Half Moon Bay, Calif. - GoPro, a wearable and gear mountable camera company, has acquired CineForm Inc., a 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,” says 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.”
The CineForm 444 Codec, a professional editing codec, is designed to make 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, such as 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 to emphasize GoPro's commitment to developing professional content capture and editing solutions.
“Numerous Hollywood feature films--including the runaway Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire--were captured with CineForm’s codec and edited with their software tools,” says Woodman. “GoPro is in constant pursuit of image quality and CineForm represents a terrific step for us.”
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.
Based in Solana Beach, Calif., CineForm will become a division of GoPro and will continue to develop and support its 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.
GoPro and CineForm will be exhibiting in two booths at the upcoming National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas from April 11 through 14. GoPro will be located in booth number C9525 and CineForm will be in booth SL6929.