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Contour ShuttlePRO steps up to the plate for Intel Macs
Contour Design releases drivers to use ShuttlePRO v2 with Final Cut Pro on Intel driven MacContour Design has released the latest ShuttlePRO and ShuttleXpress drivers for the Intel driven Apple Macintosh line. Contour's Shuttles, with optimized settings for Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, and other powerful editing packages, are among the first programmable editing devices to be compatible with the new Macs. "The ShuttlePRO and ShuttleXpress are the ideal tools for editing efficiently and we're committed to keeping up with Apple's innovations," said Mike Jackle, company spokesman for the Mac/Media division. "Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress Pro, and other users can be assured of full compatibility, and our ShuttlePRO will continue to complete Mac based editing stations." The ShuttlePRO and ShuttleXpress both have jog/shuttle wheels and buttons that can be programmed for keyboard shortcuts (the ShuttlePRO has 15 buttons and the ShuttleXpress has 5). The driver also includes preconfigured settings for dozens of the most powerful and popular applications, including but not limited to audio and video applications. The new driver is available at www.contourdesign.com and can be found in the download section of the site. Contour Design continues to update their driver to ensure compatibility with all of the most current hardware and software.
Boris Introduces New Version of Continuum Complete for Autodesk Sparks
Integrated visual effects run on Autodesk Media & Entertainment systems products architecture
Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film production, today announced version 1.3 of Boris Continuum Complete (BCC) pursuant to the Autodesk Sparks program.
This comprehensive suite of native filters extends the capabilities of Autodesk Burn and Autodesk's Discreet Inferno, Discreet Flame, Discreet Flint, Discreet Fire, and Discreet Smoke products. This Linux-based solution is based on the Autodesk Sparks Program Application Programming Interface (API) for developing custom plug-ins.
"Boris Continuum Complete for Autodesk Media & Entertainment systems products was designed to ease effect creation in high-end compositing situations, giving the artist the ability to generate masks and perform motion tracking directly within the product's interface," comments Peter McAuley, senior product manager, Boris FX. "Included is a preset manager, which not only comes with hundreds of preset effects, but also gives the artist the ability to load and save all of the parameter settings for use on other projects or systems, including graphics workstations that have been set up with BCC in other host environments such as Autodesk Combustion software."
Continuum's intuitive filters expand the capabilities of Autodesk Media & Entertainment software's world-renowned visual effects solutions with OpenGL acceleration and powerful integration features. BCC is available in two volumes, which may be purchased separately. Volume I includes more than 70 filters in four categories, Colors and Blurs, Effects, Lights and Wipe Transitions. Among the highlights are sophisticated glows and OpenGL-based generators that simulate real-life lighting such as lens flares, glints and glares. Other cutting-edge filters include DeNoise, DeInterlace, Witness Protection and dozens more.
Volume II will be available in Q2 2006 and will include an additional 80 filters in four categories, Distortion and Perspective, Generators, Keys and Mattes and Time. Highlights include auto-animating procedural generators that create realistic caustics, clouds, smoke, rain, textures, and stars. Temporal effects feature state-of-the-art optical flow technology to smoothly retime clips. Sophisticated image processing filters include raster and vector image displacement maps. Geometric primitive shapes such as a cube, sphere, or cylinder can be manipulated in 3D space.
New Features include:
-Support for Autodesk Burn networked rendering
-Support for 32 and 64 bit architecture
-Better support for OpenGL-based filter effects
-Linux systems support
Each volume features hundreds of presets, online documentation and a minimal learning curve to streamline effects creation. Continuum offers animatable apply modes, integrated motion tracking, and high-quality keying. Most filters include a separate RGB input for fast masking. For more sophisticated masking, the integrated PixelChooser creates channel or region-based masks; combined channel and region-based mattes define precisely which pixels a filter affects.
Volume I of Boris Continuum Complete for Autodesk Media & Entertainment systems products is available now through the Boris FX worldwide reseller channel and direct through Boris FX. Volume II is expected to be available Q2 2006. Each volume is $5000 US SRP. Both volumes may be purchased together for $7500 US SRP. Users who purchase Volume I, may add Volume II for $2500 US SRP when it is available. Trial versions of all Boris solutions can be downloaded at http://www.borisfx.com.
