Demos of iconik, ftrack and cineSync to be hosted at Booth #608

BOSTON — (BUSINESS WIRE) — July 10, 2024 — Global video and entertainment technology company, Backlight, will demo its suite of popular creative workflow solutions—iconik, ftrack, and cineSync—at the 51st annual SIGGRAPH conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, taking place later this month in Denver.

“In the year since we were last with our community at SIGGRAPH, the creative industry has been in flux due to technological advancements, economic uncertainty and post-strike adjustments,” said Fredrik Limsater, founder of ftrack and Backlight executive. “At Backlight, we have been leaning in to support our users and innovating to deliver the solutions they need to bring their creations to life with speed, quality, visibility and security. We are excited for this year’s show to share with the community our latest enhancements.”

More Usage Insights and a Further Streamlined Workflow From iconik

As part of its ongoing effort to enhance how content is managed and shared from iconik, Backlight has introduced a new UI that provides easier visibility into how teams are leveraging their iconik domain. Admins can keep an eye on all the shared content across a domain by tracking every asset that’s been shared, how often each has been viewed, and by whom. Engagement and share details available to administrators in the dashboard include:

• Asset details - View share and asset names, who created the share and when, and its current status (active or expired).
• Engagement - See how many times each asset has been visited and shared and when the last visit was.
• Share Type - Determine whether shares are for general viewing or specific for review and approval.

Enhanced Pipeline Integration & Smoother Review Process with ftrack Connect

Backlight recently introduced the ftrack Connect Framework to enhance creative industry pipelines with a modern, scalable solution for powerful integrations. This framework simplified the process of incorporating digital content creation tools into an ftrack pipeline with out-of-the-box support for Photoshop, Maya, and Nuke.

Backlight has now extended this support to Side FX Houdini and Adobe Premiere Pro, two industry-leading software solutions for 2D animation, 3D procedural creation, and video editing. These integrations can be installed via the Plugin Manager inside of ftrack Connect. Once installed users can publish working files for review, feedback, and iteration from their creative apps so they can stay immersed in their creative process. A similar integration with Toon Boom Harmony is in the works and is available to try in a pre-release state.

The ftrack Connect Framework allows users to customize, extend, and adapt the integrations to fit their needs. Its flexibility permits users to leverage the Connect Framework to extend ftrack’s workflows with features unique to them.

User-friendly Webhook Configuration with ftrack Studio

Backlight has made it easier for ftrack users to create and configure outgoing webhooks with a new, user-friendly webhooks interface that acts as a gateway to automations, saving users time. The new interface makes setting up and managing webhooks intuitive, reducing hassle and boosting efficiency.

Here are some example use cases for webhooks:

• Review Workflow Automation: Monitor changes to "pending review" status and automatically add updated versions to a specific review session or list. This ensures immediate attention to items needing feedback, streamlining the review process without manual input.
• Task Dependency Management: Upon a task's completion, automatically update the status of downstream tasks to "ready to be worked on," ensuring a smooth workflow transition and minimizing project delays by automating dependency tracking.
• Data Transfer Automation: Trigger data preparation and transfer processes when specific project milestones are reached. This facilitates efficient data movement across regions or direct delivery to clients, ensuring timely and format-compliant data handling with minimal manual oversight.

Example use cases for webhooks include doing things like automating the creation of review sessions when assets are tagged with “pending review,” updating downstream task statuses when a parent task status has changed, or automating data transfer processes when specific milestones are reached.

These features will all be shown at SIGGRAPH 2024, alongside a range of other ftrack updates that have been released in 2024, including new and improved schedulers, the new Create Project UI, easier ways for artists to self-serve tasks, and more.

Secure cineSync Review Sessions with iOS App & a New Visual Timeline Feature

In the most recent release of cineSync 5, Backlight introduced a new iOS app that allows users to join cineSync 5 review sessions on the go. The app features automatic file transfers, synchronized playback, and annotation. Users will also benefit from a new visual timeline feature and the option of password-protected reviews for additional security.

• iOS App: cineSync on the Go: Review guests can now Join cineSync 5 sessions from an iPad, with synchronized playback, annotations, and playlist browsing. The app plays media files and displays annotations in sync with other participants. For users with cineSync Pro accounts, cineSync automatically transfers any files for review via its Flow Production Tracking, ftrack, iconik, AWS, and other integrated file transfer options.
• Password-protected reviews: In addition to our unique, per-review Session Keys, file encryption, auto-deletion, and watermarking options, users now have the option of adding a Password to any cineSync review session.
• Visual timeline: Navigating a session is easier with the new thumbnail timeline display. Users can now pinpoint individual moments during sequence playback and review precisely what they need.

To book a demo or meeting with Backlight, register here and visit us at booth #608.

About Backlight
Backlight is a global media technology company that is dramatically improving every stage of the video and entertainment content lifecycle—from creation through monetization—with its award-winning, cloud-native SaaS products. Video-forward organizations partner with Backlight to solve their mission-critical business and operational challenges. Backlight’s product lines—iconik, cineSync, ftrack, celtx, Wildmoka Clip Studio, and Zype—provide secure and efficient media management, narrative design, production tracking, creative collaboration, OTT, monetization, and hyper-distribution. Backlight launched in 2021 and is backed by $200M in funding from growth-equity partner PSG.

For more information, visit backlight.co.

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Kini Schoop | Backlight | media@backlight.co