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VIVE Launches FIZTrack - Last Piece in Mars CamTrack Puzzle
š Amazon doubles down on AI, King Tut gets Unreal
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Hello! Welcome to another edition of VP Land - where we keep you updated on the latest news and tech for making movies (hopefully better, faster, cheaper).
In this issue:
š§© VIVE releases the last piece of their camera tracking solution
š¦ The Everything Store wants to be the every AI model depot
š Is this virtual King Tut tomb the future of documentary filmmaking?
and more! Letās dive in.
MAIN STAGE
FIZTrack: VIVEās New Lens Encoder
VIVE has rolled out the last part of their Mars CamTrack setup - the FIZTrack.
The FIZTrack is a lens encoder to send real-time camera data (Focus, Iris, or Zoom) from your production camera to your virtual camera in Unreal Engine over the Mars CamTrack system, so your virtual background updates in real time.
Source: VIVE
Now if you rack focus on your camera, the focus on the virtual camera in Unreal will also adjust, so the background responds properly, creating more realistic images and opening up more virtual shot options when using the Mars CamTrack system.
The FIZTrack integrates directly with the Mars system - just plug it into the hub with the tracker, which also provides power.
Now, if you want to encode two different elements, such as zooming and rack focus, youāll need an encoder for each parameter.
This was previewed at NAB, which you can see in our interview with Ray Mosco, Developer Relations at HTC Vive.
FIZTrack is available for order now for $499. Full VIVE Mars CamTrack system (no FIZ) is $5,000.
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DAILIES
Amazon Doubles Down on AI
Source: Sports Video Group
Last week we covered Amazonās new Bedrock announcements - its AWS gen AI platform that brings easy API access to some of the best models, including Claude 2 and Stability AIās SDXL 1.0.
Two new stories popped up worth mentioning.
One is a case study on how FOX has been using AWS to power their Catch Up with Highlights feature, which uses AI to compile the best moments of a game for viewers to get a recap.
Leveraging Amazonās open source Media Replay Engine (MRE) framework for automating video clipping and replay generation, alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure and solutions, Catch Up With Highlights is an end-to-end solution that can ingest broadcast streams, identify valuable match moments through AI-trained computer vision, and then encode delivery streams with metadata across user devicesā¦
The Catch Up With Highlights workflow includes AWS Lambda event-driven serverless compute, and computer vision with Amazon Rekognition. Sports data is housed in an Amazon DynamoDB NoSQL database, then piped into MRE. Live video is quickly delivered to viewers via AWS Elemental MediaConnect, with videos stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon ElastiCache for caching live clips.
And relating to that use of AWS, and Bedrockās new expansion last week, is a highlight from The Verge on Amazon CEO Andy Jassy saying every team at Amazon is working on generative AI.
Here are some extended quotes direct from the earnings call transcript.
Inside Amazon, every one of our teams is working on building generative AI applications that reinvent and enhance their customers' experience. But while we will build a number of these applications ourselves, most will be built by other companies, and we're optimistic that the largest number of these will be built on AWS. Remember, the core of AI is data. People want to bring generative AI models to the data, not the other way around.
AWS not only has the broadest array of storage, database, analytics and data management services for customers, it also has more customers and data store than anybody else. Coupled with providing customers with unmatched choices at these 3 layers of the generative AI stack as well as Bedrock's enterprise-grade security that's required for enterprises to feel comfortable putting generative AI applications into production, we think AWS is poised to be customers' long-term partner of choice in generative AIā¦
I think most companies are still figuring out how they want to approach it. They're figuring how to train models. They want to -- they don't want to build their own very large language models. They want to take other models and customize it, and services like Bedrock enable them to do so. But it's very early. And so I expect that will be very large, but it will be in the future.
In a later quote, he said this gen AI initiative extends to all aspects of the company, including entertainment (no further details other than this quote):
On the AI question, what I would tell you, every single one of our businesses inside of Amazon, every single one has multiple generative AI initiatives going right now. And they range from things that help us be more cost effective and streamlined in how we run operations in various businesses to the absolute heart of every customer experience in which we offer. And so it's true in our stores business. It's true in our AWS business. It's true in our advertising business. It's true in all our devices, and you can just imagine what we're working on with respect to Alexa there. It's true in our entertainment businesses, every single one. It is going to be at the heart of what we do. It's a significant investment and focus for us.
VIDEO VILLAGE
Bad Decisions Studio released this really stunning King Tut documentary, with a photo-real rendering of his tomb, built entirely from publicly available photos and video. Stay tuned for more info on how they put this together.
AKS
š Around the Web
Survey insights from Gen-Z Picnic users in navigating the AI landscape
Masterpiece X aims to unleash every creator's potential by introducing AI-powered workflows
Interesting essay on the cinematography of virtual reality
Schedule posts and track your social media with Metricool*
Wisecut secures funding to expand their AI driven editing platform
Enhanced video walls and AR are becoming attainable for small broadcasters as costs decline
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