Toolbox

Avid (Nasdaq: AVID) announced that the latest version of Avid Media Composer editing software is now available. Part of the Avid Artist Suite, powered by the Avid MediaCentral Platform, Media Composer 8.4 delivers accelerated high-resolution workflows, facilitates real-time collaboration, and frees editors from time-consuming background tasks.

“Today’s video professionals need to be able to handle whatever media walks in the door, ingest that media, edit it, and deliver a master for distribution,” said Charlie Russell, senior segment marketing manager, Avid. “Increasingly, the media they need to work with is greater-than-HD: 2K, 4K and Ultra HD. With the latest version of Media Composer, editors and assistants will be able to handle this high-resolution media, while leveraging their existing HD infrastructure.”

New Media Composer 8.4 features include: Custom raster support bringing Avid Resolution Independence to life, whereby users can work with any raster up to 8K, in any format; AVC-I, ProRes, XAVC-I and XF-AVC native high-resolution playback with optimized performance for Apple ProRes, Canon XF-AVC, Panasonic AVC-I and Sony XAVC-I, giving users the flexibility to mix and match high-resolution media in the timeline, from DNxHR to other popular formats, and edit with smooth real-time playback; access to the same AAX presets as with Pro Tools; enhanced closed captioning; Alpha channel support for QuickTime-wrapped Avid DNxHR which means users can now enhance their graphics, effects and compositing workflows when working with QuickTime applications; and Media Composer | Cloud with dynamic media folders and background services.

The latter enables customers to use Media Composer software and Media Composer | Cloud workflows on a single system, including remote cloud-based editing while simultaneously performing background uploading, rendering, consolidating, or transcoding.

Media Composer 8.4 is now available for download online and through authorized Avid resellers.

Colorfront, the Academy and Emmy Award-winning developer of high-performance, on-set dailies and transcoding systems for motion pictures, high-end episodic TV and commercials, announced that Colorfront Transkoder, its automated, standalone system for high-quality digital file conversion, has been certified by Dolby Laboratories for the creation of Dolby Atmos Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs).

With the expansion of Transkoder’s toolset to include support for Dolby’s object-based audio format, postproduction studios can leverage Transkoder’s extreme performance to create Dolby Atmos DCPs at up to ten-times faster-than-realtime, making Transkoder a reliable, cost-effective and feature-rich alternative to other systems.

Using Dolby Atmos object-based audio, sound experts have the creative freedom to place sound anywhere in the movie theatre--not just where there happen to be speakers--to deliver an immersive listening experience. Sound mixers can tag each sound “object” with precise directions as to where it should appear or move in the room. Dolby Atmos takes into account the unique configuration of each venue, to ensure a consistent, high-quality audio experience regardless of the size and shape. Thanks to an intelligent decoder box, sound objects are rendered and distributed to the required number of speakers.

“Dolby Atmos is a remarkable technology that brings an exciting dynamic to the cinema-going experience,” said Aron Jaszberenyi, managing director of Colorfront. “The official certification of Colorfront Transkoder for Dolby Atmos further expands Transkoder’s comprehensive capabilities, gives DCP mastering facilities new levels of performance and productivity, and establishes Colorfront as the premier provider of mastering solutions for high-end digital cinema.”

Soundfirm, Australia’s largest independent picture and sound post production company, with facilities in Melbourne, on the Fox Studios’ lot in Sydney and in central Beijing, recently purchased Transkoder for digital cinema mastering at its newly constructed Melbourne headquarters. Soundfirm recently completed picture and sound post, including a Dolby Atmos mix, for the feature film The Dressmaker, starring Liam Hemsworth, Kate Winslet, Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving.

Soundfirm CEO Roger Savage said, “In Melbourne we offer Australia’s only Dolby Atmos Mixing and Mastering stage. Now with Colorfront’s Dolby-certified Transkoder in the workflow, we can power our way to final 2K and 4K DCPs, including a full Dolby Atmos sound mix and subtitles. This continues our tradition of working at the vanguard of cinema innovation.”

Transkoder runs on cost-effective Supermicro, HP Z840 and new Mac Pro platforms. It has unique, GPU-accelerated, faster-than-real-time capabilities, and a comprehensive toolset which combine make it the ultimate tool for HFR UHDTV and 4K-6K-8K digital cinema applications.

