Lightcraft Tech Wins HPA Engineering Excellence Award

The Hollywood Post Alliance Presents Honors to Dolby, Sony,
Lightcraft Technology and IBM at Awards Gala


Venice, CA – The Hollywood Post Alliance® has announced the recipients of the organization’s Engineering Excellence Award. The coveted honor, sponsored by NAB Show, is intended to showcase and reward inventors, manufacturers, vendors and/or peer post production companies for their outstanding product or technology application offerings. The Engineering Excellence Award is a central part of the HPA Awards, which have become the standard by which creative and technical excellence in the art, science and craft of post production is measured.



To enter the Engineering competition, companies had to submit a written description followed by a presentation to an expert panel of judges. The Engineering Award presentations and blue-ribbon judging session were held earlier this month at LaserPacific. This lively session played host to some of the most significant new technologies currently on the market. Entries of either a product or process had to represent a significant step forward for post-production industry beneficiaries, and could be submitted by an individual, group or company.



Leon Silverman, President of the Hollywood Post Alliance, noted, “The focus of the HPA Awards is to celebrate creativity throughout our post production industry, and the Engineering Award remains at the center of these honors. We are proud to draw attention to the creativity of our technology community whose tools and technology enables, preserves and allows audiences to celebrate the incredible work of our industry’s artists.”



The winners of the 2011 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are:


•Dolby Professional Reference Monitor

Filling the gap left by the CRT, The Dolby® PRM-4200 Professional Reference Monitor is the first display capable of displaying the full dynamic range, contrast ratio, color gamut of leading edge digital cameras and film stocks, and fully supports today’s digital work flows. The monitor delivers true blacks with exceptional dark detail, high contrast, wide dynamic range and precise color rendering.


•IBM Linear Tape File System

The IBM Linear Tape File System (LTFS) was invented by IBM Research to provide a simple, cost efficient way to access and manage massive archives of data and digital assets.


•Lightcraft Previzion

A real time visual effects system that incorporates a combination of high precision camera tracking, sophisticated rendering, and VFX quality keying which makes it ideal for the real time on-set compositing of live action, virtual backgrounds, and CGI characters. The system provides filmmakers with the ability to create visual effects shots with dynamic camera moves and actually see the completed effects during the shot.


•Sony OLED Monitor

The organic light emitting diode technology (OLED) for reference monitoring is a panel and processor system that is practical for media production applications. The development involved significant investment in two factories and has resulted in delivering 7 different monitor models.

“We are honored to receive the award for Engineering Excellence from such a significant and influential organization as the Hollywood Post Alliance. It is a testament to the quality of our monitor and illustrates Dolby’s commitment to helping content creators produce the best possible entertainment content,” noted Bill Admans, Director of Production and Post Production Solutions, Dolby Laboratories.

"IBM is proud to be recognized for our creation and design of the Linear Tape File System. This unique technology can help customers simplify their use of tape for storing data and video assets, leveraging the low cost, rugged, portable, efficient and long retention aspects of tape storage," said Steve Canepa, General Manager, Global Media & Entertainment Industry, IBM.

"We’re very honored to receive the Engineering Excellence Award. The HPA Tech Retreat® was where Lightcraft first demonstrated Previzion to the Hollywood community, and to come full circle and be recognized by the HPA is extremely gratifying. We look forward to relentlessly improving Previzion's capabilities and to expanding what is possible in entertainment production,” commented Eliot Mack, Co-Founder, Lightcraft Technology.

Gary Mandle, Sr. Product Manager, Sony Professional Solutions of America, stated, “We are all honored that HPA would present Sony with this award. There were so many engineers and scientists involved in the development who really don’t get the recognition they deserve. This award is for them and the great achievement that they have accomplished.”

Last year’s winners of the Engineering Excellence Award included ALEXA by Arnold + Richter Cine Technik (ARRI); Image Systems (formerly Digital Vision) for the Open EXR workflow; and Cine-tal for their Davio processor. The HPA Awards will take place on the evening of November 10th, 2011 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

Tickets for the HPA Awards will be available in September and can be purchased online at www.hpaawards.net or by calling the HPA at 213.614.0860 or writing info@hpaawards.net.

About the Hollywood Post Alliance®

Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) serves the professional community of businesses and individuals who provide expertise, support, tools and the infrastructure for the creation and finishing of motion pictures, television, commercials, digital media and other dynamic media content.

About the HPA® Awards

The HPA Awards were created to foster awareness of post production, promote creative and technical excellence, recognize the achievements of post production talent, and build involvement in the Hollywood Post Alliance. The HPA Awards will be presented with generous support from Foundation Sponsor: Avid Technology and Premier Sponsor: NAB Show.