Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 10, 2005. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The HD RGB option and 200 minutes of HD storage (125 min of HD RGB storage), together with Sony’s HDCAM SR-SRW 5000 Recoder and a new HD monitor, form an exceptionally economical production center for modern high-end post-production for advertising.
HD Editing in the Highest Quality
ACHT wants to offer its customers, mostly from the advertising field, “HD editing without compromises” and the production of commercials for the big screen – and has made corresponding investments: “The HD RGB option is the sensible complement to our new Sony recorder, allowing us to output to it at full resolution and simultaneosly monitor the HD RGB material in real time on our likewise new HD monitor,” says Ralf Drechsler, ACHT Frankfurt. “With the HD RGB format, in contrast to HD in YUV, all image information is retained. This is crucial to the quality of “large screen” spots. An additional positive effect of the new bandwidth is the considerable increase in computing speed.” The company has already relied on Quantel’s HD-capable eQ system for almost two years and has used it, among other things, for the elaborate post-production of the last feature film with Anhony Quinn, “Seven Servants.”
Another aspect for ACHT is the growing importance of color grading and the convergence of grading and compositing. As a result, the workflow in advertising productions will increasingly run in parallel; color grading can then be carried out simultaneosly with compositing. It is therefore crucial that as much information as possible be retained until the end of production. “This shows us that HD RGB and HDCAM SR form the optimal solution,” says Christoph Zapletal of ACHT. “With the HD RGB option, we are perfectly equipped to respond to these requirements. Whether through transmission of the RGB data via HSDL (High Speed Dual Link) or through use of the eQ as a Digital Disk Recoder – the connection to external devices for parallel editing is ensured.” From summer 2005, ACHT will offer digital color grading as a further service.
HD RGB and HDCAM SR as Trailblazers
Quantel’s HD RGB option for eQ coincides with the development of the HD market toward 4:4:4 image editing. The reason for this is new products such as Sony HDCAM SR. HDCAM SR uses low compression to store the complete 4:4:4 HD RGB signal data, thus offering the industry a realizable way to transport high-quality digital images.
eQ is the only available post-production system that offers a choice between signal processing in full HD RGB and HD YUV quality. “This gives eQ users the best format for the respective task, eliminating the need to decide on one of the two technologies,” comments Uwe Friederichs of Quantel.
The HD RGB Option in Use at ACHT
ACHT’s first project to use the advantages of the upgrade can already be admired on the cinema screen. For the exhibition “Zwanzigfünfzehn – 70 Years of German Television,” a commercial was created on behalf of Kontrastfilm that can currently be seen in more than 30 cinemas in the Rhine-Main region. The film is a one-shot in which the camera rotates around its own axis four times in forty seconds in a room, while the room itself changes from 1970 to the present. The 35mm material shot was scanned onto HDCAM SR at Arri in Munich and transferred after offline editing via HSDL to the eQ, where a large part of the online editing took place. Several seamless transitions, various tracking operations and retouching as well as compositing were necessary. At the end of editing, Arri received an HDCAM SR master from ACHT for recording out to film.
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