Post-NAB Update, Part 2

I. THE FOUNDRY

1. Mari
Mari was originally developed at Weta Digital. The technology was driven by the texture department's need to handle complex, high resolution textures on 3D models in King Kong and Avatar. Born out of genuine production experience, Mari was designed as a full 3D paint tool with a responsiveness and feature set that puts even the best dedicated 2D paint systems to shame. Mari is extremely scalable, coping easily with an obsessive level of detail – literally tens of thousands of textures – quickly and elegantly. [+]

2. NUKE 6.1 and NUKEX 6.1

The Nuke development team revealed Nuke 6.1 and NukeX 6.1 at NAB bringing eagerly anticipated support for Mac OS X 64bit.

Nuke 6.1 will also add the renowned Ultimatte keyer, giving artists integrated access to all  mainstream industry keyers. There are many improvements to the 3D workflow, which now includes FBX export; 3D selection; snapping and alignment; and interactive camera and light  positioning looking through the viewer. Notable improvements have also been made to the workflow and performance of the paint and roto toolset.

NukeX 6.1 includes improved workflow features for the camera tracker such as simplified tools for selecting and eliminating bad tracks, an updated solver for stereo cameras and new constraints for motion paths.

Artists from ILM, Weta Digital, Zoic Studios and Sony Pictures Imageworks helped show Nuke’s true potential across a variety of production workflows from stereo projects ‘Avatar’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to commercial production and the VES Award winning TV series ‘V’.


3. PLUG-INS - ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS
NAB was also the first outing for two brand new high tech tools for After Effects which take full advantage of the 64 bit capabilities offered by Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5).

Kronos 5.0 – Hollywood quality retiming.
The Foundry has created a new accelerated retimer and motion blur plug-in based on their Academy Award Winning Furnace algorithms.  It’s the first product to be accelerated by The Foundry’s new ‘Blink’ technology which dramatically speeds up render times by truly harnessing the power in your graphics card.

CameraTracker – matchmoving, directly inside Adobe After Effects.
The Foundry’s new camera tracker analyses source sequences to extract the original source camera, allowing you to composite 2D or 3D elements in place.  This facilitates creation of Fringe/Heroes style ‘in scene’ titles, extend sets virtually, and much more…

This technology was previously only available in NukeX – The Foundry’s high-end film compositing tool.  You can now do all this in After Effects without the problems caused moving between applications.

II. AJA VIDEO SYSTEMS

1. KiPro 2.0 firmware

AJA Video Systems, a leading manufacturer of professional video interface and conversion solutions, announced the upcoming version 2.0 firmware for their award-winning Ki Pro portable digital video recording device. [+]

Ki Pro version 2.0 will include:

• Support for 8-channel embedded audio
• Support for gang recording with multiple Ki Pro units via the web interface
• RS-422 device control

Also, AJA Announces Ki Pro Support for Avid Systems via Avid Media Access Architecture. [+]


III. BOXX TECHNOLOGIES

1. Boxx Technologies demonstrates BoxxPro, a revolutionary new deskside rendering module at NAB2010. BOXXpro debuts as a personal desk-side renderer so compact that it easily fits on top of a workstation, while its six-core or quad-core Intel® Xeon® 5600 series processor enables professional performance. The latest edition of renderBOXX features four six-core Intel Xeon 5600 series processors, delivering 24 core performance for intensive 3D design and animation. It also carries the distinction of being the first dedicated rendering system to feature solid state drives for improved performance. [+]


IV. PIPELINE FX

1. Qube!
The Media Village has signed up as a Pipeline FX reseller. They develop Qube!, a robust and highly scalable render management solution that can be quickly integrated into any production workflow. Qube! can be easily tailored to any pipeline requirements and works with all leading content creation applications including Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk Maya®, NUKE™, SOFTIMAGE®|XSI®, Shake®, Adobe® AfterEffects®, Pixar’s RenderMan®, DNA Research's 3Delight, and Eyeon® Digital Fusion™. Qube! is the only production proven solution that is certified IBM ServerProven®, and runs on Windows®, Linux®, and Mac OS®X operating systems. [+]