Along with object-based audio technology support, Transkoder’s features include 240FPS JPEG2000 encode-decode, DCP/DCI-compliant mastering, IMF/IMP authoring, packaging, verification and QC. Harnessing Colorfront Transkoder, Dolby Atmos mixes can be easily integrated into DCI and SMPTE DCP mastering processes, with the DCP created at up to ten times faster than realtime.

Colorfront will demonstrate Transkoder, along with its Express Dailies and On-Set Dailies systems, at SMPTE 2015 in Sydney, Australia from July 14-17.

Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, announced that Raycom Media is expanding its use of Grass Valley’s EDIUS multiformat nonlinear editing software for news editing across all 33 of its news-producing markets. A new multi-year support agreement combines support with the ability for Raycom to upgrade its existing licenses, as needed, to deploy productivity-enhancing software improvements.

“Grass Valley’s EDIUS editing software offers the functionality and capabilities we need for our news production,” said David Burke, VP, technology, at Raycom Media. “And thanks to this new support agreement, we know we’ll have access to the software upgrades we need to enhance our productivity for years to come.”

EDIUS is versatile real-time editing software for SD/HD/4K on the same timeline and in nested sequences. With the ability to handle more resolutions and unlimited tracks, this is the perfect finishing tool for broadcast news workflows like Raycom’s, as well as news magazine content, studio programs, corporate, documentary and theatrical productions.

“We value our relationship with Raycom and are committed to helping all of our customers produce and deliver the kind of content their viewers want to see,” said Stephen Stubelt, VP of sales, North America, Grass Valley. “As we continually improve and enhance EDIUS, these kinds of agreements ensure that customers have immediate access to the latest version and will always be able to leverage the most advanced features for their specific production needs.”

When veteran sound mixer Irin Strauss was tasked with capturing audio for the indie film Tangerine, he turned to the 664 Production Mixer, made by Sound  Devices, specialists in portable audio and video products for field production.

Tangerine is a comedy-drama from writer-director Sean Baker. Shot entirely with Apple iPhones, the feature is an intimate look at a day in the lives of two transgender prostitutes.

The deployment of two Apple iPhone5 cameras required Strauss to choose highly compact, mobile equipment in order to keep up with the production crew.

“For Tangerine, two cameramen were running around with phones, allowing us to quickly shoot in certain locations, almost undetected,” said Strauss. “As the sound guy and the boom operator, I had the most to carry. Having the mixer and recorder in one machine proved invaluable for this project, as it was one less thing to carry.”

Armed with his Sound Devices 664, purchased from Gotham Sound, Strauss was able to keep up with the two iPhone 5 operators. For the narrative dialogue, he put everything onto one track, with straight ISOs for everybody else, who were wired most of the time.  He would also mix the boom and the wired tracks when necessary. 

“We weren’t really sure how things would pan out, shooting an entire film using just iPhones, and since the pace was so fast, there wasn’t time to create sound reports, so I really had to rely on the  metadata from the 664,” said Strauss. “In addition, using the 664  made  monitoring each individual track very easy and convenient.”

The  smart  phone  camera  setup  also  included  Moondog  Labs’  1.33x  anamorphic  adapter  and the FiLMiC Pro app. In addition to his 664, Strauss used a Lectrosonics SMV wireless system for his transmitters, along with Sanken COS-11D lavaliers. He employed a Schoeps CMIT5U shotgun microphone and, occasionally, a T-powered Schoeps CMC 4U for locations with low ceilings and little head room. 

“This was probably the most challenging project I have ever worked on, as it was not easy to keep up with two guys with iPhones,” said Strauss. “They would just grab their phones and start shooting. Since there weren’t any monitors, I had to make my best guess about what the shots were and how they aligned them. The 664 was  really  an excellent choice for this fast-paced production. It is a great piece of equipment.”

The 664 features six ultra-low noise, high dynamic range transformer-less preamps that accept mic- or line-level signals and include analog peak limiters, high-pass filters, input trim control and direct outputs on every channel. Direct outputs for input channels 1-6 can be switched to six line  inputs (7-12)  for a total of 12  inputs. The 664 records up to 16 tracks of 16- or 24-bit broadcast WAV files to SD and/or CompactFlash cards. All inputs and outputs are individually selectable for recording, enabling the mixer to record up to 12 ISO and four mix tracks. With its dual card slots, the 664 can record WAV or MP3 content to either or both cards simultaneously, with the added ability to assign different tracks to each memory card.