GoPro, a California-based company that develops wearable and gear mountable cameras for the consumer/prosumer market, announced that it has acquired CineForm, a leading developer of video compression and workflow technology for the professional film and television industry.
“We’re extremely excited to welcome the CineForm team to GoPro,” exclaims Nicholas Woodman, GoPro’s founder and CEO. “CineForm is an industry leader in video codec technology and is famous in professional circles for their HD and 3D content creation tools. As GoPro is focused on making it easy for consumers to capture professional quality content, we’re eager to incorporate CineForm’s technology and passion into future GoPro products.”
CineForm is renowned for its CineForm 444 Codec, a professional editing codec that makes HD and 3D editing faster and more convenient without sacrificing image quality. CineForm has produced several award-winning editing applications that exploit the functionality of the CineForm 444 Codec, all of which are compatible with industry leading editing programs including Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, and Sony Vegas, as well as Apple iMovie and Windows Movie Maker. Moving forward, the codec will be named ‘GoPro CineForm.’
“Numerous Hollywood feature films including Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire, were captured with CineForm’s codec and edited with their software tools,” says Woodman.
The first new GoPro product to incorporate CineForm’s technology is the soon to be released 3D HERO System, an expansion accessory for GoPro’s 1080p HD HERO line of cameras. The 3D HERO System allows consumers to combine two 1080p HD HEROs into a single housing to capture synchronized 3D photos and video. A synchronization cable joins the cameras via an expansion port on the back of each camera.
“GoPro has come out of nowhere to become a leading HD capture solution for professionals wanting to capture new, never before seen perspectives,” says David Newman, CineForm’s co-founder and CTO. “We were very impressed with the 3D HERO System’s ability to rival cameras costing 10 times as much. We’re looking forward to putting CineForm’s content creation tools into more hands than ever before thanks to GoPro’s global brand and distribution.”
David Taylor, co-founder and CEO of CineForm adds, “It’s exciting to look out and see how many people, consumers and professionals alike, are using GoPro cameras to create compelling content. As we worked with GoPro over the last year, the more we learned about GoPro’s vision, the more we realized how complementary GoPro and CineForm are to each other. We’re thrilled to join GoPro and to help usher in a new era of accessible professional content capture and creation.”
Based in Solana Beach, California, CineForm will become a division of GoPro and will continue to develop and support its award-winning line of professional software products while contributing to the development of new GoPro products. The company will join offices with GoPro’s existing staff in San Diego.
