SCRATCH the’ Digital Finishing Solution’ by Assimilate is billed by the company as the essential mix for a real-time, resolution-dependent data workflow.Riding the RED MX Wave and beyond: The RED-ONE Digital Camera has taken the entertainment world by storm.  Assimilate’s Scratch 5.1 leads the industry with first support for RED cameras, such as support for multiple RED Rocket cards in a single SCRATCH system; first dual RED Rocket support for MX R3D; and first non-RED application to support the new RED MX sensor and revised color math, with native real-time playback and adjustment of all on-camera color parameters, such as FLUT, exposure, and curves. Working easily with the native R3D files, SCRATCH streamlines the RED ONE MX workflow and delivers a high-quality master for multiple delivery formats.

With 3D in full gear, Assimilate has given post artists the ability to work in real-time 3D at all times with direct output to any stereoscopic display system. Additionally. Assimilate offers post houses it’s exclusive 3Play Pro, which enables playback and review of full-resolution HD stereoscopic material on a variety of consumer 3D monitors, as well as non-3D monitors using a variety of Anaglyph formats.  With enhanced color grading along with finishing and compositing, Scratch v.5.1 also offers support that reads and writes every DNxHD format, which provides full compatibility with AVID media for projects originating on Media Composer, Symphony, or DS.

Assimilate’s Scratch v.5.1 will be on display at this years NAB with multiple booths for those eager to test out the new features and take a test run on what is proving to be a valuable asset to those in the post community.

Most post houses have multiple editing stations which generally pull projects and media off of a main server, this certainly isn’t new.  But an issue that has been brought to my attention over the last few weeks is one regarding the use of multiple avid suites with different windows based platforms (ie. Windows 2000, XP, Vista) accessing the same projects.  The issue being that when a project is closed on one particular suite and re-opened on another, the user would get an error which stated that the projected is locked or write protected and therefore any changes would not be saved.  As one can well imagine, this can be a huge issue, especially if the project is under a deadline, and if you haven’t experienced this before, then God bless you, but I hope the shared knowledge here will benefit you down the road. 

Compositing can be a very deep and complex subject, especially when dealing with animation, but here we’ll try and keep it fairly simple and straightforward.  There is always talk amongst those in the industry when it comes to blue/green screen and working on an edit as to whether or not one should do their composite in whatever NLE software their working with or export to a third party software to handle the task.  Unless your working with animation, the answer, like so many in post production questions is a not a simple one.  Take for instance Avid, who has excellent composite tools available in their 3.0 versions ( and up ) that can do the job relatively pain free providing the ‘screen’ is a talking head or has minimal movement.  Final Cut does a decent job too, providing your using the newly acquired Ultimatte software that was made available earlier this year.  Both are good and most editor’s may prefer to use their NLE system to avoid the hassle of exporting and re-importing footage for what may be no difference other than minor ones no one notices. 

Avid has just announced the launch of version 4 for Media Composer and Symphony to the masses.  This new upgrade of Media Composer and Symphony offer improved stereoscopic 3D editing, enabling customers to view 3D material side by side in addition to over/under — ensuring greater accuracy of editing decisions and a wider choice of cost-effective monitors for stereoscopic viewing.  Mix and Match is a new function which provides customers with the flexibility to use media sources of different frame rates and resolutions (SD and HD) in the same timeline – eliminating external transcoding and time-consuming frame-rate conversions.  Users can monitor HD and SD cross-and-down converted formats from 1080p24 masters. This enables customers using Mojo DX or Nitris DX hardware to view HD material on a less-expensive SD monitor.  

Avid has also added support for Panasonic AVC-I and Ikegami GFCAM 100MBps formats.  The Production Suite versions have been updated to include new versions of Boris Continuum Complete, Sorenson Squeeze and SmartSound SonicFire Pro.  On a side note Avid has also introduced new versions of its NewsCutter editor for news broadcasters and Interplay production asset management system.

Interplay 2.0 was upgraded as well which lets broadcasters and post facilities work remotely. Lower bandwidth streaming proxies let Interplay workgroup members work with media anytime from anywhere, using a Mac or PC.  Of the numerous added feature of Interplay one which stands out for me is the feature of Final Cut Pro workflow support that offers check-in and check-out of FCP media with project links as well as media and metadata conversion of FCP-to-Avid and Avid-to-FCP projects.

Since FCS 3.0 was recently released, curious minds were wondering when Avid would respond to the Apple’s well received upgrade and they certainly have seemed too.  Media Composer and Symphony will be available on September 30.  I’ll give a full review when its public. 

Credit to the Digital Arts Staff for the specifics of the release.