American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 110

shutter-priority reflected light meter, an RGB
waveform monitor and a false-color picture
mode. In addition to providing exposure
information, Cine Meter offers an at-a-glance
view of how evenly a greenscreen is lit, and
where high-contrast hotspots and shadows
might pose a problem. Cine Meter gives
users a simple means of lighting and checking their sets.
Cine Meter works on any iDevice
with a camera running iOS 5.0 or higher. The
app is available now through Apple’s App
Store for $4.99.
For additional information, visit
www.adamwilt.com/cinemeter.
Sound Devices Enables
4:4:4 Recording
Sound Devices has introduced the
version 3.0 firmware update to the
company’s Pix 240 and Pix 240i production
video recorders. Available free of charge for
all Pix customers, this update enables Apple
ProRes 4444 recording from video sources
over 3G-SDI (4:4:4 RGB or YCbCr). Recording
4:4:4 offers productions superior color precision for applications in chroma-keying, colorgrading and multi-generational editing.
Additional features available in this
update include time code and recording
status displays on the SDI and HDMI outputs,
up to 500 ms of audio delay to compensate
for multi-device picture delay, and selectable
4:4:4 or 4:2:2 video output independent
from the source material.
Users can connect the Pix 240 or Pix
240i to cameras with HD-SDI, 3G-SDI or
HDMI outputs and record directly to QuickTime files using a range of different Apple
ProRes or Avid DNxHD codecs, including
Apple ProRes 4444. Files recorded in the field
can then be used directly in post, making for
simpler, more efficient workflows.

110

April 2013

Drylab Creates, Views Dailies
Drylab R&D has introduced two software tools, Dailies Creator and Dailies
Viewer. Dailies Creator is a drag-and-drop
application that generates encrypted dailies
with embedded metadata. The video clips
are securely distributed through Dropbox
and can be downloaded to the Dailies
Viewer application for secure playback on an
iPad.
“I have always been concerned
about the importance of sharing creative
and technical information amongst the
crew,” says cinematographer John Christian
Rosenlund, the founder of Drylab R&D.
“Cam Report was our first step to gather
on-set metadata…. With Cam Report, you
write [the camera report] on an iPhone or
iPod Touch.” That metadata can now be
shared with Dailies Creator, which automatically merges the reports with the video files,
allowing users to immediately gain access to
a searchable archive that relates to day,
scene, shot, slate and tags. Rosenlund adds,
“If you don’t use Cam Report for collecting
metadata on set, you can easily add the
metadata directly in Dailies Creator.”

The Pix 240i’s high-performance 5"
IPS-based LCD display is an accurate field
monitor that provides users with immediate
confirmation of framing, exposure, focus,
audio metering and setup menu selections.
It offers excellent color accuracy, contrast
and off-axis visibility, as well as accurate
motion tracking.
The built-in hardware scaler and
frame-rate converter allow the Pix to output
and record material at different resolutions
and frame rates than are supported by the
camera. Conversion between HD and SD,
with and without anamorphic conversion, is
also available.
The audio circuitry in the Pix
recorders is based on Sound Devices’
award-winning 7-Series digital audio
recorders. The low-noise (-128 dBu EIN),
high-headroom, high-bandwidth inputs are
mic/line switchable and include limiters,
high-pass filters and phantom power.
The HDMI-only Pix 220 and Pix 220i
video recorders also gain new features from
the version 3.0 update, including Apple
ProRes 4444 recording, time-code and
American Cinematographer

Once the metadata has been
combined with the video files, Dailies
Creator begins producing H.264 encrypted
dailies and automatically sends them to the
user’s Dropbox account. For security, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is used for all
communication between the devices, and
each iPad needs to be paired with Dailies
Creator before the user can see anything in
his or her Dropbox; the pairing includes a
unique encryption key.
Once the video clips have been
posted to the user’s Dropbox, Dailies Viewer
automatically starts to download the files.
Individual takes can then be easily searched
for using the metadata tagging.
For additional information, visit
www.drylab.no.

recording-status displays on HDMI outputs,
and up to 500 ms of audio delay to compensate for multi-picture delay.
For additional information, visit
www.sounddevices.com.
MTI Film Transcodes with
Cortex Convey
Adding to its family of products for
managing media from the set to the screen,
MTI Film has released the standalone
transcoding application Cortex Convey.
Cortex Convey supports input of all popular
camera file formats, editorial files and intermediate file formats, including DPX,
OpenEXR and H.264 for transcoding to
review, editorial and intermediate formats
such as Avid DNxHD/MXF 1:1, DPX file
sequences and QuickTime, as well as fully
authored DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
“More than five years ago, we introduced this deliverables software as a sister
application to Control Dailies Enterprise,”
says Belinda S. Merritt, MTI Film’s director of
business development. “Even then,
customers wanted to purchase it as a stand-

http://www.adamwilt.com/cinemeter http://www.drylab.no http://www.sounddevices.com

American Cinematographer - April 2013

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