CHROME Imaging Chooses Bluefish444 Catalyst for New Generation MATRIX Compositing Systems
CHROME Imaging announced that it will integrate Bluefish444's new uncompressed video I/O card Catalyst into the new generation of its MATRIX Compositing systems. The integration of Catalyst will provide postproduction professionals using MATRIX with even more powerful and flexible I/O capabilities for 2K digital film processing. "We are very excited to have Catalyst onboard. Its new features provide more flexibility in development as well as a whole new horizon of possibilities for our clients," says CHROME Imaging CEO Mr. Dan Tatut. Catalyst's new features such as 2K support, HSDL connectivity, 16bit RGB support and programmable DSPs (Digital Signal Processors) supply MATRIX with power-house I/O performance and high-quality, uncompressed material for digital filmmaking. Catalyst's HSDL (High Speed Data Link) interface enables MATRIX to ingest uncompressed 2K/HD data from devices such as datacines or film scanners, taking full advantage of bandwidth and quality. This augments the system's real-time 2K capabilities as users will now be able to ingest, playback and monitor uncompressed, 10-bit 2K material in real-time. This can all be done over an existing HD infrastructure, generating no need for facility-wide hardware upgrades. Catalyst's new DSP is another feature that will enhance workflow as MATRIX Compositing image processing algorithms and effects can be loaded directly on it. With a 1GB/sec bus speed over PCI-X 133MHz, bottlenecking is dramatically reduced and also adds to performance. Finally, Catalyst's support for the 16-bit RGB pixel format works in perfect tandem with MATRIX Compositing's image processing engine, which handles 16-bit color space natively. This will greatly increase performance, as it will no longer be necessary to convert between bit depths internally, freeing the system's processing power for other tasks. In light of the integration, Garry Davis, Director Bluefish444 Europe, says, "It is a real pleasure to have Catalyst incorporated in the MATRIX [Compositing] system configuration and to see a system that can truly take advantage of all the new features. The combination of technologies offers post-production facilities a robust solution for their compositing needs."
Bluefish444 Announces Support for Final Cut Studio 5.1
Bluefish444 will release a driver supporting Final Cut Studio 5.1 and its entire SD SDI / analog product line in the 2nd quarter of 2006 and a 2K/HD driver in the 4th quarter of 2006. Bluefish444 has an entrenched market leading position in the 10 bit RGB DI market for Windows. By adding support for Final Cut Studio 5.1 to its DI and NLE product offerings, Bluefish444 will extend its reputation for unsurpassed video quality and reliability into the Macintosh OS market. "With the advent of Intel based Macintosh hardware and the continued success of Final Cut Studio in the professional video market, Bluefish444 sees support for Final Cut Studio 5.1 as imperative for our customers' options of choice," said Craige Mott, Managing Director of Bluefish444. "Our Symmetry acquisition, review and playout software provides a seamless integration between applications on Windows and Linux. By adding support for Final Cut Studio, we will extend that seamless integration to Macintosh and enable our customers to work with the incredibly successful Final Cut Studio product."
Aspex Semiconductor and Bluefish444 Announce a Certified Solution for Real-time HD Video Compression
Aspex Semiconductor and Bluefish444 have announced the successful integration and certification of the Bluefish444 HD|Fury card with Aspex's Accelera HD MPEG-2 Encoder card, to provide a solution for high-quality, real-time streaming HD MPEG-2 video compression for all High Definition video formats up to 1080i60. By combining the high quality 4:2:2 video capture capabilities of the HD|Fury with the high performance, high quality video compression offered by the Accelera HD MPEG-2 Encoder card, OEMs and resellers can create cost-effective solutions for HD archival, live streaming, post-production and IPTV applications. The solution allows users to ingest broadcast-quality HD MPEG-2 streams from uncompressed HD-SDI sources such as HD cameras, tape decks, or nonlinear editing systems. The compressed streams can be stored to disk, streamed across a network, or used as a native format for video editing and post-production. By compressing the video stream "on the fly", the solution removes the need for large, expensive RAID disk arrays for data storage. The flexibility of the solution also allows the cards to be used separately, supporting existing workflows where uncompressed video is captured directly to disk, edited, and then exported in an HD MPEG-2 format for broadcast, HD-DVD/Blu-Ray optical disc, or saved to hard disk archive. Aspex's Accelera solution accelerates MainConcept's industry-leading MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder API, enabling end users to make use of the solution inside many popular applications, such as Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Premiere Pro, or to capture and encode directly within MainConcept's MPEG-2 encoder application. Unlike fixed-function encoding cards, Aspex's partnership with MainConcept gives users complete flexibility over the encoding parameters, such as bit rate, resolution, frame rate, and Group