V. FACILIS TECHNOLOGY

1. Terrablock

Check out Facilits Technology’s new website. Their Terrablock range of products continues to do very well in the post-production and broadcast facilites around the world. TerraBlock is the dedicated Post Production and Digital Intermediate shared storage system that out-performs the competition, and undercuts traditional high-performance SAN pricing. Now with the Facilis Shared File System, TerraBlock shared storage delivers high performance volume-level sharing over fibre channel and total collaborative multi-user write access over fibre-channel or Ethernet, still with no per-seat license fees. [+]


VI. EDITSHARE

1. EditShare unveils Storage Series and XStream version 6.0 at NAB 2010
Enhancements to the award-winning EditShare shared storage solutions include improved workflows with simplified media management and expanded performance capabilities. [+]

2. EditShare ships new Ark 2.0 Media Archiving Solution
New Ark 2.0 release demonstrates superior integration with EditShare Flow; provides advanced media protection from ingest to archive. [+]

VII. CACHE-A

1. Pro-Cache5

Cache-A introduced Pro-Cache5, a revolutionary archive appliance for digital film, broadcast and video professionals working with file-based workflows. One of the first LTO-5 archive products on the market, Pro-Cache5 takes advantage of this next generation technology to offer nearly double the storage capacity of existing LTO-4 cartridges – now 1.5 terabytes (TB)/LTO-5 cartridge -- while also providing significantly faster archiving speeds. [+]

VIII. LASERGRAPHICS

1. Director Scanner
Lasergraphics featured important enhancements to its Director pin-registered 35mm/16mm film scanner, including:

HD QuickTime Dailies at up to 14 frames/second
Thumbnail preview at 100 frames/second
Automatic scene and splice detection
Per-scene color grading [+]

Post-NAB Update, Part 1

I. BLACKMAGIC DESIGN

1. DaVinci Resolve 7.0
Blackmagic Design won the 2010 NAB Best of Show Vidy Award for DaVinci Resolve 7.0. The announcement of a new Mac-based DaVinci Resolve 7.0 software, which now complements the Linux-based systems, was one of the highlights of the show.

There are now 3 main price-points for DaVinci Resolve:

- DaVinci Resolve for Mac, software only – US$995
- DaVinci Resolve Control Surface (includes one Mac software license) – US$29.995
- DaVinci Resolve Control Surface with one Linux software license (includes one Mac software license) – US$49,900

A complete overview of DaVinci Resolve is available on our blog. I encourage you to give the article a good read. [+]


2. UltraStudio Pro

UltraStudio Pro is the world’s first broadcast quality SD/HD capture and playback solution for USB 3.0 computers! UltraStudio Pro combines the latest broadcast technology into an attractive ultra-thin design that looks great on your desktop! With the incredible speed of USB 3.0 running at a massive 4.8 Gb/s, UltraStudio Pro easily has enough speed for the highest quality uncompressed 10 bit HD video with the maximum possible real time effects! This product won the Broadcast Engineering NAB 2010 Pick Hit Award. [+]


3. Decklink HD Extreme 3D

The new DeckLink HD Extreme 3D features single and dual channel SDI capture and playback for both regular 2D and new 3D stereoscopic workflows! Includes dual link 3 Gb/s SDI, HDMI and analog component/composite/s-video connections. Work in SD, HD, 3 Gb/s HD-SDI and 2K in 4:2:2 or 4:4:4. Also includes AES and analog balanced audio, 16 channel SDI audio, genlock and deck control. SDI, HDMI and analog component works in all video formats up to 1080p60. Includes broadcast quality up, down and cross conversion, plus built in SD/HD internal keyer for only US$995. [+]

4. HDLink Pro 3D

Eliminate the high cost of HDTV monitoring with HDLink - the world's most advanced full resolution 2D/3D HDTV and 2K monitoring for DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI monitors. Includes the quality of 4:4:4 SDI video, lookup tables via USB and analog audio outputs. HDLink will solve all your monitoring needs from only US$495. [+]


5. Ultrascope

The world’s first scopes designed for editors and colorists, with the technical accuracy broadcast engineers will love! There's two great models of UltraScope designed for your needs. The amazing UltraScope with SDI and optical fiber SDI for PCI Express computers and the new portable Pocket UltraScope with SDI and USB 3.0, perfect for notebook computers! [+]


6. Videohub

- Software control panel for Apple iPad computers, due in June 2010, that lets you use your iPad as a fantastic low cost touch screen XY router panel.

