ASC Nominated for 2026 HPA Innovation and Technology Award

The HPA Awards Innovation & Technology have announced the nominees for its 2026 ceremony, with the ASC receiving a nomination in the category of "Innovation in Production & Capture" for the Society's work on its Media Hash List.

"The ASC Media Hash List (ASC MHL) defines the industry’s first open, verifiable chain-of-custody for production media, ensuring every copy of every file is complete, correct and accountable from camera through post to archive," says HPA on its website.

"Built by the ASC Motion Imaging Technology Council (MITC), ASC MHL replaces ad-hoc checksum reports with a structured XML-based manifest and linked history that record each copy and verification event. This portable, append-only audit trail travels with the media, enabling any compliant tool to reproduce or extend another’s verification without ambiguity.

Already deployed on hundreds of productions, ASC MHL has dramatically reduced time lost to data-integrity investigations. Major studios such as Netflix and HBO have adopted it as their checksum manifest standard, while leading vendors—including RED, ARRI, Pomfort, YoYotta, OffShoot, and Imagine Products—have implemented native support.

Its open-source reference implementation guarantees consistent behavior across systems and provides an accessible foundation for continued innovation. ASC MHL supports multiple hash algorithms, scales from on-set to cloud to archive, and preserves end-to-end traceability—even across hybrid workflows.

The result is a transparent, interoperable framework that transforms checksum verification from fragmented 'plumbing' into a trusted production-infrastructure layer. By uniting camera manufacturers, software developers, and studios around a common integrity model, ASC MHL establishes a new global standard for trustworthy media movement—one that replaces uncertainty with proof, manual re-verification with automation, and isolated reports with an enduring, auditable history of every file’s journey."

Read the full list of 2026 HPA nominees below:

Innovation in Pre-Production

• Bria AI – GenAi Attribution Technology
• RivetAI, Inc. – RivetAI
• Yamdu – AI Script Breakdown and Management Add-On

Innovation in Production & Capture

• American Society of Cinematographers – Media Hash List
• Creamsource – Slyyd Lighting Control App
• Méduse Inc. – Safe Guns Phase Synced Flash-Gun System

Innovation in VFX, Virtual Production & Animation

• Foundry – Nuke Stage
• Nerfstudio and Industrial Light & Magic – Nerfstudio
• Volinga and XGRIDS – Virtual Production Pipeline

Innovation in Post-Production

• Adobe – Generative Extend in Adobe Premiere
• Flawless – TrueSync
• Storj – Production Cloud

Innovation in Distribution & Audience Experience

• Cineverse – CINESEARCH
• SyncWords Inc – LiveCore + Kobe Muxer
• V-Nova Studios – V-Nova PresenZ

For more information on this year's nominees, visit HPA's website. Read here for more information on the ASC Media Hash List.