The recent technological changes in Focus-Fox Studio were driven by the birth of the unique 4:4:4 RGB High Definition signal processing and recording. Up to now there were several attempts to make the highly compressed HD signal recording more perfect but just the new HDCam SR system by Sony brought this new world finally.

What are the advantages of the HDCamSR signal processing?

a) it records the 4:4:4 RGB HD signals practically without compression.
b) It can fully replace the formerly known 2k signal processing with the plus that it can be real time recorded on a cassette.
c) It is fully compatible with the worldwide spread HDCam System
d) It is expected to be the HD signal processing of the future

What had to be changed to install the HDCamSR technology?

Practically everything or more exactly because of making the coming HD world easier we decided to change more that was needed. We implemented 6 different routers to be able to handle the very complex signal flow. The HDCamSR signal for example is carried through a dual link connection so it needs a double signal processing.
We made completely new cabelling around the whole studio. We concentrated all the machines into a big central machinery room to make the transfer activities more efficient. With the help of the routers every machine can be contacted with any other one.
But all these make our life easier. What are the benefits for the customer?

New services in Focus-Fox

*) We changed our good old Spirit telecine into brand new Spirit 2 that is equipped with HD output (capable of 4:4:4 RGB signal flow). More and more customers ask for HD processing, for two reasons. On one hand post in HD gives better result even if the signal will be downconverted to SD at the end of the post. The programs finished in HD can be recorded onto film for film release with better quality. On the other hand many big TV stations ask for HD copy of every new programme even there is no HDTV transmission yet. The grading in HD can be more careful as the DOP sees much more details than in SD. To help the job we installed a 1.2 meter wide rear projector in the telecine suite. The overall look of the picture is much better than in SD.
The projector also helps at DI (Digital Intermediate) works because the viewing feeling is similar to the cinema one.
*) We upgraded our Inferno workstation to a most up-to-date Flame workstation. This is now the top product of the market leader Discreet Logic (Autodesk Multimedia). Of course it is able to work with HD in YUV and RGB space as well in real time.
The Flame is equipped with a lot of plug-ins (Sapphire, Furnace) to make very spectaculars special effects.
*) For simpler HD editing we installed two softwares from DVS: one Clipster and one Pronto. As they have a big background disk memory we also use them as a player and a recorder for the DI grading sessions.
They are also ideal for different transcoding jobs like down and up converting (HD to SD or vice versa) and system transcoding (PAL – NYSC).