FOR-A Salutes 'The Met: Live in HD' - Winner of the 2009 IBC International Honour of Excellence Award

IBC2009 Amsterdam, – Stand 2.A51
FOR-A, a leading manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries, applauds New York City's Metropolitan Opera, which won the IBC's highest award, the International Honour of Excellence for its broadcasts of "The Met: Live in HD."

Since 'The Met: Live in HD' began in December 2006, digital cinema audiences in the United States, as well as Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, have been able to watch operas live from 'The Met' as if they had the best seats in the House. The HD opera productions are transmitted to participating digital cinemas and projected in HD with 5.1 surround sound onto big screens.

Since 2007, FOR-A's FRC-7000 HD frame rate converter has provided 'Met Live' with flawless, motion-compensated HD frame-rate conversion - a key component enabling all audiences outside North America to experience live operas from the Metropolitan Opera in their local movie theatres.

"FOR-A's FRC-7000 has been a key part of this groundbreaking application because it handles the critical HD frame rate conversion that is needed to serve our diverse international delivery requirements. The image quality and motion are crystal clear and smooth-even the subtitles," said Mark Schubin, Engineer-in-Charge, Media Department, for The Metropolitan Opera, in New York, NY.

All Mobile Video (AMV), a mobile video company in New York, NY, serves the remote production and transmission needs of The Metropolitan Opera. AMV uses two FRC-7000 units in the transmission of the Metropolitan Opera performances: one situated at the Met in an uplink truck and one at its Gateway Teleport in Carteret, NJ. The operas are captured by 14 Sony HDC 950/1500/1000 HD cameras in 1080/29.97i.

Past IBC International Honour of Excellence Award winners include Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation SKG; Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; audio innovator Ray Dolby; director James Cameron; media pioneers Ted Turner and Sam Chisholm; Leonardo Chiariglione who was one of the fathers of MPEG compression; and Aardman Animations, the studio responsible for Wallace & Gromit and Creature Comforts.

FOR-A is a major manufacturer and distributor of video and audio systems to the broadcast, postproduction and professional video markets. For more information about FOR-A's product line, call +44 (0)20 8391 7979 or visit our web site at www.for-a.com.