ETCentric

ETCentric is a collaborative online destination providing a single online resource for the most current technology news, trends, special reports, surveys and opinions related to media, entertainment and technology. Media professionals are faced with a glut of information as part of their daily routines, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage the time and effort required to weed through what is relevant to our world and what is not.

ETCentric aggregates an array of relevant information and delivers in a single online resource. As a natural extension of ETC, it is designed as a virtual community where industry insiders can discuss new products, creative inspiration, evolving trends, and innovation in media technology. ETCentric serves as a professional network to inform, exchange ideas and spark discussion on a wide range of topics – from theater to film to gaming to interactive television and the Internet. Users are invited to access the site as a vital news source or become an integral part of the community by submitting content and participating in ongoing discussions.

The ETCentric audience consists of creative executives, technologists, decision makers, managers and analysts – so the editorial voice of our publication is characterized by multiple perspectives. We believe the best ideas emerge from varied points of view and encourage all to make the most of the experience by commenting on stories – or other readers’ comments – to foster dialogue and become part of our collective voice. Entertainment media is a rapidly evolving, dynamic industry that requires innovative thinking to help it flourish. At ETCentric, we provide you with the tools to make that happen.

If you are an employee of one of the ETC’s Platinum or Gold member companies, and would like to participate in the ETCentric, please contact us info@etcenter.org.

White Papers & Special Reports

• EUROPA: An Odyssey into On-Set Virtual Production (March 2025) This paper, authored by Noah Kadner, traces the discoveries and challenges of advanced workflows leaning into the maturation of equipment and workflows developed over the past five years since the release of “The Mandalorian”.

• Fathead: Virtual Production & Beyond – Chapter IV: Key Contributors Process Pipelines  (June 2024) In this final chapter, key contributors discuss their experiences in what was a collective journey in a new era of storytelling, transcending the traditional filmmaking boundaries.

• “Virtual Production” White Balancing Tutorial (Tim Kang, March 2024) A simple graphical tutorial breaking down the problem between camera and its LED wall perception and its solution.

• Fathead: Virtual Production & Beyond – Chapter III: State of the Industry: Beyond Trends (June 2023) Discusses “where we’re at, and where we’re going” and features compelling interviews with thought leaders from companies including The Third Floor, Stargate Studios, Orbital Virtual Studios, Vū Technologies, Lux Machina, nDisplay, Epic Games and Unity Technologies.

• Fathead: Virtual Production & Beyond – Chapter II: Sound Mitigation: Performance Matters (March 2023) Including interviews with “Fathead” co-producer Brandyn Johnson and former Sony Pictures executive Erik Rigney, the chapter also addresses “the challenges of recording clean dialogue on LED volumetric stages and in-camera visual effects (ICVFX) during production.”

• Generative AI in Media (an ETC report) (Yves Bergquist, March 2023) attempts to answer a few of the many questions that are circulating in the industry about what generative ai is, what it means for our media community, and how individuals and organizations should prepare for its application to content production.

• Fathead: Virtual Production & Beyond – Chapter I: Cloud Computing: Growth Without Bounds (February 2023) “Everything on this production was done in the cloud, minus the shoot on set,” and the paper “elaborates on the tools and processes pieces to show how” it was done.

• Universal Character Model – The First Steps (September 2022) The second white paper in collaboration with Charisma.ai and Write Brothers examines the viability of collaborative use of Large Language Models to assist in generating in character responses within a structured prompt.

• AI Ethics: A Framework for the Media Industry (April 2022) a collaborative work produced by the ETC/SMPTE AI Task Force

• Practical Cloud Archive (February 2022) (an ETC Adaptive Production Archive Group white paper)

• Universal Character Model (May 2021) ETC collaborated with Charisma.ai, Digital Domain, Fable Studio and Write Brothers, Inc to publish this paper on an innovative character definition tool that enables casting audience members within a story.

• Ripple Effect – A short film pushing the limits of virtual production, technology and COVID safety. (March 2021) (an ETC Adaptive Production/Innovative Technology Award white paper)

• VFX Image Sequence Naming Specification (June 2020)
  (an ETC Adaptive Production VFX Standards Working Group white paper)

• Guidelines for the Preservation of Digital Audio-Visual Assets in the Cloud (October 2019)
  (an ETC Adaptive Production Archive Working Group white paper)

• Consortium Shared Identity (CSI) over an Enterprise Blockchain (October 2019)
  (an ETC Adaptive Production Blockchain Working Group white paper)

• GAOSU Machine Insights on Chinese Film Audiences (January 2019)

• Wonder Buffalo Nex-Gen Technology Exploration Short Film with a Focus on VR, HDR & Cloud-based Workflows (December 2017)
  (an ETC Innovation Technology Award white paper)

• The Suitcase: Using C4, Semantics, and NoSQL for Managing Motion Picture Data (SMPTE Journal May/June 2017) (a technical paper)

• The Suitcase (Case Study) New Technologies for Media Production in the Cloud (October 2016)

• The C4 Identification System Universally Consistent Identification Without Communication (September 2015)