Does make.tv Really Show the Future of Cloud-based Production?

We wrote about CrowdFlik as part of our company profiles from Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013. The New Jersey-based company built its app to take advantage of how a younger generation creates its video–using smartphones and not stand alone video cameras. The app allows users to create crowd-sourced video and have it edited automatically. Make.tv in turn attempts to move beyond hardware such as NewTek’s TriCaster, and deliver the goods virtually.

Make.tv’s web-based interface doesn’t attempt to offer a new approach ala CrowdFlik but follows the old school layout of a “classic production control room”, according to the Cologne, Germany-based company. Offering a product that exemplifies the quickly growing SaaS (Software as a Service) trend, make.tv places its studio and player technology in the cloud to create a collaborative and interactive workspace. Working from a laptop or desktop, users edit multi-cam style, and can switch live to output to the Internet as well as to mobile and on air.

That’s what they hope to pull off in their new market, the U.S. The company already has a German broadcaster who has given the app a spin. Such in-the-cloud production is still a bit raw and untested, however, and won’t yet compete with slick, mature products like NewTek’s TriCaster 8000, pricey hardware/software which offers 1080p multi-cam switching, eight Mix/Effects rows and 3D visual effects including virtual sets.

Make.tv is one among many companies moving into cloud-based production, however. The competition will be fierce with products like Adobe Anywhere as a good example of the sort of deep, full-featured collaborative workspace that points to where the future of production lies. But until then, enjoy this modest interview with make.tv’s CEO Andreas Jacobi. You might even be inspired to see what the fuss is about, and take his app out for a free test drive of your own.

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.