News

Chaos Group will preview the upcoming major release of V-Ray 3.0, at the 40th SIGGRAPH forum, July 23-25. Artist-driven features and improvements such as single-click Progressive Rendering, optimized Brute Force sampling, and faster hair rendering, are just a small part of what’s in store.

Blackmagic Design announced the launch of Splice, an online community that features stories and projects by some of the world's best editors, DOPs and colorists.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that Los Angeles based Video Hawks built three innovative video assist carts used in the filming of the summer blockbuster “World War Z.” The carts were built around Blackmagic Design’s Compact Videohub routers and Videohub Smart Control panels, HDLink Pro DVI and numerous Mini Converters.

Video Hawks, founded by its current President, Tom Loewy, is one of the industry's leading video assist companies. Having partnered with technology genius, Technoprops’ founder Glenn Derry, Video Hawks has built and operated ground breaking video assist, camera, VFX support and motion capture technology for some of the biggest movies ever made, including the augmented reality system Simulcam made famous for its use on “Avatar” and “Real Steel.”

For “World War Z,” Video Hawks provided video assist carts used across international shooting locations, including the United Kingdom, Malta and Budapest. The carts gave the film’s director and DP the ability to improve lighting and camera angles, see raw footage immediately and view shots with effects added in real time, showing where masses of zombies, soldiers and unhappy victims were located in the shots and how the final images would appear.

“‘World War Z’ just is not a clean film in terms of what is happening on the screen and on the set. Smoke, explosions and constant action had to be mixed with hordes of zombies, including actors in makeup and wearing motion tracking suits, and areas where CGI zombies would need to be added later,” said Dan Moore, co owner, Video Hawks. “Filming was a down, dirty and extreme challenge, and the director and DP needed to see what they shot, make changes and set tone and ambiance right on the set while taking into account all of the extra imagery needed.”



Each cart had multiple Compact Videohubs for routing of media, Videohub Smart Control panels, HDLink Pro DVI devices for monitoring and a number of different Mini Converters to handle the various feeds from multiple cameras and graphics and effects systems. Once a shot was completed, Video Hawks’ co owners Glenn Derry and Dan Moore recorded footage and incorporated needed effects in real time, allowing the director and DP to view and adjust shots, lighting and actor and prop placement.

“On set control and giving the director and DP the ability to see the final look was vital on ‘World War Z.’ With Blackmagic Design as the core of these carts, we were able to provide that and have the flexibility to answer any request made of us. And the products are built to fit in perfectly with any workflow we throw at it. With the Videohubs in particular, I could manually change inputs or manage them from my laptop or iPad,” said Moore.

“Also, this was not an easy shoot on any of the equipment. We went from the amazing heat of Malta in the summer to winter in Budapest and had to deal with smoke, bombs going off, grit and dust. Blackmagic equipment has muscle and durability though,” continued Moore. “The great thing about working with Blackmagic equipment is that I can sleep at night knowing it just won’t fail. And an added bonus is that the great looking design of Blackmagic products lets our carts look beautiful as well.”

Press Photography
Product photos of all Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Grass Valley has announced EDIUS 7, the latest version of Grass Valley's nonlinear video editing application. EDIUS is a proven, industry-leading solution for editors working on fast turn production in broadcast news, newsmagazine, and studio program content, as well as professional video editors working on organizational, documentary, and 4K theatrical productions. EDIUS 7 is now a native 64-bit application for Windows 7 and Windows 8 64-bit operating systems, taking full advantage of up to 512 GB (dependent upon Windows version) of installed memory for super-intensive media operations, such as multilayer 4K and 3D editing.

"No other nonlinear video editing software gives users the real-time speed and functionality that EDIUS does," said Mike Cronk, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Grass Valley. "Its compatibility with all major file formats, the ability to edit in real-time without rendering—even in 4K with its native 64-bit architecture—means that EDIUS 7 is an ideal solution for either broadcast or post-production environments."

In addition to support for a wide range of Grass Valley hardware, EDIUS 7—which will be released in Q3 2013 and publically demonstrated for the first time at IBC 2013—is now open to third-party input and output hardware from Blackmagic Design and Matrox, with support for AJA Video Systems hardware scheduled for Q4 2013. This gives EDIUS users greater flexibility to integrate into a wide variety of environments with one editing interface that can be used for news field editing, newsroom desktop editing, news finishing editing, studio productions, and other high-quality editing for delivery to mobile devices, Internet-connected platforms, traditional television, and for theatrical release. EDIUS 7 also supports EDL project import/export with DaVinci Resolve, as well as a new color grading workflow.

"It is very exciting to see Blackmagic Design's desktop video products working with Grass Valley's EDIUS. Customers working with Ultra HD workflows using our PCIe DeckLink 4K Extreme and Thunderbolt based UltraStudio 4K capture and playback devices will now have even more choices of top products they can work with as they build amazing workflows to handle the highest quality formats," said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design.

Additional enhanced functionality within EDIUS 7 includes an improved 4K workflow, support for the latest file formats (including XAVC/XAVC S and AVC-Ultra), automatic program update checking, updated MPEG and H.264/AVC performance, faster handling of large quantities of still image files (JPG, TGA, DPX, and others), and a Gaussian blur filter to apply better quality blurring and to prevent Moiré pattern aliasing artifacts.



EDIUS 7 supports any mix of SD, HD, 2K, and 4K resolution on the timeline in real-time, with editing performance increasing as CPU power increases. EDIUS 7 has also been optimized for multicore and Intel fourth-generation Core i CPU systems.

"We are always listening to our customers and responding to their needs, and this is reflected in EDIUS 7," continued Cronk. "We've improved the 4K workflow, opened the program up to third-party hardware, and increased support for the latest file formats, so that our users can still 'Edit Anything.' As EDIUS users continue to look toward higher quality coupled with greater flexibility, we're responding with the features available in this new version of EDIUS."

EDIUS 7 will be available in Pro and Elite versions. EDIUS Pro 7 is targeted at the professional, stand-alone user. EDIUS Elite 7 is aimed at editors working collaboratively within network-connected production environments, and features seamless integration with GV STRATUS nonlinear production tools and Grass Valley K2 media servers and storage with the ability for multiple edit stations to edit-in-place, record directly to K2, and simultaneously edit live video while being ingested (Simul Edit). GV STRATUS integration will be available by September 2013. A free 30-day trial of EDIUS Pro 7 is available at www.grassvalley.com/edius.

EDIUS Pro 7 and upgrade information is available at www.grassvalley.com/edius. Those who have purchased EDIUS Pro 6.5 or hardware bundles including EDIUS Pro 6.5 from June 1, 2013 onward will be eligible for a free upgrade to EDIUS Pro 7. Upgrade information will be available on the EDIUS Pro 7 webpage when EDIUS 7 is released.

List of current promotions and discounts

on SONY professional equipment running this month (07/2013). In case of further questions or doubts, please do not hesitate to contact us by phone or email.