MORE AUDIO UPGRADES

Our main audio post suite has been working non-stop, and the computer has now been upgraded to a MAC PRO FULL HD SYSTEM. We have installed a Decklink HD card to work alongside Final Cut Pro 7 video editing and Nuendo 4 audio mixing packages. Full HD video playback is now possible directly out of the audio timeline enabling direct interfacing to current video projects. The storage has also been upgraded to a 3 terabyte raid array allowing direct capture up to full uncompressed HD content from our HDCAM decks.

EDIT SUITE UPGRADE

Our Edit 3 has now been upgraded to a MAC PRO FULL HD SYSTEM with a 3 terabyte high speed raid. A Blu-ray burner has also been added to the system. The software has been upgraded to Final Cut Suite 3 and Adobe Creative Suite 4 allowing full Blu-ray disc authoring without leaving the room.

DEDICATED INGEST AND LAYBACK STATION

We have installed a Mac in our main equipment room with a Decklink HD Pro card for full standard definition and high definition frame accurate capture and layback interfaced to all our digibetacam and HDCAM decks via our HDSDI router. This system is also very useful for timecode lock restriping audio generated from our audio post suite onto masters. Also installed is a 2 channel eSata interface to allow the ability to ingest to 2 x external Sata drives set up as an array. This means full uncompressed HD can be captured directly to client supplied ‘barebone’ Sata drives alleviating the need to double handle the data.

VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE?

In the past few months we have been working hard on a variety of work from remastering international television series... to adding subtitles to masters... to foreign languange reversionings. Some examples are: "Wire In The Blood" drama series - create Italian release masters "Sunny Cowgirls - Summertime" music video - master for distribution "Shamwari: A Wild Life" documentary - on line edit, colour grade, audio mix and HD master for international distribution "Fear Factor series 1, 2 and 3" reality game show - create international music and effect tracks "Care" training DVD - Edit, encode and author master DVD "Tacugama - Forest of Hope" documentary - create Spanish masters with subtitles "Ricki Lee - hear no see no" music video - master for distribution "Call of the Wild" documentary - on line edit, colour grade, audio mix and HD master for international distribution "Nanny Poppins" dance spectacular - 4 camera shoot, edit and master 90 min program in HD and 5.1 "Red Bull Glorious Days" documentary - create Blu-ray high definition master discs "Spoons" English comedy series - create international music and effect tracks

COLOUR GRADING ENHANCEMENTS

We have now installed a 'Tangent Wave' dedicated panel to allow for a more accurate colour grading capability. This panel is the heart of a professional colour grading system that we use with Apple's 'Color' software. It compliments our existing grade 1 Sony video monitor and outboard waveform/vectorscopes and can be used in any edit suite but primarily sits in our high end EDIT 4.

QATAR CELEBRATES ITS NATIONAL DAY

Recently we on-line edited, audio mixed and mastered the series "Call of the Wild" as part of the Qatar National Day celebrations. This series consisted of four half hour shows shot using Sony XDCAM EX camera's and was mastered onto HDCAM. Each episode was off-line edited in Qatar and then sent to us on hard drive. At each stage of the online process we uploaded versions onto our dedicated server so all parties involved could preview the progress via the internet. This also was the first series we had done that experienced our new colourgrading facilities.

SURROUND SOUND PREVIEWS

Now we can preview full surround sound mixes in our client preview area from any of the edit suites. We have installed a Blackmagic HDLink Pro that converts the HD-SDI signal to HDMI which feeds our 50" high definition Plasma and 6 channels of discrete audio to feed our surround sound monitoring system.

DIGITAL AUDIO VU METERING

Every edit suite now has an on screen 4 channel digital audio VU/phase meter which gives us high resolution audio displays. These units are identical to what we use in our audio post suite to allow for total system standardisation. We have also installed another unit on the output of our main HDCAM mastering deck so we can be absolutely sure what's going out to tape. No more exceeding those -10db audio specs.

NTSC BETACAM MASTERING

While everything else around us is turning to HIGH DEFINITION we have not forgotten some of our standard definition requirements. We have installed an NTSC Betacam recorder to enable us to master for the US and Japan. While it is not a Digibeta deck it still meets most of the requirements that our clients ask for. Bring on digital delivery, PLEASE!!!

SECOND AUDIO WORKSTATION INSTALLED

As we are getting more and more audio work we had the need for an 'audio ingest/tracklay station'. So we have installed another 'Nuendo 4' system which includes 24 digital audio input/outputs and 8 analog audio input/outputs. The system also has a Decklink Extreme video/audio capture card and the whole lot is complimented with a dedicated digital 8 track audio deck (Tascam DA 88) and on screen digital VU metering. This system really came in handy for our recent 'Fear Factor' project that required 60 digital 8 track audio tapes and 60 Digital Betacam tapes to be loaded into our servers.

HD MONITORING ENHANCEMENTS

Our digital monitoring rack in our main equipment room has now been expanded to include a 22" 1920 x 1080 high definition monitor which is fed from our HD router via a Blackmagic HDLink. This monitoring sits side by side with our grade 1 standard definition monitor with in picture waveform/vectorscope and 4 channel digital VU metering. This standard definition monitoring system is also fed from our HD router which conveniently has a built in down converter to enable us to confirm QC'ing from all our HD edit suites and decks.

AVID GETS MORE AVID

We initially installed Avid software into our EDIT ONE as a file conversion utility. But after repeated requests from our clients we have now installed an 'Avid Mojo SDI' to allow full digital ingest and mastering of Avid projects. While this system is only standard definition it was recently used to ingest a program shot on HDCAM in high definition down converted from our HD deck. It was then off-line edited in standard definition and on completion was on-line edited in high definition using our EDIT 4 and Final Cut Pro. After that, it was colourgraded and mastered to HDCAM. The Avid software and Avid Mojo SDI are also compatible with our portable MacBookPro editing system. <<Older News