Tweet
NAGRA's myCinema content, content management and distribution service for North American theater owners, or Caas as NAGRA labels it 'cloud-based Content as a Service, has introduced the MPEG HEVC also known as ITU's H.265 video codec to the cinema industry. Cinema exhibition till now has relied on lossless compression, JPEG2000 in particular. The use of the HEVC compression, known from UHD Blu-ray and 4K broadcast services, makes sense as myCinema is using ip distribution of what appears to be a largely 'alternative content' portfolio. And Alternative Content has seen satellite, and broadcast style distribution. Using MPEG2 for early projects and MPEG4 AVC/H.264 for the projects that followed.
And HEVC is the most advanced established compression standard. MPEG 2 is still the mainstay in SD broadcast, MPEG 4 AVC in HD, and HEVC is the codec for the 4K era. Hardware vendors like Harmonic are telling their customers at IBC in Amsterdam they can do UHD in 8 Mbit/s.
At the same International Broadcasting Convention ongoing in Amsterdam there are also demonstrations of videocompression tools proposed for Versatile Video Coding, the label MPEG placed on what is to be the follow-up to HEVC, in itself the next generation to MPEG 4 AVC/H.264. However this is all still in the standard formation stage.
NAGRA is best known for its cable and satellite pay tv broadcasting content protection, Conditional Access systems. It has an established track record in working with MPEG based distribution.
Earlier this summer Royal Oak Cinema in Detroit, was the first to use the new myCinema service and technology, when showing the first-run movie "Ideal Home" starring Paul Rudd. The Royal Oak Cinema is owned by Emagine Entertainment, a U.S. movie theater circuit and myCinema exhibition licensee.
"This is the first-time audiences have enjoyed a feature length film leveraging advanced digital compression technology via a NAGRA-secured myCinema theater premise equipment (TPE)", said Jean-Luc Jezouin, SVP Business Development at NAGRA. Adding; "The plug-and-play experience of the myCinema solution offers a significant leap in digital cinema distribution technology, alleviating enormous costs experienced with traditional Digital Cinema Prints (DCP)."
The new service makes use of robust content distribution technologies and security components from NAGRA's cloud-based OTT streaming and Security Services platforms to, according to NAGRA claims, provide a significant reduction in content distribution and storage costs for cinema owners while improving the content's visual quality.
NAGRA's DVnor post-production media asset management services provide the myCinema CaaS with secure and quality-controlled h.265/HEVC compressed movies and special event programming directly to cinema projection rooms.
According to Jezouin "NAGRA has licensed dozens of myCinema exhibition partners, representing more than 200 cinema properties".
He adds there's also progress on the content side: "To complete this exciting new era of technological innovation we have licensed the cinematic distribution rights for first-run movies, alternative content, foreign language films, esports, live play, opera and other offerings. This new cloud-based distribution system offers an innovative way forward delivering tangible ROI for theaters from a continually growing database of content."
And HEVC is the most advanced established compression standard. MPEG 2 is still the mainstay in SD broadcast, MPEG 4 AVC in HD, and HEVC is the codec for the 4K era. Hardware vendors like Harmonic are telling their customers at IBC in Amsterdam they can do UHD in 8 Mbit/s.
At the same International Broadcasting Convention ongoing in Amsterdam there are also demonstrations of videocompression tools proposed for Versatile Video Coding, the label MPEG placed on what is to be the follow-up to HEVC, in itself the next generation to MPEG 4 AVC/H.264. However this is all still in the standard formation stage.
NAGRA is best known for its cable and satellite pay tv broadcasting content protection, Conditional Access systems. It has an established track record in working with MPEG based distribution.
Earlier this summer Royal Oak Cinema in Detroit, was the first to use the new myCinema service and technology, when showing the first-run movie "Ideal Home" starring Paul Rudd. The Royal Oak Cinema is owned by Emagine Entertainment, a U.S. movie theater circuit and myCinema exhibition licensee.
"This is the first-time audiences have enjoyed a feature length film leveraging advanced digital compression technology via a NAGRA-secured myCinema theater premise equipment (TPE)", said Jean-Luc Jezouin, SVP Business Development at NAGRA. Adding; "The plug-and-play experience of the myCinema solution offers a significant leap in digital cinema distribution technology, alleviating enormous costs experienced with traditional Digital Cinema Prints (DCP)."
The new service makes use of robust content distribution technologies and security components from NAGRA's cloud-based OTT streaming and Security Services platforms to, according to NAGRA claims, provide a significant reduction in content distribution and storage costs for cinema owners while improving the content's visual quality.
NAGRA's DVnor post-production media asset management services provide the myCinema CaaS with secure and quality-controlled h.265/HEVC compressed movies and special event programming directly to cinema projection rooms.
According to Jezouin "NAGRA has licensed dozens of myCinema exhibition partners, representing more than 200 cinema properties".
He adds there's also progress on the content side: "To complete this exciting new era of technological innovation we have licensed the cinematic distribution rights for first-run movies, alternative content, foreign language films, esports, live play, opera and other offerings. This new cloud-based distribution system offers an innovative way forward delivering tangible ROI for theaters from a continually growing database of content."