- Micro Videohub — US$1,995
Perfect for locations where space really counts, such as outside broadcast trucks, Micro Videohub is the world’s smallest router! Micro Videohub includes 16 x 16 SDI routing, auto standard detection for SD, HD and 3 Gb/s HD-SDI, re-clocking, and built in ethernet, USB and serial router control interfaces. No other router includes so many features packed into such an incredibly compact size!


- Smart Videohub — US$2,495

Smart Videohub includes all the great features of Micro Videohub plus a built in control panel. Now you can change all routing with the push of a button! Smart Videohub includes 16 x 16 SDI, 3 Gb/s SDI, auto SD/HD/3 Gb/s SDI, re-clocking, ethernet, USB and serial router control interfaces. Great first router that’s expandable with all Videohub control options!

- Smart Control — US$495
Now you can afford a control panel for all your monitors and decks so you can set the input with a single button press! Each button can be set to a different router input and you can set single or multiple router outputs. All buttons include full RGB illumination and Smart Control connects to Videohub via Ethernet and setup software is included! [+]

7. Others

New!
- The exciting new Mini Converter UpDownCross includes up, down and cross conversion plus built-in NTSC/PAL standards conversion! US$495 [+]

- Now it's easy to distribute your client’s H.264 video files to websites, YouTube™, iPhone™ and even iPad™ Blackmagic Design's H.264 Pro Recorder handles capture from all popular video formats so you can encode directly from professional broadcast decks! [+]

DaVinci Resolve Changes the Game

Every now and then, in our world of post-production, a product comes along that makes us change the way we look at things. ProTools, for example, changed the world of audio engineering by bringing the ability to edit and mix audio to anyone who could afford a desktop computer and their low-cost software. The same can be said of Final Cut Pro’s affect on the world of nonlinear editing.

Now, big changes are happening in the world of colour grading, with the recent announcement of DaVinci Resolve 7.0 from Blackmagic Design.

DaVinci Resolve from Blackmagic Design is now available on both the Mac and Linux platforms. DaVinci Resolve 7.0 software is fully featured and is virtually identical across both platforms. It is a GPU-driven application and uses NVidia’s native CUDA programming language. As such, factors such image processing, image resolution and the realtime processing of nodes scale up dramatically as more GPU processors are configured.

To understand the various configurations available on the Mac and Linux platforms better, let’s start with the Linux-based configurations.

The base bundle on the Linux platform consists of the DaVinci Resolve Linux license and a DaVinci Resolve Control Surface. This is available at US49,900. To build a complete system, a Linux server or multiple infiniband-connected servers are configured. GPU hardware, storage, displays and other hardware options add to make up a complete DaVInci Resolve system.

There are a number of pre-qualified hardware configurations available to Linux users and these are integrated by and supplied through certified Blackmagic Design DaVinci resellers. These hardware configurations relate mainly to the number of GPU processors that are configured.

The entry-level hardware configuration consists an Nvidia Quadra FX 3800 to drive the GUI display, an additional Nvidia Quadra FX 5800 dedicated for GPU processing and a Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme for video IO and display. All these hardware sit in a single Linux server.

In DaVinci Resolve-speak, this is referred to as a ‘1-GPU’ configuration, with the Nvidia Quadra FX 5800 card used to perform all the graphics processing demanded by the Resolve software. This includes image scaling, primary/secondary colour correction, tracking, blurs and other image processes. In general, the greater the number of GPUs configured, the more simultaneous processes at larger resolutions the system is capable of processing.

The entry-level, 1-GPU Linux systems, for example, are ideal for SD or HD users, or for users with occasional 2k requirements. Users can expect anywhere from 6 to 9 realtime nodes at HD resolution. The numbers vary according to the processes applied on each node. Primary color correction does not take as much GPU computing power as blurs, for example.

The show does not stop when the GPU capability is exceeded. DaVinci Resolve will still play back as best it can, just not at full frame-rate. At this point, the user has a couple of choices if he wants to maintain the full frame-rate. He can either render the scene or turn on a feature called ‘proxy on-the-fly’, which plays back the scene at half-resolution.

Subsequent configurations use Nvidia’s S4 2200 processors. Each S4 unit is a 1U rackmount device with 4 Nvidia Quadra FX 5800 cards working in parallel.

