Colorfront (www.colorfront.com) – the Academy, Emmy and HPA Award-winning developer of high-performance dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, broadcast, OTT and commercials – has launched Colorfront Streaming Server, a cost-effective, live-streaming appliance delivering colour fidelity and real-time performance for a variety of secure remote post production operations.
The new product, which incorporates key elements of Colorfront’s award-winning On-Set Dailies, Transkoder and Colorfront Engine technologies, ensures that everyone collaborating remotely on a project – post production creatives and multiple clients – can simultaneously see the same material, with identical colour-accuracy, in grading suite or screening room image-quality, wherever they are located around the world.
Colorfront has trailblazed remote working practices in film and television production and post for many years – including streaming options from On-Set Dailies, leveraging existing in-facility Transkoder systems, and enabling high-performance, interactive Transkoders in the cloud. Now, Colorfront Streaming Server significantly expands the availability of the company’s state-of-the-art capabilities amongst post-production facilities who face the challenge of offering safe, secure ad accurate remote working practices, which have become even more in-demand during the global Covid pandemic.
Colorfront Streaming Server is conveniently packaged in a 1RU form factor, and can live-stream color and frame-accurate footage in reference quality 4K HDR from third-party grading, editorial and VFX applications – such as Blackmagic Resolve, FilmLight Baselight, Adobe Premiere, Avid Media Composer, Apple Final Cut and Autodesk Flame – to multiple remote clients simultaneously anywhere in the world.
The appliance works in real-time with HD, 2K & 4K, and stereo3D content, in Rec709 SDR or HDR with Dolby Vision, and uses SRT (Secure Reliable Transport Protocol) to deliver pristine quality, low-latency live video, plus multi-channel audio, over the public internet to multiple remote clients concurrently. Forensic NexGuard watermarking and 256-bit AES encryption are used to ensure content remains secure and protected.
On the client side, inexpensive small form-factor set-ups support Colorfront’s Streaming Server’s complementary Streaming Player software and enable color-accurate viewing and QC on a range of professional 4K HDR reference displays and prosumer screens. For minimal outlay, AJA T-Tap Pro allows users to connect to a prosumer OLED and drive it in Dolby Vision, PQ, Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) and HDR10; the Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K Mini enables 4K HDR output via both SDI and HDMI, while an Apple M1 Mac Mini allows connection to an Apple XDR Pro display directly via Thunderbolt 3, or to a prosumer OLED monitor via the HDMI output.
Following a successful beta-test program, multiple Hollywood facilities and independent post houses have started using Colorfront Streaming Server to live-stream footage to their clients during post production sessions as they work remotely on a range of motion-picture and high-end episodic productions.
Phil Harrelson, VP of US operations at Light Iron in Los Angeles, said, “Colorfront Streaming Server has opened multiple doors for our team when it comes to working remotely. Throughout the pandemic, our entire dailies workflow relied on the Streaming Server for color-critical evaluation within home working environments. For our finishing teams, Colorfront’s solution offers a more robust, colour-calibrated, and keenly-priced alternative to other remote collaboration solutions on the market.”
Jack Jones, digital colorist and CTO of full-service, boutique facility Roundtable Post Production, London, said. “Colorfront continually develops products that follow industry trends and help us keep on top of the latest needs. With the prevalence of remote working, Colorfront Streaming Server has proven an amazing product, containing unmatched colour and image science. It is also very easy to set-up and use, compared to several others we evaluated. We love it, our clients love it. Every one who’s used it has been blown away.”
