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Avid Technology is now shipping its Symphony system on Mac OS X. Symphony v 4.7 is Avid’s most powerful Mac-based editing system, offering real-time finishing capabilities such as color correction, 10-bit DVE and Ultimatte keying. Avid is also offering Media Composer XL, Film Composer XL
and Xpress systems for OS X.
In addition to real-time Symphony-style color correction,
these new versions include 23.976
Avid’s new MetaSync technology is also available on these Mac-based products. Previously available only on Windows-based systems, MetaSync uses XML code embedded in the metadata of video and audio elements to trigger outside actions (such as physical movement in a theme-park ride movie or interactive elements of television programs). Symphony v 4.7 systems start at $90,000, Media Composer v 11.7 offline systems start at $12,000 and Film Composer XL v 11.7 starts at $53,000. Hollywood Post Alliance Technology Retreat Signaling strong support for the fledgling Hollywood Post Alliance (HPA), roughly 230 industry leaders — more than double last year’s turnout — gathered for the HPA’s second annual Technology Retreat, Feb. 6-8 at the Rancho Las Palmas Marriott in Rancho Mirage.
Founded in early 2002, the HPA is a trade association
representing Southern California businesses and individuals
involved in the post production of motion pictures,
television, commercials and
digital media. It was founded by Laser Pacific, The
Post Group, Liberty Livewire (now Ascent Media),
Sunset Digital Studios, Panasonic, Sony
and Thomson. Leon Silverman from Laser Pacific is
its president.
HPA’s mission is to help bring the entire
post community together around common interests, to provide a forum
for networking and information exchange, to become the industry’s
advocate before government bodies and to provide a platform for industry
events, seminars and special interest groups. During the Technology Retreat, attendees examined such topics as digital dailies, asset management, evolving formats such as Advanced Authoring Format (AAF), the state of the DTV transition and the promise of digital cinema. Technology demonstrations supplemented the conference program, and exhibitors included Panasonic, Quantel and Thomson, Evertz and Sony. In the past, the technology retreat was presented by ITS (the Association of Imaging Technology and Sound). When that organization disbanded in 2001, some of the board members from the Los Angeles chapter decided that an association representing the entire Southern California-based post production community was needed and HPA was born. Mark Schubin moderated the retreat for ITS and continues to lead it for HPA. Next up for HPA is Display/LA, a new conference created by United Entertainment Media to introducing new display technologies such as LCD and plasma to the creative community. It will take place July 17-18 at the Beverly Hilton. AMS Neve Demonstrates DFC2 at NAB AMS Neve unveiled the DFC2, an updated version of its Academy Award-winning mixing console. Now with a 96 kHz signal processing engine, which doubles the sample rate the system can handle, the DFC2 includes MIOS and the new AES960 rack, allowing sample rate conversion on both the input and output AES pairs, controlled from the console itself.
Encore, the software that controls the console, is now in version 3. The update includes new automated conforming software that allows the import of EDLs so that any existing mix can be brought up to match the current picture cut. Other key features include A/B switching, rotational panning and channel range controls that allow certain operations to be restricted to a limited set of channels. Encore also enables a user to specify levels of “safety nets,” which mean that automation can be rewritten for certain areas of the mix, while protecting the existing automation in other areas. Control surface improvements include the addition of “banks.” Similar to layouts on a Euphonics console, banks enable the DFC2 to recall any of six sets of surface layouts at the touch of a button, while still offering four channels per fader with up to eight bands of EQ. A new fiber-optic meter backlight technology allows variable brightness control and much greater longevity for the console’s backlights. Pinnacle Debuts Liquid Chrome NLE Pinnacle Systems unveiled Liquid chrome, a real-time editing system that brings together Pinnacle’s Liquid editing application, Pinnacle’s TARGA 3000 compositing engine and Pinnacle’s K2 single-chip 3D DVE. The Liquid product line derives from systems formerly made by German-based Fast Multimedia which was acquired by Pinnacle in 2001.
Liquid chrome features four real-time video streams, unlimited layering, and Liquid’s background rendering capabilities. It includes codecs for I-frame MPEG-2 4:2:2 at up to 50 Mbps and DV25, and it provides native support for SDI, D5 and Digibeta (uncompressed YUV and RGBA). The system offers extensive real-time 2D and 3D DVE capability and includes the powerful TitleDeko character generator, Commotion image editing and compositing system, Impression DVD authoring, and Liquid CX color correction. At $24,995 for a turnkey system, Liquid chrome is the newest member of Pinnacle’s Windows-based Liquid product line, which includes Liquid blue for multi-format broadcast environments, Liquid silver for less effects-intensive MPEG-2 editing, and Liquid purple, a low-cost, software-based DV editing application. The Pinnacle Liquid family supports Pinnacle’s Palladium network storage systems. Discreet, Colorfront Unveil New Color Correction Application Autodesk subsidiary Discreet recently entered into an exclusive strategic alliance with Colorfront, a privately held software developer based in Budapest, Hungary. The two companies will jointly develop, market and sell new color-correction systems. At press time, the first product, to be called Discreet lustre, was scheduled to be unveiled at NAB as a turnkey 16-bit component system in late beta that combines Colorfront’s core color-correction technology with a Discreet user interface. The goal in future versions is to offer
Colorfront’s color-correction technology was the basis of the former 5D Colossus color-correction system and is currently being used by facilities around the world, including the PostHouse in New Zealand, which used it to digitally grade the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Adobe Announces DVD Authoring System In the third quarter of this year, Adobe will release Encore DVD, a DVD design and production application for Windows XP. It can be used to create sophisticated, multi-language DVDs with interactive menus, multiple audio tracks and subtitles. The product’s
Encore DVD can handle a wide variety of source files, including AVI, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2; the program converts video source files to MPEG-2 and audio to Dolby Digital and optimizes file compression automatically, although users can change settings manually. It can output to all recordable formats, including DVD–R/RW, DVD+R/RW, and DVD-RAM. The estimated price is $549. Blackmagic Announces Improvements for Kona and Decklink Cards Software developer Blackmagic Design announced that real-time color correction will now be available for both the company’s own Decklink video cards and the AJA Kona SD card, for which Blackmagic writes software. Featuring independent red, green and blue control in lift, gamma and gain, Blackmagic RT Color Corrector operates like a professional primary color corrector in telecine. Blackmagic also announced a public beta of its 10-bit color correction update, which increases color accuracy and helps eliminate banding. In addition, Blackmagic released Decklink2, an updated version of its Decklink card. The new version offers independent monitoring, which means that even when a deck is not available, users can output 10-bit uncompressed video for viewing on a broadcast monitor. The card also includes a new Deck Control utility, which will allow users to capture and play back using any broadcast tape deck with frame-accurate precision via RS422 serial control. Deck Control, Blackmagic RT Color Corrector and the 10-bit color correction update are all available at no charge to registered Decklink users. Decklink 2 retails for $995. DMOD Ships WorkSpace V. 2.5 DMOD shipped Version 2.5 of its DMOD WorkSpace, a client-server application that lets users share media securely over the public Internet with tight control. Version 2.5 providesexpanded media format compatibility, including support for QuickTime 6.0, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4, as well as enhancements that make it easier for production teams to share, track and review digital media. The system starts at $17,500 per year for one server and five clients. DMOD products support Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Apple ’s OS X, Linux and Sun platforms. Leitch Upgrades dpsVelocityQ Leitch released an update to its multi-stream
nonlinear editing system dpsVelocityQ, which includes real-time full-quality
playback of four video streams in any combination of uncompressed or
compressed video, six graphics streams, and four channels of real-time
3D DVE. |
