for film resolution images recently. The first deliveries in New York are at The Tape House Advanced Imaging Center and HBO Studio Productions. The Megadef operates in conjunction with Philips Spirit Datacine at both sites, enabling color correction of film to tape or data, or HD tape to HD tape.
Tape House director of high definition and data services Tim Spitzer said the Megadef installation brings the future of color correction a step closer, which he believes is working with data files that would be stored on a server and outputted to whatever medium is requested.
Benefits for today, he said, are that the Megadef allows immediate, short term advantages of speeding up the color correction process and [offering] more precise control of the color correction process.
SHOOT recently sat down with Spitzer and Tape House director of the Spirit Datacine John Dowdell for a first look at the new systems capabilities. Dowdell contended this system offers colorists far greater precision in the toolset than what was previously available. He also explained that with the Megadef, the color correction takes place in the 2K environment when the film is scanned. Therefore the color correction will hold when the images go to various formats or mediums.
Ralph Fumante, VP of operations at HBO Studio Productions, shared Tape Houses enthusiasm. The HD images that come out of this combo Spirit and Megadef far exceed anything Ive seen up until this point, he said. He enthused that Megadef can make 16 mm look more like 35 mm.
HBOs purchase was triggered by its plans to launch HBO in high definition March 6. The HBO suites will be used for this venture, although the Spirit is also available to outside clients. Tape House has been using its Spirit room for a variety of applications, including network/cable programs, features and commercials.
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