Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/283421
Bits & Pieces 10 Post • March 2014 www.postmagazine.com Assimilate's free Scratch Play pro media player Zoic helps Fox promote new 24 Cinedeck offers 4K support N EW YORK — I am a DIT for a lot of com- mercial productions here in NYC (www. thewongcut.com), and the main thing about commercials is that they can go all over the place with camera systems, codecs/file formats, and workflow. You can have something from a high-end digital cinema camera, to multiple GoPros, DSLRs, security camera footage, and anything else you can think of — all rolling at once. Unifying the file format and codec as much as pos- sible is a way to simplify things, but sometimes you just don't have that luxury. Having a program that can pretty much read just about any codec for playback, QC, and to test some looks out is refreshing and eases up the day. From ArriRaw playback, to compressed H.264, or something oddball that you don't see too often, being able to pull them all up in a streamlined player — to show the DP what we have, and to assure myself that we got what we needed — in a quick, easy, and timely matter is absolutely priceless. I was using Assimilate's free Scratch Play player for a while, but paid the $5 for the ad-free release. It's very negligible in cost, and for what you are getting, it's a steal either way. I wanted to show my support for the company, so I paid for it. Either way, the ad-free version is neither distracting, nor does it really have any impact on your resources. Installation was simple and user friendly, but the UI for Scratch Play itself might take a bit of getting used to. It's like learning any other piece of software. I think the Scratch Play can be used by anybody, for any number of reasons. Whether I'm generating looks with Scratch Play or the full version of Scratch, I can save those looks for the DP, and he or she can use Scratch Play to review footage later on with a copy of the footage. It makes great use of Surface Pro tablets, and it's just as easy to use on a laptop. In turn, the DP can play with it on his or her own system and send me back ideas with the look up tables and their thoughts on how to refine the image. The possibilities grow from there. It can be a simple player, for review and QC, or a powerful creative tool. Scratch Play does cover a broad spectrum of codecs, including R3D, ProRes, ArriRaw, and Sony formats. Assimilate also recently added support for the Red Dragon camera. So the fact that I can play back high resolution, RAW, or not, all in the same place is great. It's really the culmination of simple things, on-set, work- ing correctly and smoothly, that really make my day. A player you can throw just about anything at is a tool everybody should have in their bag. By Tom Wong Entertainment creative agency mOcean in LA has added Brumby Boylston (right) as group creative director, entertainment marketing. A graduate of USC Film School, Boylston is skilled in both live- action and animation. He got his start as a PA for Channel One News, and his broadcast design and directing career continued at Fuel TV, and then Brand New School and Logan. He later signed to RAW and Altura Films. David Kleinman (left) has also joined the studio as managing director of entertainment marketing. He comes to mOcean following a six-year tenure as EP Blind Visual Propaganda. Prior to that, he served as R&D unit manager at Lightstorm Entertainment. N EW YORK — Cinedeck LLC (www. cinedeck.com), which offers capture systems for digital cinema, broadcast and post production, has introduced new prod- uct and software releases that support 4K production and the latest HD delivery standards. The new Cinedeck MX4K features two channels of 4K YUV10 30fps recording from 4K and Ultra HD sources, including the Sony F55 camera, while simultaneously creating edit-ready HD master and proxy deliverables, plus streamable H.264s. The MX4K also down-converts the 4K camera feeds in realtime for on-set HD monitoring. The 4K, HD master and proxies are all simultaneously recorded to the MX4K's embedded SSD drives, with edit-ready deliverables written to SAN for immediate access, and can be encoded to the full gamut of ProRes or Cineform profiles. Users can apply a variety of Look-Up- Tables (LUTs) to the proxy, H.264, on- board display and HD outputs. Cinedeck will release RX3G and MX support for additional digital cameras, framerates, codecs and color spaces in the coming months. The Cinedeck's V.5 software release for the RX3G and MX adds AS10/AS11-com- pliant acquisition and delivery standards — XDCAM HD Op1A, AVC Intra-100 Op1A and D-10 (IMX) Op1A. These new codec/wrapper specifica- tions are championed by the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) in the US, plus the UK's Digital Production Partnership (DPP), and are being adopted by major broadcasters worldwide. Cinedeck's V.5 software release also includes enhanced Edit While Record, EDL and H.264 support features.