Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/749700
BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 10 POST NOVEMBER 2016 ST. PAUL, MN — Browntown (www. browntowndesign.com), an interactive digital media and video production company located in St. Paul, turned to Small Tree (www.small-tree.com) stor- age to help make their post pipeline more efficient. The studio, which is nearly 10-years old, focuses on video production, video assets, photography and various forms of creative media. Browntown's work ranges from inter- active digital and video campaigns to 3D visual effects. Some of its clients include 3M, Scotch Tape, NASCAR and Harley-Davidson. The studio currently employs six Mac workstations, which are con- nected to the Small Tree TitaniumZ-8 system, with two more stations ready to go as they continue to grow. There are currently four editing stations and two design stations running the Adobe Creative Suite. Prior to moving over to Small Tree's shared storage unit, Browntown relied on a series of external drives that would be passed around the studio to sup- port their efforts. Samuel Brown, CEO and senior producer at Browntown, says that there were several driving factors they considered when switching to Small Tree. The studio had been considering shared storage for a period of time, but knowing it was a significant invest- ment, waited until there was sustained growth. Browntown was also looking for a system that could improve their efficiency and remove the need for using multiple external drives. "Small Tree's solution has changed our whole process and it's been great," says Brown. "It's changed the way we work; it's prompted us to see processes differently and actually create new ones. The shared storage has been critical in helping us from an efficiency standpoint and also from a worker satisfaction perspective. As any small business owner knows, a happy employee is a productive employee." Small Tree's TitaniumZ-8 is posi- tioned as an affordable, full-featured, all-in-one Ethernet-based shared storage system with advanced file sharing capabilities. Offering the precise levels of capacity and storage software to keep users working efficiently, TitaniumZ-8 is built on an open source operating system that was customized to be easy to use, feature-rich, reliable and perform at a high level. Supporting all popular multimedia applications, TitaniumZ-8 is available from an eight-drive sys- tem with 2TB drives up to a 40-drive system with 8TB drives. FREMONT, CA — Blackmagic Design (www.blackmagicdesign.com) has an- nounced a new DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 update for its professional editing and color correction software. DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 features support for importing and exporting projects from the latest version of Final Cut Pro X, as well as additional improvements to Media Composer interoperability, ACES color science and more. DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 update is available now for both DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio customers, and can be downloaded free of charge from the Blackmagic Design Website. DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 update adds compatibility with the new XML 1.6 format used in the latest version of Final Cut Pro X. That means custom- ers using the new version of Final Cut Pro X will be able to seamlessly send projects to DaVinci Resolve for color correction and finishing, and also generate XML's to export projects back to Final Cut Pro X. In addi- tion, DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 includes PostgreSQL 9.5.2 for compatibility with Mac OS Sierra. DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 also adds support for ACES Version 1.0.2, includ- ing the ACEScct color space. ACEScct is a quasi-logarithmic encoding of ACES data to make it suitable for color grading with DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3. This new update also im- proves interoperability with Media Composer. AAF projects containing dip to color dissolves and certain transformation effects such as flip and flop are greatly improved, mak- ing it easier to successfully move projects from Media Composer to DaVinci Resolve for finishing. DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 also im- proves Dolby Vision XML exporting for mastering and finishing high dynamic range content. "In addition to being an incredible editing and color correction solution, one of the things that customers love the most about DaVinci Resolve is that it just works with everything," says Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. "This new update makes it easier and more reliable than ever to move projects from Final Cut Pro X and Media Composer into DaVinci Resolve. Once there, customers can use improved ACES and DolbyVision support to edit, color correct and finish their projects in high dynamic range and at the highest possible quality!" DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 update and DaVinci Resolve 12.5.3 Studio up- date are now available for download from the Blackmagic Design Website free of charge for all current DaVinci Resolve customers. BROWNTOWN TURNS TO SMALL TREE FOR SHARED STORAGE BLACKMAGIC DESIGN ANNOUNCES DAVINCI RESOLVE 12.5.3 UPDATE