The beauty of a DaVinci Resolve system is its’ ability to scale up. A Resolve system may consist of several Linux servers and Nvidia S4 processors. The servers are interconnected via infiniband and act as one, unified and very powerful system.

A single Nvidia S4 processor may be configured and this is referred to as a ‘4-GPU’ system. Multiple Nvidia S4s may be configured to create an ‘8-GPU’ or ’16-GPU’ system.

Commercial grading facilities working in HD or 2k resolution, for example, may most likely find the 4GPU system as their model of choice, with the ability to process 16 to 20 nodes at 2k resolution in realtime. Larger Commercial or feature film grading facilities with more demanding work or who require multiple nodes of 4k in realtime may go for the 8 or 16-GPU systems.

Stereoscopic models consist of additional inter-connected servers and Nvidia S4 processors, giving rise to the 4-GPU-3D, 8-GPU-3D or 16-GPU-3D systems. Remember, the top stereoscopic movies in the world were graded on Resolve, including recent blockbusters such as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland.

It’s important to note that it’s both easy and cost effective to scale up from one DaVinci Resolve model to another. This is achieved by adding the additional servers, GPUs or storage models that are required. As every DaVinci Resolve software is fully featured, there is no additional software upgrade required as one moves from one hardware configuration to another.

One important hardware option available in the Linux family of Resolve products is called the Co-Processor Server, which is also connected via Infiniband. This option allows Resolve users to work with digital media formats in realtime. Currently, a single Co-processor server delivers half-resolution premium-quality r3d material in realtime. In the future, the Co-Processor server will also help accelerate other digital formats such as Arriraw. Facilities that handle RED material often will benefit greatly from the Co-Processor Server.

Pricing of these Linux-based systems, therefore, vary according to the number of servers and GPUs, the amount of storage and with other hardware options such as the Co-Processor Server.

Every Resolve Control Surface that is delivered comes with a Resolve Mac license, meaning that any user who purchases a Linux system also has a Resolve Mac license.

The Resolve Control Surface may be purchased on it’s own for US$29,995 and, as mentioned, this includes a Resolve Mac license. In order to build a turnkey Resolve Mac system, users need to configure a Mac Pro with a recommended 6GB of RAM and a Decklink HD Extreme card for video IO and display. 2 graphic cards are required, an Nvidia GeForce GT120 to drive the GUI display and an Nvidia GeForce GTX285 or Quadra FX 4800 dedicated for graphics processing.

The performance delivered from a DaVinvi Resolve Mac is similar to that of a 1-GPU system configured on the Linux version, which is approximately from 6 to 9 realtime nodes at HD resolution. DaVinci Resolve for Mac can also play 4k r3d files natively on the timeline.

Finally, users can also purchase the Resolve for Mac software-only for US$995. There are a variety of ways that a user may utilize this software.

Without a panel configured, the software can be used as an assist station to a main DaVInci Resolve grading suite, performing tasks such as imports, exports, conform, previews and renders.

Install the software on a 17” MacBook Pro, and you have a mobile station that a colorist can use to prepare shots on the move. A laptop-based system may also be used by Directors or DOPs as an on-set grading tool, allowing them to experiment with looks on the set and then transferring that information on to the colorist for their grading session.

A third-party grading panel, such as the Tangent Wave may also be added to create a complete grading system on a MacPro or a 17” MacBook Pro.

Multiple DaVinci Resolve systems may be configured with a shared database, where projects are centrally saved and stored. With many post-production facilities employing a shared storage infrastructure, this allows for an elegant project grading management workflow.

The workflow potential is interesting, to say the least. DaVinci Resolve software can be used on a laptop for onset grading, the information passed on to the facility where a Mac-based DaVinci Resolve is used for conform, preparation work or previews, while the main Linux suite is used for the client-attended grading session. All this done on the same software, from set to master.

The process of color grading used to belong to only an exclusive few with the budgets to invest in expensive systems. With its’ new strategy for the DaVinci Resolve product, Blackmagic Design has opened up a world of new opportunities by providing a professional set of colorists tools to independent film-makers, boutique post production houses and production companies. Incorporating the colour grading process in their production and post-production pipelines is now a reality.

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Author: Patrick de Silva (pat@mediav.com.sg)

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"THE COLOR GRADING VIRUS THAT IS TEAL & ORANGE!!!" - interesting musings from Todd Miro, an indie film-maker and digital artist.

http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html