LOS ANGELES—The HPA Awards Committee has announced that a trio of recipients will receive the 2023 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence at this year’s HPA Awards gala on November 9 at the Hollywood Legion in Hollywood. 

“In the midst of a revolutionary time in media and entertainment, it was exciting to see the caliber and number of entries to the Engineering Excellence awards this year,” said HPA Awards Engineering Committee chair Joachim Zell. “Our esteemed judges remarked on the true innovation and advancement in our industry depicted in the presentations. Sincere congratulations to the winners, and we acknowledge the remarkable achievements represented by every submission.” 

The HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence are a coveted and competitive honor, denoting outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution, and archive, HPA said. A distinguished panel of industry judges review materials and video presentations before gathering to hear presentations from submitters and then vote on the top technologies.

The winners of the 2023 HPA Award for Engineering Excellence are:

• Adobe for Adobe Premiere Pro Text-Based Editing. Premiere Pro is the only professional editing software to incorporate text-based editing, revolutionizing the way filmmakers approach their craft by making dialogue editing as simple as cutting and pasting text. Powered by Adobe Sensei, Text-Based Editing analyzes video clips and provides transcriptions that identify individual speakers. Using an in-app text editor, post-production teams can search for words or phrases, cut sentences, and rearrange dialogue to automatically shape rough cuts directly in their timeline. The feature is designed to help post-production professionals create a rough cut faster, increasing efficiency and eliminating traditional bottlenecks in locating, trimming, and moving specific clips.
• Flanders Scientific for XMP550. The XMP550 is a 55" UHD resolution HDR and SDR reference mastering monitor built around a groundbreaking new QD-OLED panel featuring 2,000 nits peak luminance, 4,000,000:1 contrast, and FSI's widest color gamut to date. The XMP550 qualifies as a Dolby Vision mastering monitor, bringing an end to the days of compromising between smaller reference-grade HDR displays and larger non-reference client displays. The XMP550 delivers the best of both worlds with truly reference-grade performance and professional connectivity in a form factor large enough for both the colorist and clients to view. The XMP550 is OLED without compromise.
• Kino Flo for Mimik 120. The MIMIK 120 is a full spectrum image-based lighting fixture that can synchronize to a XR volume to provide foreground lighting. It can be assembled as a wall or ceiling or be used as individual fixtures. It’s a 7200 pixel, 10 pitch lighting tile that converts a 3 color RGB video pixel into a 5 color pixel consisting of RGB, 2700K & 6500K phosphor white LEDs. The 5-color pixel ensures better tonal and color reproduction of foreground elements. It also operates at a high frequency enabling camera speeds of up to 960 fps.

HPA also bestowed an "Honorable Mention" on StypeLandXR. 

HPA said that StypeLandXR is an innovative Unreal Engine 5 plugin, revolutionizing virtual production. This trailblazing tool, used for the award-winning FOX Sports Live MULTICAM XR Set, which won the Sports Emmy - The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award, uniquely corrects color shifts on LED walls and resolves inherent delays between LED walls and set extensions. It enables the creation of extensive virtual spaces, offering accurate color matching, seamless transitions, and precision calibration. By enhancing visual impact and immersion, StypeLandXR opens new frontiers of creative potential.

The Engineering Excellence Award will be presented at the HPA Awards gala on November 9, 2023. Nominations honoring creative artistry in 19 categories will be announced in early autumn.

The HPA Awards are made possible through the generous sponsorship of diamond title sponsor Blackmagic Design and supporting sponsor Colorist Society. More information about the HPA Awards and the Hollywood Professional Association can be found at www.hpaonline.com.

“Best of Show Up Close” is a series about nominees and winners in the annual Future Best of Show at NAB award program.

We spoke with Bryan Gordon of Flanders Scientific, which was a Best of Show winner with its XM311K monitor.

TV Technology:Tell us about XM311K, what does it offer broadcasters?

Bryan Gordon: The XM311K is a 31-inch 10-bit professional reference monitor designed for color critical monitoring of 4K, UHD and HD signals. It features robust 3D LUT based calibration support and HDR capabilities making it suitable for a wide range of applications.

With a 12Gbps SDI I/O that supports 12G, 6G and Quad 3G SDI in, out and loop-through connections, the XM311K is ready for any professional workflow. The monitor showcases many useful features, such as 4K compatible waveform and vectorscope, two de-interlacing options, HD-to-UHD upscaling, direct compatibility with on-set color applications and a variety of markers.

The XM311K utilizes a Light Modulating Cell Layer LCD that boasts a fullscreen peak luminance of 1,000cd/m2 support for both PQ and HLG EOTFs, multiple color gamut selections and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1.

TVT:Tell us about the new firmware updates for XM monitors and what advantages that will bring?

BG: The newest firmware update (1.1.61) for XM series monitors includes the highly anticipated LUM Coloring adjustable exposure check feature. This false color capability generates an artificial luminance map of the incoming source that can be particularly useful in identifying the overexposed or underexposed areas of any given shot. An onscreen scale helps indicate which artificial color corresponds with what luminance, and includes four knob-adjustable points from 0-100% that allow you to establish specific target areas to be shown in false color or grayscale.

TVT:What is it about XM311K that sets it apart from similar offerings?

BG: The XM311K features industry leading tetrahedral LUT interpolation, qualifies as a Dolby Vision mastering monitor and is suitable for practically any 4K, UHD or HD monitoring requirement in both HDR and SDR. The XM311K uses a groundbreaking new LCD technology that introduces an independently controllable layer of light modulating cells between the backlight and traditional display cell. This allows for greatly expanded individual pixel level control of light intensity resulting in several key benefits compared to traditional LCDs including truer black levels, much higher contrast ratios, no halation / flare artifacts and no loading behavior. Compared to OLED technology LMCL has the distinct benefit of avoiding burn-in as well as being able to maintain consistent peak luminance regardless of overall scene brightness.

TVT:What does it cost? Is it shipping?

BG: FSI is pleased to announce that the XM311K HDR Mastering monitor has a new lower list price of $35,000 and is available to purchase now.

TVT:What else should we know about XM311K or Flanders Scientific in general?

BG: Flanders Scientific is an Alpharetta, Georgia-based company offering high quality professional equipment to the broadcast and post-production industries. In addition to our Atlanta area headquarters, FSI also operates a sales and service center in Lier, Belgium, providing direct service to customers throughout Europe.

ALPHARETTA, GA—Flanders Scientific has announced that its range of color management devices, BoxIO, is now available shipping. The company is also making the BoxIO Utility application available for free download for Mac and PC users.

BoxIO is a color management device that can operate in a single- or dual-channel mode. In a single-channel mode BoxIO can load 16 separate 33 side cubes; in dual-channel mode the unit operates like two LUT devices, allowing users to load 32 independent 17 side cubes, 16 per channel. BoxIO also supports 10 and 12-bit 1D LUTs in combination with any active 3D LUTs.

The BoxIO Utility allows users to load 1D and 3D LUTs, control mode and input settings, set network preferences, and grab full resolution stills from BoxIO with or without LUT applied. Reference stills can be saved as jpg or BMP files.

Additional features of the BoxIO application include compatibility with Pomfort’s LiveGrade Pro for dual-channel operation; a four-pin mini-XLR connector with a 100-240V power supply; and support for 17 side and 33 side cubes generated by LightIllusion’s LightSpace CMS and SpectraCal’s CalMAN.