1. Usage

Forscene's functionality makes it suitable for multiple uses in the video editing workflow.

For editors and producers wanting to produce broadcast-quality output, Forscene provides an environment for the early stages of post-production to happen remotely and cheaply (logging, shot selection, collaborative reviewing, rough cutting and offline editing, for example) and more recently fine cut editing.^[1] Forscene then outputs instructions in standard formats which can be applied to the high-quality master-footage for detailed and high-quality editing prior to broadcast.

Other users want to prepare footage for publishing to lower-quality media - the small screens of mobile phones and video iPods, and to the web where bandwidth restricts the quality of video it is currently practical to output. For these users, all editing can be carried out in FORscene, before publishing using Forscene's web, mobile phone, Flash, and/or podcasting services. Video can also be saved in MPEG and Ogg formats.

The platform was reported in July 2012 as being used by NBC in connection with the 2012 Summer Olympics. YouTube is integrating the service for use by professionals.^[2][3]

2. Services

The video platform is broadly referred to as Forscene. It is offered as two distinct web based services, built on a common core of code: Forscene for professional and semi-professional use and Clesh for consumers. Both exploit the web for delivery.

3. Licensing

Upload: compression machines can be bought or rented. The charge for upload to the Internet covers the storage cost.

Logging, shot selection, assembly editing, offline editing, review, EDL export: the software is provided as a service which is charged by usage. Typical productions will agree a fixed price in advance which depends on expected usage.

Publishing: there is a charge for each video published for web, mobile or podcasting based on the length of the material in minutes.

Viewing: watching a published video is free for the viewer (with respect to FORscene) but the publisher is charged for bandwidth each time a web video is viewed or a mobile video downloaded (and the event captured so activity against published videos may be monitored).

4. Components

The Forscene system is made up of various components, discussed here.

4.1. Codecs

Forscene has its own codecs for both video and audio. These use a form of adaptive coding to allow local variations in the type of data to be encoded efficiently.

Osprey

Osprey supports loss-free video compression. FORscene users can see broadcast quality video during editing (as well as proxy quality as has been the case with Forscene's other codecs) and broadcasters can use the video output from Forscene directly for transmission.

Blackbird

The Forscene video codec is called Blackbird. It is designed for both editing and video streaming over variable speed broadband Internet connections. By varying the frame rate, it can provide consistent picture quality even on slow connections.

Like its predecessor Firebird (used in the FORlive system), the Blackbird codec allows real time compression and playback of video. This is important for handling the quantity of video in modern productions, as well as the reviewing, logging, editing and publishing features of Forscene.

The Blackbird codec (formerly "Firebird") is a proprietary video codec developed by Forbidden Technologies and used by their flagship product, Blackbird (formerly "Forscene").

Blackbird is designed for both editing and video streaming over variable speed internet connections. Blackbird can provide consistent picture quality on slow connections by varying the frame rate through the use of tokens. The tokens represent each source image which are scaled versions of each source image.^[4][5]

The Blackbird video codec facilitates a content-aware dynamic framerate.^[6] The codec can create a lightweight proxy, which can be used to deliver a live stream from an event.

Stephen Streater is the principle progenitor of the Blackbird video codec, which was released in 2004.^[7]

On 22 January 2017, Forbidden Technologies released the Blackbird 9 codec.^[8][9]

On 6 March 2018, MSG Networks received a New York chapter Emmy nomination for "Technical Achievement" as follows "MSG Networks Digital Video Editing & Digital Distribution via Blackbird Technology".^[10]

Impala

The Forscene audio codec is called Impala. Datarate and quality can be varied depending on the use: 10 kbit/s for modem web video and mobile playback, 30 kbit/s for audio only modem playback or broadband playback with video, and 80 kbit/s per channel for editing.

4.2. Upload

Forscene videos are served from the Internet backbone and accepts video, audio, and graphics input in a variety of ways. Forbidden's upload software, running on a suitable computer, compresses and uploads the videos. As Java does not allow access to a computer's hardware, and so cannot control tape machines or video cameras directly, the compress/upload programs run as native applications. Four options are provided for this purpose:

• Windows XP software
• OS X software
• Linux hardware and software
• Symbian mobile phone software (over-the-air)

Logging, editing and reviewing of uploaded material can start as soon as the upload process starts.

Files containing video, audio and still may also be uploaded using a web browser from a wired or mobile device. Uploads can run concurrently and many formats are supported (e.g. AVI, MOV, ASF, 3GP).

4.3. Java Interface

Functionality

The Java interface works with the default configuration on most machines, though allocating more memory to the JVM improves performance. It enables the following functionality:

• Video logging
• Non-linear editing (including Multicam support)
• Reviewing
• Web publishing
• Mobile publishing
• Video podcasting
• Storyboarding

Security

Each standard user account has its own password-protected web page containing the FORscene applet. Once logged on, the users have access to their own videos, library videos, and any functionality their account supports.

Video is not stored on the local computer's hard disc, so when the user closes their web browser, their video is not accessible to subsequent users of the same computer.

