Prime Focus Technologies updates its CLEAR Media ERP software

Prime Focus Technologies (PFT) has announced powerful enhancements to its flagship product, CLEAR Media ERP, in order to empower Media & Entertainment (M&E) enterprises with improved collaboration, an enhanced user experience and greater security. PFT will be showcasing the latest version of CLEAR with all its power-packed features at IBC 2019.

Amer Saleem, Vice President, Product Management, Prime Focus Technologies, says, “At PFT, we’re always looking for new ways to deliver an exceptional user experience to our customers. In order to help users perform end-to-end content operations with greater efficiency, we’ve reimagined CLEAR’s package ingest capabilities and bolstered its powerful Work Order Management functionality with new features,” said. “In addition, we’ve introduced an all-new Apple TV application that modernizes the screening room experience, as well as a next-generation media player which delivers both incredible performance and ironclad security. The new enhancements will also enable our Services customers to increase efficiencies and scale operations like never before.”

The latest enhancements to CLEAR include:

Work Order Management - Smart Alerts

CLEAR provides native Work Order Management along with Media Asset Management (MAM) capabilities on single software, enabling users to manage assets, resources, tasks and workflow orchestration on ONE system. To help managers efficiently monitor all associated tasks according to due dates; CLEAR now sends out Smart Alerts against work orders for any breach of SLA.

Package Ingest

CLEAR’s Upload capabilities have been reimagined to allow nuanced and eminently scalable package ingests. Users can now manage large scale manual or automated ingestions for complex media asset packages.

CLEAR Services Cloud

Leveraging a Swiss Army Knife approach, CLEAR brings together advanced tools and Work Order Management on ONE system for a host of Cloud-enabled media services, including Subtitling, Quality Check (QC), Compliance, Distribution and Cataloguing. This helps users:

* Seamlessly onboard services vendors and freelancers

* Create and manage work orders and all associated tasks

* Track all operations via robust dashboards and customized reporting, including real-time cost management

Next-generation Media Player

CLEAR now sports a world-class HTML5 Player that delivers content creators an exceptionally rendered and lightning fast viewing experience – on any browser and any device. The new player is feather-light, resulting in massive technical improvements:

* Nearly 50% less CPU usage than Flash-based players

* More than 50% improvement in time to first frame over Flash-based players

* Expanded support for higher resolution playback proxies

* Optimal playback regardless of internet speed, leveraging CLEAR’s robust adaptive bitrate transcoding

The new player also delivers a host of advanced security features through standards-based Digital Rights Management (DRM) and pioneering Just-In-Time visible watermarking.

Just-In-Time Watermarking

CLEAR’s new patent-pending technology burns a watermark of the logged-in user’s email address into the video on-the-fly. Unlike overlaid watermarks, burned-in watermarks cannot be removed by hackers. They help mitigate content piracy of pre-release content – including illicit sharing and screen recording. CLEAR further combines this with forensic watermarking which facilitates swift detection and tracking of any misuse.

A native application for Apple TV

CLEAR users can now swiftly access and stream their latest projects anywhere in the world via Apple TV. The new interface is customized for a streamlined screening room experience – from one-click login to a new Apple TV dashboard to robust sharing features. The application also supports innate gestures on the Apple TV remote, providing greater playback control – such as the ability to rewind, fast forward and skip ahead/go back 10 seconds. Users can leverage these features by simply logging into Apple TV using the CLEAR Mobile App (iPhone/iPad).