Press Releases

isovideo's Viarte Standards Conversion Server used for "Footage Conversion" in Ron Howard's "Made in America"

(Beaverton, Oregon - September 16, 2013) isovideo announces today that our 2013 IABM/NAB Game-Changer Award-winning Viarte server was used in the highly invigorating and inspirational concert documentary "Made in America" by Academy-award winning director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13) and hip-hop mogul Jay Z. The movie was world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2013. The Exchange, Inc has acquired international sales rights to the picture, and the movie is set to debut in the US TV on Showtime, October 11th.

"Made in America" was shot and centered around the two-day inaugural spectacular music festival, envisioned and lead by rapper Jay Z, and joined by many other star artists including Drake, Pearl Jam, Run-DMC, Janelle Monáe, Gary Clark, Jr., Skrillex, Rick Ross, Miike Snow, Odd Future, Dirty Projectors and more, that electrified and rocked the city of Philadelphia over the 2012 Labour Day weekend. The film also featured many behind-the-scenes footage and interviews that highlight the spirit of the American dream. The film was produced by Imagine Entertainment, @radical.media and Participant Media.

isovideo encountered a rare opportunity thanks largely to the lead assistant editor of "Made in America", Jerome Raim, who's initiative pursued the state-of-the-art in 29.97i to 23.976p conversion by posting a challenge on the popular CreativeCOW media forum on May 30, 2013: "I was curious to know if in the past year or two there have been any breakthroughs (ha!)". He then briefly described the project he was working on, and his dissatisfaction with several well-known solutions (both software and hardware).

We wrote a short reply to Jerome on June 17, inviting him to try our solution. After a few quick tests, producers and editors at @radical.media were convinced that our conversion technology was the one to use. In the end, we received and finished the whole concert footage conversion (over 40 minutes, and several hundred short clips) within 48 hours, and without a single clip redo. Our Viarte solution won them over for its superior quality and efficiency.

"In the past, shooting in interlaced for conversion to film was a mistake due largely to lost resolution and artifacts introduced by inferior deinterlacers and frame-rate converters. Now using Viarte, one can convert 29.97i to beautiful 59.94p, and then on to great-looking 24p, with natural-looking simulated motion-blur. Furthermore the 59.94p is ready to repurpose to any other frame rate such as 48, 30, or 25p. Interlaced video now has a clear advantage over 24p in terms of repurposing.", says Keith Slavin, CTO of isovideo.

Jerome later posted another reply: "For anyone who find him/herself in my situation, I whole-heartedly recommend Keith's solution at https://isovideo.com. ..." and "For the smoothest motion, isovideo's algorithm beat all the other methods (software AND hardware)."

Indeed the results were independently reviewed by Toronto Independent Film Examiner Dave Voigt, who pointed out: "The concert footage looks great...".

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