Internet standards

The Forscene web interface operates through Internet standards such as HTTP and Java, so can be used even in companies with severe firewalls. If web browsing works, then Forscene almost always will too.

4.4. Account Management Interface

The account management interface separates accounts and users. Many individuals may use the same Forscene account and each user is assigned a role (manager, commenter, reviewer, logger, editor, storyboard). The interface provides single sign-on authentication of users and central point of access to core admin / operational features on the web:

• Upload
• Edit
• Usage Report
• Users
• Account Display
• User Settings

4.5. Mobile Interfaces

Native apps for the Android and IOS platforms implement the same functionality and look and feel as the Java interface.

4.6. Forscene Cloud Servers

The server infrastructure on the Forscene backbone network (referred to as the cloud) dedicated to Forbidden's customers are distributed over numerous locations and handle around 10,000 hours of new video content each week. These act as one system, increasing both effective capacity and redundancy. As the Java front end does most of the work during editing, and the upload software does the compression work, the server is lightly loaded and can support many users at the same time. Sites may also attach a server to their own LAN (FORscene Server) to multiply the numbers of users on their existing internet connections.

4.7. Forscene Server

Each client site may elect to use a single physical Forscene server per fixed or remote location to scale up operations and improve overall performance (e.g. the time taken to retrieve video for review). Features include:

• Local caching of video downloads
• Immediate access of video over a Local Area Network (LAN) during upload
• Seamless transfer of video as required between a Forscene Server and the Server Infrastructure

The product exploits high speed LAN access whilst preserving the principal of access from anywhere.

4.8. Forscene HD

Videos which have been edited within Forscene can be conformed automatically at anything up to 1080p - full High Definition (HD). After editing Forscene uploads the full HD quality frames used in the finished programme into the Cloud. The special effects, colour correction and titles are combined at full resolution on a Forscene Cloud Server for download to a broadcaster, ready for transmission. Material can be reviewed and edited from anywhere on the web, not just one local source.

4.9. Web Player

Each web video which is published is packaged with the Java player.^[11] The video size can be chosen by the publisher from a range of sizes from 160x120 to 384x288. The frame rate depends on the available bandwidth and speed of the playback machine, with full frame rate available for fast machines and connections.

Forbidden Technologies supplies its Blackbird decoder in the form of a Java player. This can be locked to a particular server, making it hard to pirate videos published in Forscene.

4.10. Mobile Player

Forscene can publish mobile content for its Symbian mobile player, Formobile. Customers can also have their own branding.^[12][13] The publisher chooses whether videos published from Forscene for mobile appear in the standard Formobile menu or are available to only selected people. Forscene can automatically notify people by text message that a video has just been published.

The mobile player can be sent from handset to handset for free via Bluetooth, and videos can also be distributed virally via Bluetooth once the Forscene mobile player has been installed. Forbidden has coined the term Viewtooth to describe this process.^[14]

4.11. Video Podcast

Videos edited in Forscene can be published directly as video podcasts. These can then be downloaded and viewed in a podcast viewer such as iTunes or on a video iPod.

4.12. Timecode Export

Each frame of professionally shot video is tagged with a timecode which identifies it. Combining the timecode information of video handled within Forscene at browse quality with the original broadcast quality video allows information in FORscene to be transferred to a broadcast quality version. Videos logged or edited in Forscene can be exported in the form of a simple EDL or more complex XML for autoconform and offline or online on an Avid or Final Cut Pro system.

4.13. Additional Exports

A number of export formats are supported in addition to those mentioned above:

• MPEG-2
• Flash
• Ogg

4.14. Systems Integration

Final programmes can be made, even in High-definition, and sent in broadcast quality efficiently to the broadcaster for transmission without using any third party editing systems. However FORscene supports integration with third party systems, both in broadcast and elsewhere.

EDL/XML

Forscene supports Edit decision list/XML export to industry editing systems such as or Avid / Final Cut Pro. For example, creation of rough cuts in Forscene can then be reliably conformed on Avid, even when they include clips which the Avid would not normally be able to ingest because of time code breaks and gaps.

SDI

Serial Digital Interface improves Forscene’s integration into the high end broadcast environment. SDI support allows Forscene to ingest source material in both Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) resolutions from any professional video source in real time. The SDI video input meets both Phase Alternating Line (PAL) and National Television System Committee (NTSC) standards.

5. History

FORscene is a development from an editing system made by Eidos Interactive in the 1990s. This history starts from the first public showing of this product, at the International Broadcasting Convention in Europe in 1990.

6. Competition and Marketing

Forscene was the first post-production system to offer access entirely within a web browser for the broadcast industry and other professional use.

Forscene was launched in Beta during 2004. In 2012, a supplier of desktop-based video editors Avid Technology announced the release of a web-based editor,^[24] The technology had been previously shown.^[25]

Other online tools (e.g. Jumpcut) were developed primarily with consumers in mind. Forscene's user-base includes professional broadcasters, charities, Universities,^[26] consumers and resellers, other organisations. The technology is marketed to consumers in the form of a tailored service called Clesh.