American Cinematographer - July 2008 - 72

AJA Video Cards AJA has expanded its Xena and Kona product lines, introducing the Xena 3.5 software upgrade to the company’s Windows-based line of video playback and capture cards and the version 6.0 software update for the Mac-based uncompressed 10-bit Kona 3 video card. Following the recent incremental version 3.1.1 Xena upgrade — which featured extended support for Adobe Production Premium CS3 applications, Vista 64 and Autodesk Combustion 2008, as well as realtime cropping and matting of RedCine 2K DPX material to 2048x1080 or 1920x1080 for editing or output — Xena 3.5 provides realtime DVCPro HD capture, playback and editing support in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and AJA’s Machina stand-alone deck-control, playback and capture application. Nick Rashby, president of AJA Video Systems, says, “We continue to extend the capabilities of our Xena family of products for Windows, and with the introduction of DVCPro HD support in version 3.5, we offer a powerful, compressed, HD real-time workflow, saving our customers time and disk space in the process.” In an effort to optimize support for Red Digital Cinema workflows, the version 6.0 software for the Kona 3 video card adds Redspecific video outputs for some of the unique frame sizes that RedAlert and RedCine software applications can create. Support for the frame sizes that may be produced when working with Red will also be enabled for the AJA TV software application, a stand-alone QuickTime video player utilizing the Kona card video outputs and providing a simple way to play back and review clips. The AJA TV application is a free utility that installs with the AJA software driver. For more information, visit www.aja.com. Digital Vision Film Master v4.0 Visitors to Digital Vision’s NAB booth were given a look at the upcoming Film Master v4.0 grading and finishing system, which offers realtime 4K capabilities and the new Turbine render accelerator. The booth also showcased Film Master v3.6, which is currently available and features extended support for QuickTime, MXF and AAF with the ability to natively grade DNxHD, IMX50, P2 and XDCam media; a revised control surface with a lower profile and faster response times; and enhanced support for the ASC Color Decision List (CDL). Version 4.0, slated for release later this year, features significant processing improvements, optimizations and grid-processing developments, enabling new performance benchmarks in file-based finishing. Film Master v4.0 will allow facilities to begin editing, conforming, grading and finishing 4K material instantly, without any ingest delays. Direct SAN grading will also simplify data management by reducing the number of project copies in the facility and enabling users to offload tasks such as conform, dust-busting, versioning and titling to the back room, keeping high-end grading theaters available for client sessions. Unlike 8- or 10-bit processing, which can produce crushing and banding in low-detail areas of the color space, Film Master v4.0’s floating-point processing eliminates clip- ping, crushing or banding when performing extreme grading or lighting changes. This feature particularly benefits projects incorporating visual effects, ensuring that all of the detail in the rendered file is available in the grade. Floating-point processing also enables Film Master users to incorporate high-dynamic-range sources with log and linear material for true-color, resolution-independent workflows. Powering Film Master v4.0’s real-time capabilities is Turbine, a new high-performance render accelerator for all Digital Vision software. With Turbine, facilities can assign as many Intel CPU cores as are necessary to a project, creating a scalable range from eight cores to 480 and beyond. This performance boost enables real-time 4K grade reduction and other DVO image processing, as well as the ability to run multiple 2K or HD projects in faster-than-real time. “The increase in 4K production has put pressure on facilities to provide fast, affordable 4K post and DI services,” says Simon Cuff, Digital Vision president. “There is a tremendous opportunity to improve efficiency by enabling users to do more tasks in parallel and by processing massive files faster. We focused our efforts on optimizing these tasks so that our customers can offer clients the highest possible image quality without risking their profitability.” For more information, visit www.digitalvision.se. 72 July 2008
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American Cinematographer - July 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2008
