FilmLight Introduces REMOTE Color Grading Solution

Woman working on color grading
(Image credit: FilmLight)

LONDON—FilmLight has officially launched FilmLight REMOTE, a remote color-grading solution that allows post houses and colorists to work remotely without sacrificing the high-quality and low-latency monitoring essential for fast and efficient workflows.

The FilmLight REMOTE solution, which has been through an extensive beta program, is available now to all users as part of Baselight 6.0.

“In today’s post-production environment, there is an increasing call for remote working, whether you work on dailies, editing, VFX or finishing,” Martin Tlaskal, head of development at FilmLight, said. “But the world of color correction has its own particular challenges and previous offerings have been limited in terms of the ability to drive both the color grading control surfaces and the monitoring of high-quality images with low latency. FilmLight REMOTE addresses this by offering the first complete remote grading solution without sacrificing quality or speed.”

FilmLight REMOTE allows users to integrate a FilmLight control surface, UI monitors, mouse and keyboard with professional monitoring over the internet. The Baselight or Daylight can run HP Anyware or Amazon DCV to provide the remote end with multiple UI monitors up to 4K. At the same time, an SRT video connection is made to provide a high-quality video stream (supporting JPEG-XS and H265) to the remote system, where the FilmLight desk service can also provide support for the Slate, Blackboard Classic or Blackboard 2 control panels.

UNIT TV was part of the FilmLight REMOTE beta program and recently added REMOTE to its unique workflow setup in London—helping its team stay focused on creativity.

"The solution we decided upon for UNIT’s workflow was at the bleeding edge of technology and had not been attempted before,” Adam Luckwell, founder and CEO of UNIT TV, said. “Filmlight’s support was amazing, the depth and breadth of knowledge along with their can-do attitude mirrored our own engineers, who worked together with Filmlight to solve initial problems and develop a brilliant fully remote solution that has kept our artists happy and focused on their creative output.”

REMOTE also supports the increasing interest from facilities to host equipment off-premise, in a data center or in the cloud. A thin-client system can be used to stream the UI from the Baselight or Daylight system, and handle the control surfaces. The video stream is received by the thin client or the FilmLight REMOTE server, which can be used to receive up to four UltraHD video streams—converting them to SDI to interface with existing SDI routing infrastructure. FilmLight REMOTE also opens up the possibility to work seamlessly from home or other remote sites, without the need for any extra hardware encoders or decoders.

Coffee & TV in London was also part of the REMOTE beta program and is now running REMOTE regularly, with Baselight now located off-premise in a data center.

“The highest compliment we can give is that you’d never know the Baselight wasn’t in the building—it works seamlessly,” said Lewis Crossfield, senior colorist at Coffee & TV.

More information is available here.

George Winslow

George Winslow is the senior content producer for TV Tech. He has written about the television, media and technology industries for nearly 30 years for such publications as Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and TV Tech. Over the years, he has edited a number of magazines, including Multichannel News International and World Screen, and moderated panels at such major industry events as NAB and MIP TV. He has published two books and dozens of encyclopedia articles on such subjects as the media, New York City history and economics.