NAB announcements start to roll in, DD IPO moves forward

As we gear up for NAB the press releases having started rolling in. Here are a few items that caught our interest:

Prime Focus Purchases 1000 Seats Of Fusion®
That is not a typo… 1000 seats. One thousand seats!

Apple ships Final Cut Server!

Cine-tal Systems to acquire cineSpace product line from Rising Sun Research.

Also the Los Angeles Times reports that Digital Domain is ramping up its plans to go public.

More details and links after the jump.

Prime Focus Purchases 1000 Seats Of Fusion®
Mumbai, India – April 8, 2008 – India’s leading end-to-end post production company, Prime Focus Limited, has invested in eyeon Fusion® with the unprecedented purchase and installation of 1000 seats worldwide, making them the world’s largest Fusion facility.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Namit Malhotra, Managing Director, Prime Focus, said, “eyeon Fusion is yet another addition to our portfolio of world class products. We are confident that this award-winning compositor will give that extra edge to our customers across the globe. As we expand our operations, eyeon Fusion® will provide us with a perfect balance between a backroom power tool and a front room client station. With technologies like eyeon’s Fusion, we bring a higher level of quality, service, and experience for our clients while expanding our reach”.

Since the beginning of 2007, Prime Focus has become a world leader in visual effects, post production and DI, with offices in Mumbai, Hollywood, New York, London, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Chennai and Hyderabad. Currently controlling over 60% of India’s post production market, Prime Focus intends to grow with the same success in the European and North American markets, and has added Fusion to all pipelines in pursuit of this goal. With acquisitions of VTR Group, Clear, Blue, Frantic Films and Post Logic, Prime Focus has set up thousands of reliable compositing stations that span three continents thanks to Fusion’s full feature set and ability to deal with production problems not limited to one market or region. Prime Focus offers a complete suite of solutions, including grading, editing, optical effects, matte painting and now finishing with a pioneering compositor, Fusion.

“Fusion is the only tool for us! Its robust toolset allows us to complete any job in whatever way our artists prefer to work. 64-bit and resolution independence are a God-send,” compliments Theodor Groeneboom, Head of Fusion at Prime Focus London.

“These are exciting times for VFX in India, Hollywood and particularly for Prime Focus. With the powerful toolset fusion has, we aim to achieve a seamless integration across all our global locations and deliver world class service to our clients.”
Merzin Tavaria- Chief Creative India and Founder Member of Prime Focus Limited.

Derek Moore, Creative Director at PFL, adds, “Fusion has revolutionized the way we tackle many visual effects. The way it handles 3D space, its great particle engine, and the super fast rotoscoping and keying tools allow us to take a lot of pressure off other departments.”

Fusion continues to be a perfect fit for multi-national companies due to its pipeline and third party API flexibility, together with the distinct advantages of working inside Fusion’s extensive collaborative workflow. Celebrating its 20th year, Fusion offers a real 3D environment, 3D particles, 3D LUT’s, scripting and python support, OFX plug-in compatibility, customized scriptable plug-ins via Fuse, and versatile spline editing functionality, upgrading pipelines with better performance and reliability all in one multi-threaded 64-bit package.

“We’ve used digital fusion from the beginning because it has grown into one of the most useful assets in production.”
Chris Bond, Creative Director, North American VFX & Head of Research & Development, Frantic Films

Prime Focus has lent a multitude of talent to almost 50 feature films since 2000. When added to the gained experience from numerous divisions around the world, the number of production credits jumps to more than 150. Fusion is utilized on various projects currently in production under the Prime Focus umbrella, including Journey To The Centre Of The Earth 3D, Tales Of The Riverbank, Agent Crush, BBC Rugby, Wonder Woman, Leningrad, The Ruins, and Stellina Blue.

“The decision made by Prime Focus to standardize with Fusion confirms what eyeon has strived for from day one, to offer the best possible option for VFX compositing. More importantly, with a tremendous global influence and broad artist talent pool, Prime Focus has decided that Fusion is the only solution for VFX in every market, from feature film, gaming, broadcast, and motion graphics. A 1000 seat purchase spread across multiple offices around the world is extraordinary, and we are very lucky to be partnered with Prime Focus going forward.”
Steve Roberts, CEO eyeon Software

Apple ships Final Cut Server!
Apple describes it as “Meet Final Cut Server, media asset management and workflow automation software designed for the unique needs of film and video professionals.”
Here is the page for the product that they announced at last NAB.

Cine-tal Systems to acquire cineSpace product line from Rising Sun Research.
Cine-tal has reached an agreement with Rising Sun Research (RSR) to wholly acquire its cineSpace color management technology and product line. Cine-tal will continue to develop and market cineSpace as a standalone solution for color management in visual effects and DI. Cine-tal Systems and Rising Sun Research will conduct a joint demonstration with cineSpace supporting display profiling and matching LUT generation using Cine-tal’s eL1000 and Cinemage product lines.

cineSpace is the most widely used color management technology for film and television production. It is employed by production and post production facilities worldwide to ensure that all of their displays match and conform to a specified output medium, such as a particular film stock or video format. It ensures that the images artists see on their screens are identical to how they will look when projected in a movie theater or shown on television. Cine-tal Systems will integrate cineSpace software technology with its own display management software that has been in development for several years.

The combined technology will allow users to ensure consistency of image quality when content workflow passes through several color space requirements and is viewed on different display systems. The tools will assist customers with any variation in image display when content moves from one phase of production to another, from one facility to another or from one type of display technology to another.

Special-effects studio Digital Domain to launch stock offering
The Los Angeles Times reports that Digital Domain is ramping up its plans to go public.