Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 17, 2005. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Thomson has bundled all the French group’s broadcast activities under the well-known “Grass Valley” brand name. A clever marketing move, because in the USA the Grass Valley name carries more weight than Thomson. Accordingly, the US branch was also very pleased about the name change. Technicolor and RCA are now also part of Grass Valley.
At present, most scanning is done in 2K, with correspondingly smaller quantities of data than with 4K scanning. For the 2K field, Thomson has therefore announced the new Grass Valley Spirit 2K film scanner at NAB: It offers real-time processing in 10 bit (2048 x 1556 pixels) as well as a telecine function for SD and HD. The price is expected to be approximately 20 percent below that of the Spirit 4K. According to the manufacturer, an upgrade to its big brother is possible.
Further Links:
- Grass Valley