Of Pictures (GOP) structure. Software integration for OEMs is also straightforward, allowing developers to use either DirectShow filters or the MainConcept and Bluefish APIs to create high performance streaming HD encoding applications. "We're delighted to be working with Bluefish444 to certify this solution," said Jeremy Hendy, VP of Marketing for Aspex. "With many post-production workflows now supporting native HDV editing on the timeline, combining Bluefish444's high quality HD-SDI video capture and playout with our HD encoding solutions lets end-users ingest high quality compressed streams from tape or camera, straight to the timeline. Combining Bluefish's video I/O with our encoders also allows us to address the huge market for high quality streaming HD video compression and archival." The Accelera HD MPEG-2 Encoder was a joint development with leading software codec provider MainConcept. A complementary synergy was also recently announced by BlueFishf44, certifying compatibility with MainConcept's DirectShow filters. Now, any DirectShow Filter Graphs that a customer builds, will be accelerated by the Aspex card without any changes to the application. Craige Mott, Managing Director of Bluefish444, stated, "I am excited at the opportunity that this presents for both Bluefish444 and its end-users. The integration with Aspex Accelera HD MPEG-2 Encoder gives us an edge in the market, and continues the momentum of our strategy to partner with broadcast OEMs to provide high quality solutions for developers of a range of products from newsroom servers to virtual studio ingest. The two technologies combine to provide a strong solution for post-production workflows."
EditShare Announces Canopus Edius Support
EditShare announced enhanced support for Canopus' EDIUS nonlinear editing software. EDIUS customers will now be able to purchase an EditShare that is specifically enabled to work with multiple EDIUS systems offering them the same powerful tools currently used by broadcasters, facilities and production companies worldwide. The EditShare systems offer a cost-effective and secure workflow solution designed to help organizations enhance their creativity and streamline the content creation process. EditShare allows large groups of editors to capture into and share a common pool of media files, while guaranteeing that unauthorized individuals can never interfere with, damage or erase media once it has been shared. Steve Wise, Canopus Marketing Director EMEA comments, "EditShare's technology can bring major benefits to EDIUS customers and working with our software will be able to offer a streamlined, secure and productive workflow."
EditShare Launches ESA - Extreme Scalable Architecture
EditShare has announced EditShare ESA - a new architecture that allows customers to increase their storage to hundreds of terrabytes and beyond. All EditShare systems will include ESA starting with Version 4.0 which begins shipping in June 2006. With ESA, additional "expansion servers" can simply be plugged into existing EditShare networks. The first EditShare is configured as a "super server" that can then manage an unlimited number of "expansion servers". Administrators manage all storage through a single unified GUI and due to EditShare version 4.0's new Windows and Mac OS X Login Clients, users will not be aware that there are multiple servers on the network. The ESA system design has been created to allow customers to keep up with their storage requirements and at the same time increase the total number of users who can work from their centralized storage. Unlike expansion solutions that simply attach additional storage to a single server, each EditShare expansion server is a powerful full-fledged server with its own independent pathway to the network -- so data bottlenecks won't grow as storage increases. In addition, with EditShare ESA, users will have the option of mirroring entire Media Spaces on a separate server to create an unbeatable failover for critical data. Andy Liebman, founder and CEO of EditShare comments, "Our customers want the assurance that their storage can scale up when necessary in a simple, cost-effective way and this is what EditShare ESA provides."
Bluefish444 Announces Symmetry 3.0 Update: Support for EDLs
Symmetry Makes Video I/O Seamless with CMX 3600 EDLsBluefish444 announced EDL support for Symmetry, its Windows-based proprietary integrated DI acquisition, review & playout software. Bluefish444's continued development of Symmetry in supporting industry standard features has resulted in adding support for CMX 3600 EDLs. Now Symmetry customers can import EDLs generated from a range of applications and use Symmetry to conform to SD/HD and 2K resolutions using uncompressed file formats such as DPX, Cineon, TARGA, AVI and QuickTime. "CMX 3600 EDL support will provide customers tighter integration with a vast range of 3rd party applications already supporting EDLs. Customers will also be able to edit offline in compressed and conform to uncompressed," says Paul Cameron, Bluefish444. "CMX 3600 EDL support is also a welcome feature for Avid DS Nitris customers and others and will save considerable time, removing the need to use EDL conversion utilities." Symmetry 3.0 is immediately available free of charge for all Bluefish444 uncompressed SD/HD SDI video cards via Bluefish444's retail installer. EDL support will be available for free download in May 2006.
