Used by Sony Pictures Imageworks, Dreamworks Animation, MPC, Double Negative, Framestore and CNN

With increasingly truncated production schedules and the growth of globally distributed workflows, filmmakers are under increasing pressure to be able to review and approve material 24/7, no matter where they are. cineSync, which is exhibiting on the Aspera stand at IBC (7.G11), was developed by Australian software developer Rising Sun Research (RSR), a sister company of leading vfx company Rising Sun Pictures, to allow them to do just that.
Used by such leading companies as Sony Pictures Imageworks, Dreamworks Animation, MPC, Double Negative, Framestore and CNN, cineSync is a remote review and approval tool based on Apple QuickTime technology. By synchronising the timeline and playback of movies, it enables users to quickly and efficiently view their work at the same time with anyone anywhere in the world.

As such it has been used on some of the biggest titles of 2009 and 2010, including District 9, Where the Wild Things Are, Terminator: Salvation, GI Joe, The Wolfman, Harry Potter 6, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Surrogates, The A-Team, Alvin and the Chipmunks 2, The Final Destination and Alice in Wonderland.

Innovative tools allow users to securely build a playlist of movies, scrub to a point in a movie, playback a movie, draw on the screen with their mouse, write, circle and point to areas using the drawing tools ‘ all synchronised in realtime with everyone else in the review. “Clients can even participate in a review session without needing their own account,” explains cineSync Product Manager, Rory McGregor. “All they have to do is download a small self-contained package, and login in using a key that is unique per-review session. Footage is never transferred through the cineSync servers, ensuring that reviews remain secure.”

Two versions of the software are available, cineSync and cineSync Pro. New on show at IBC are versions 1.3.1 of cineSync and 2.1.1 of cineSync Pro, which add an eraser tool, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard support, and an entirely new Playlist Viewer which supports drag and drop functionality and thumbnail generation for each clip. Crucially, cineSync Pro 2.1.1 also has support for Cineon, DPX and EXR frames and integrated Aspera file transfers.

“Aspera is a provider of high speed file transfer technology based out of San Francisco and has taken the world by storm with its excellent file transfer tools,” explains cineSync Product Manager, Rory McGregor. “We’ve been one of the first companies to really integrate Aspera at a deep level in our software so that it acts as the file transfer engine underneath our own UI.”

Visitors to the Aspera stand can see cineSync in action and see exactly why the likes of ILM, Digital Domain, Ubisoft and Disney Motion Pictures amongst others have all purchased cineSync in recent months.