HPA Honors Engineering Breakthroughs

Dolby, IBM, Lightcraft and Sony will receive 2011 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence at the 6th annual Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA) Awards, Nov. 10 in Los Angeles.

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Dolby Suggests Green Where Post Production Community Is Seeing Red

Among the winners of the Engineering Excellence awards--sponsored by the NAB Show--are two technologies that underscore the post industry’s urgent need to find a green replacement for Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) reference monitors.

STORY: Dolby Suggests Green Where Post Production Community Is Seeing Red

A reference monitor is an important piece of postproduction equipment that is relied upon to check color accuracy during the grading and mastering process. CRT monitors have long been the standard for accuracy, but they contain large amounts of toxic elements such as lead. Manufacturing of such monitors ended, although no new standard emerged, and so the scarcity of remaining CRT monitors has created a problem in postproduction.

Two HPA Engineering Excellence honorees--the Dolby Professional Reference Monitor and Sony organic light emitting diode technology (OLED) Monitor--aim to fill this gap.

Also honored for Engineering Excellence are the IBM Linear Tape File System, which allows users to access and manage data and digital assets in long term storage; and Lightcraft Previzion, a real time visual effects system, aimed at providing filmmakers with the ability to create visual effects shots with camera moves and see the completed effects during the shoot.