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HPA Tech Retreat 2024 Wrap-Up

The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) wrapped its 29th annual Tech Retreat in Palm Springs last week, and EditShare was honored to meet with attendees in the Innovation Zone. This show is one of the most anticipated events in the media engineering world, where industry leaders, scientists, creatives and organizations gather to discuss innovative new technologies, standards and practices.

From cutting-edge technology discussions to collaborative innovations, join us as we unwrap the key takeaways and exciting developments that unfolded at the highly anticipated event.

AI continues to dominate the conversation

HPA President Seth Hallen took on the task of programming the AI track of the main program, which discussed topics ranging from using GenAI as a screenwriting partner and pre-production assistant to demystifying AI in the supply chain. 

Some worry that AI means you soon won’t be able to trust what you see, while others believe it could help accelerate content creation by as much as 50% by removing mundane tasks from your workflow. Only time will tell, but a look back at this interview on the launch of Photoshop 25 years ago might improve your outlook. 

Five years into MovieLabs 2030 Vision

Our friend Mark Turner, Program Director, Production Technology at MovieLabs, led a “State of the Union,” providing an update on the progress of their 2030 Vision. Mark and his MovieLab partners hosted several sessions to discuss industry advancements and identify gaps that need to be filled.

“We’re approaching five years into our odyssey towards ‘ProductionLandia’ – an aspirational place where media creation workflows are interoperable, efficient, secure-by-design, and seamlessly flexible,” said Leon Silverman, HPA founder and past president. “It is the destination – and the 2030 Vision is our roadmap to get there. What we are finding is that this Vision resonates well beyond Hollywood and that the HPA Tech Retreat has become the vital meeting place for fellow travelers to learn all about MovieLabs’ work while MovieLabs gains visibility into pioneering developments that would otherwise go under our radar.”

Themes at the event included implementing the MovieLabs Ontology for Media Creation, Bringing the “Studio in the Cloud” to Fruition and Enabling Interoperable Workflows. Mark stressed that while there has been tremendous progress, they still have a lot of work to do to achieve the 2023 Vision. 

Exciting news from EditShare

We were excited to demonstrate how our products help enhance the quality and efficiency of production and post-production processes, particularly for remote work and seamless cloud integration. 

With Swift Link, we address the need for storage solutions that connect multiple facilities and integrate with the cloud, catering to users working remotely or from home. Swift Link significantly improves remote client speeds over VPNs or high-latency connections, boosting throughput up to 10 times. This technology allows users to preview and edit proxies and high-res media, optimizing connections for remote work without altering existing equipment or workflows.

Now available with all new EFS systems, EditShare Connect features new swift link technology, a revolutionary productivity tool turning your on-premise storage into your own private cloud for remote editing workflows. Reliably connect from any location using automatic latency detection and use your favorite NLE software on any OS to work on your media remotely and securely.

EditShare One, a new user experience, streamlines creative processes, with initial applications like Producer View facilitating task assignments and feedback delivery across dispersed teams. Producers can mark key points in transcriptions for editors through the FLOW panel, enhancing collaboration. AI-driven services, such as speech-to-text transcriptions, integrate seamlessly into FLOW, expediting work and enabling automatic creation of rough cuts or integration of selected clips into Adobe Premiere sequences. This can be extended even further with the new integration between FLOW and MediaSilo, allowing users to share links, create presentations and collaborate throughout the production team.

Thanks for the Double-Double®

HPA surprised us by bringing in an In-N-Out Cookout Truck to close out the show. The conversations with customers and knowledge gained were unbeatable, but an Animal Style Double-Double® comes in at a close second. 

In-N-Out Cookout Truck

Thank you to HPA for another remarkable event that helps keep us on the cutting edge of the M&E industry. 

If you want to learn more about the products mentioned above, click here to get started, or book a meeting with us at NAB for a personal demo!