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“Puss in Boots” Comes Alive with Technology from HP

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced that DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. selected HP technology to push the boundaries of digital animation and produce the company’s most technically advanced film to date, ”Puss in Boots,” launching in theaters Oct. 28.

As part of a technology relationship that began with HP in 2001, DreamWorks deploys HP Converged Infrastructure as the technology backbone for complex animation, helping shape the future of digital filmmaking. To bring feature films to life, DreamWorks Animation utilizes everything from HP desktop workstations to HP networking products to HP digital rendering resources accessed via the cloud.

HP technology has played an integral role in many of DreamWorks’ awe-inspiring films, including the ”Shrek” series, ”How to Train Your Dragon,” ”Kung Fu Panda” and ”Kung Fu Panda 2.”

To create ”Puss in Boots,” artists used more than 200 high-performance HP Z800 Workstations, allowing the flawless execution of exceedingly detailed and creative tasks. The workstations helped design everything in the film – from the swashbuckling hero Puss, to digital effects such as complex tornados and cloudscapes.

For ”Puss in Boots,” HP ProLiant BL460 blade technology, geographically dispersed in five server render farms across the United States and India, provided peak compute power at crucial stages of production. The blade servers powered an unprecedented 117 terabytes of data and more than 60 million render hours.

“As with all of our films, ‘Puss In Boots’ required powerful systems to support the digital demands of our creative teams,” said Ed Leonard, chief technology officer, DreamWorks Animation SKG. “Knowing that we have the support of our partners at HP allows us to free our artists from technical limitations, letting them focus on creating the most powerful 3-D CG experiences.”

DreamWorks chose HP Networking solutions including HP 12508 and 5800 series switches, HP Networking Intelligent Management Center, and HP Intelligent Resilient Framework to provide improved levels of network performance while simplifying network management across the studio’s scalable 10G WAN/LAN environment. Additionally, DreamWorks used HP X9000 IBRIX Network Storage System as a solution that can scale capacity to respond to the demanding needs of the studio while allowing for future growth.

To meet the massive data demands of the film, DreamWorks deployed HP Cloud Services, which eliminated the need for an estimated multimillion dollar physical data center expansion. Eight million of the total 63 million hours of rendering were rendered using HP Cloud Services, which represented 45 percent of the studio’s overall cloud computing needs.

“Our decade-long collaboration with DreamWorks has challenged HP to develop technology that continually meets the intense, high-performance needs of the world’s best digital animators,” said Doug Oathout, vice president, Converged Infrastructure, HP. “HP effectively serves as an infrastructure extension of a premiere Hollywood animation studio providing cutting-edge technology to support some of the most creative minds in film and animation.”

HP DreamColor technology was utilized in the film’s production process to provide high-end color prints of the creative team’s visual development work. This technology enabled designers to print accurate color proofs of critical reference imagery such as character designs, environments and key storytelling moments.

In addition to jointly developing the HP DreamColor technology in HP printers, DreamWorks and HP also developed the billion-color HP DreamColor Monitor, which surpasses performance of any other LCD display available, enabling artists to achieve consistency, depth and richness of color.

HP Converged Infrastructure is a key foundation of an Instant-On Enterprise. In a world of continuous connectivity, the Instant-On Enterprise embeds technology in everything it does to serve customers, employees, partners and citizens with whatever they need, instantly.

HP’s premier client event, HP DISCOVER, takes place Nov. 29 – Dec. 1 in Vienna, Austria. The event showcases how organizations can get started on their Instant-On Enterprise journeys.

Disney to re-release “Beauty and the Beast,” “Nemo,” “Monsters,” “Little Mermaid” in 3-D

LOS ANGELES (Xinhua) — Buoyed by the unexpected box office success of “The Lion King 3-D,” the Walt Disney Studios announced on Tuesday that it will follow the suit by re-releasing more iconic animated films including “Beauty and the Beast,” “Nemo, ” “Monsters” and “Little Mermaid” in 3-D over the next two years.

This is the first time the four classical cartoons would hit the screen in the extra dimension, but the move is widely expected. “The Lion King 3-D,” a classic which made its debut in 1994 and has been in showing for three weekends since it was re-release on Sept. 16, is approaching an additional 100 million U.S. dollars at the North America market.

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WONKA Unveils World’s First 3D Digital Golden Ticket in Spectacular Window Display at Toys”R”Us Times Square

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–WONKA®, creator of the world’s most incomparably imaginative chocolate bars, today announced a nationwide search for the legendary WONKA Golden Tickets. The news came with the unveiling of an extraordinary contraption dubbed the “WONKA Golden Ticket Choco-tabulator,” which creates 3D digital Golden Tickets, now on public display at Broadway & 44th in the store window of the Toys“R”Us Times Square in New York City.

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3D TV Hits Home With Consumers

New Survey Shows Majority of Consumers Say 3D is Better Than Regular TV

LOS ANGELES /PRNewswire/ — Consumers love 3D TV, according to a new study of the TV marketplace. Conducted by well-known independent research firm Frank N. Magid Associates for Panasonic during Disney’s D23 Expo in Anaheim last month, researchers found that a vast majority of consumers believe that 3D TV significantly improves their television viewing experience.

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Nintendo Download Highlights New Digital Content for Nintendo Systems

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–This week’s Nintendo Download includes the following featured content:

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