Bluefish444 Qualifies the BOXX 7400 Series of Workstations
Bluefish444 announced that it has qualified the BOXX 7400 series for use with Bluefish444 2K / HD video cards for RGB DI workflows. Bluefish444 and BOXX Technologies have a longstanding partnership of providing tightly integrated, well-supported solutions. The two companies have worked closely to ensure compatibility and optimize the performance of these offerings when used in RGB DI workflows. Customers can purchase these products safe in the knowledge the products will reliably work together. In addition, many of Bluefish444's OEM partners choose the BOXX 7400 series of workstation to integrate with Bluefish444 hardware. Together, BOXX Technologies and Bluefish444 provide an off the shelf 2K, HD RGB DI solution, giving integrators the piece of mind that the solution will work flawlessly. Bluefish444's line of 10-bit uncompressed RGB and YUV together with Symmetry, Bluefish444's proprietary HD/SD DI acquisition and preview tool, gives facilities the ability to capture to HD and SD 10 bit RGB industry standard file formats such as DPX and Cineon file formats. Featuring new AMD64 multi-core technology, the BOXX 7400 series workstation offers up to 50% faster rendering performance than single-core workstations. BOXX workstations offer strong performance, and are optimized for visual computing applications in post-production. "We love working with BOXX Technologies," said Craige Mott Managing Director of Bluefish444. "They have an unsurpassed reputation for quality and stability within the industry. Knowing that our 2K / HD hardware works in the 7400 series of workstations means that we can forget about configuration support related issues, even for files the size of 2K RGB." "BOXX and Bluefish444 have developed a highly integrated DI solution which leverages the power of the dual-processor, dual-core 3DBOXX 7400 Series workstation and delivers to film and broadcast professionals the performance and reliability they need to optimize their workflow," said Francois Wolf, Director of Marketing, BOXX Technologies.
Ciprico Announces Compatibility of Huge Systems MediaVault 4210 with Bluefish444's Range of SD and HD I/O Cards
Ciprico, a leading storage solutions provider for the content creation, broadcast and delivery markets, announced the compatibility of its Ciprico Huge Systems MediaVault 4210 RAID storage arrays with the Bluefish444 Dual link 4:4:4 and Single link 4:2:2 HD and SD capture cards. Bluefish444's line of 10-bit uncompressed RGB and YUV HD and SD I/O cards together with Symmetry, Bluefish444's proprietary HD/SD DI acquisition and preview tool, gives facilities the ability to capture to 10 bit RGB, DPX and Cineon, 8 bit RGBA TARGA, QuickTime and AVI file formats via a simple intuitive interface at a fraction of the cost. "Supporting DPX, Cineon and TARGA sequential file formats can be extremely intensive on storage systems. With two of the HUGE 4210's striped together we saw a substantial performance boost and an increase in storage capacity that will handle most modern 10 bit RGB DI workflows at HD and 2K resolutions," stated Paul Cameron, Support Manager Application and Systems Engineering, for Bluefish444. The Huge Systems MediaVault 4210 storage arrays are the industry's first entry level 4-Gig Fibre Channel RAID storage solutions that are aimed at video post-production professionals for a variety of SD, HD and 2K applications, including uncompressed video storage, digital intermediates, content creation, non-linear editing, animation and content delivery. The 10-drive, dual-channel MediaVault 4210 supports 10-bit YUV 1080i HD and delivers up to 5 uncompressed 10 bit YUV Standard Definition video streams in Premiere Pro. The MediaVault 4210 and Bluefish444 combination offers unprecedented performance and affordable scalable storage to address a wide variety of film and broadcast video applications, up to full bandwidth 1080i 4:4:4 10 bit RGB sequential file recording and playback. "Our MediaVault 4210 arrays and the Bluefish444 capture and playback products are a compelling combination for the post production community," said Mike Anderson, Chief Engineer for Ciprico. "The real time performance achievable with the 4210 and the range of output formats available through Symmetry and HD|Lust make our technology partnership a real benefit to colorists and other professionals designing DI workflows."
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