HPA Announces 2011 Engineering Excellence Award Winners


LOS ANGELES—The Hollywood Post Alliance has announced the recipients of the organization’s Engineering Excellence Award. The 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 winners 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.


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, playing 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.

“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,” said Leon Silverman, President of the Hollywood Post Alliance. 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.”

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 Nov. 10, 2011 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.