Lightworks News

New Products
Coming From Lightworks

Brian Hardman at Lightworks Product Marketing talked to the Newsletter about new products in the pipeline - including the Lightworks V.I.P 4500. He said the next few months are going to be a very busy time for Lightworks and explained why:

The V.I.P 4500

"This is the first machine in a new generation of products for online editing. It's the first product resulting from our collaboration with Tektronix. It combines the Lightworks' user interface with Tektronix' multi-channel disk technology.

The Faders Console

"We are about to release the Lightworks faders console for the Heavyworks. This is our unique audio control surface for the Heavyworks. It provides automation of audio levels, as well as pans and muting information. The automation is controlled by motorized faders for ergonomic interaction with material. This will be shipping before the end of March.

Lightworks/Heavyworks Upgrades

"We are embarking on an incentive program for users to upgrade their Lightworks Turbo machines to Heavyworks. This upgrade is priced at $29,500. More details on this can be obtained from the Hollywood office. There are a number of reasons why we think this will be attractive to users:

• 1. It provides a significant hardware upgrade, providing a platform for users to take full advantage of new features and options.
  
  
• 2. This hardware upgrade includes a Pentium CPU, dual monitor capability and a new audio subsystem providing 4 input / 8 output digital audio.

Version 6 software will be the last major release for the current Lightworks Turbo hardware. The Pentium-based Heavyworks hardware (which also includes a more powerful compression subsystem) gives us a platform for further development, beyond Version 6.

Version 6

"This will be the next major release for Lightworks and Heavyworks. We are in the late stages of Beta testing this version. The major features included in this release are:

• 1.  The Lightworks Titling Tool - this is a custom-designed, integrated titling tool for use on Lightworks and Heavyworks machines. It provides a rendered titling package which includes :
  
  
  •  4 layer text/graphics capability
  •  easy creation of rolls and crawls
  •  support for PostScript 1 type fonts (12 supplied as standard)
  •  graphic import, with Alpha Channel
  •  box drawing
  •  solid, opaque and texture fills
  •  ASCII import
  •  character drop shadows and outlines
    
    
• 2.  New Trimview feature - an enhancement which allows easy viewing of both sides of a trim operation.
  
  
• 3.  Track Grouping - This feature allows stripview tracks to be grouped for easier trimming operations - especially useful for stereo working.
  
  
• 4.  New audio monitoring and routing panel.
  
  
• 5.  Editor Preferences - an editors own room style can be saved.
  
  
• 6.  Make Edit From Gallery - this allows shots in a gallery to be quickly assembled together, providing a quick 'storyboard-type' functionality.
  
  
• 7.  Database enhancements

All of the above are generic to Version 6 for Lightworks and Heavyworks. In addition, Version 6 on Heavyworks provides the ability to utilize some of the audio automation functionality of the faders console within the user interface - specifically track-based level control, as opposed to shot-based."

OMF2

The Newsletter has featured using OMFI with an Avid, so what about Lightworks' picture/sound interface? Brian said:

"We have been actively involved in the Open Media Framework project over the last 12 months and are supporters of the OMF2 standards for audio and video. We are currently about to Beta test our new import/export tools, which incorporate OMF2 import and export, as well as .WAV format for audio. We are hopeful that this will be bundled in with the version 6 release, but are not tying it to this - we do not want one thing to delay the other. We are confident that we can release the OMF2 import/export before the summer."

Brian said Lightworks will have firm release dates within the next few weeks.