Archive notice: This article was originally published on August 29, 2006. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Almost two weeks before the start of the International Broadcasters Convention (IBC) 2006 in Amsterdam, Autodesk announced a series of upgrades for its postproduction systems as well as a new product. The innovations can be seen for the first time at the Autodesk stand (7-420) at the IBC from September 8 to 12, 2006.
The upgrades are Autodesk Inferno 2007, Flame 2007, Flint 2007, Fire 2007 and Smoke 2007. The manufacturer has made improvements primarily in the areas of connectivity and productivity. The new versions are also intended to offer a more streamlined workflow.
To meet growing connectivity requirements, the new systems offer expanded interoperability and better data management. Among other things, they support Autodesk’s likewise new Wiretap 2007 application interface. Wiretap enables decentralised project management and data exchange with third parties through platform-independent access to media and metadata in the Autodesk Stone file system. Artists can now benefit from the Infiniband network with a throughput of 400 MB per second and more. In addition, Autodesk’s editing and finishing systems now offer AAF support, which makes it easier to adapt projects to Avid offline systems and support Apple Final Cut Pro XML.
A series of new features and enhancements are intended to improve productivity. These include complete project archiving, optimised support for the standard file system in order to avoid duplication of media, data transfer and proxy generation in the background as well as improved transfer.
“We live in a time when visual effects are ubiquitous in film and television – whether in cinema hits, auteur films or documentaries for television,” explains Marc Petit, Vice President Media & Entertainment at Autodesk. “Artists are under pressure to create increasingly realistic virtual characters and environments with increasingly tight budgets and schedules. The growing and increasingly decentralised production teams require more and easier collaboration as well as efficient workflows. The latest versions of the Autodesk systems for visual effects and image processing meet these requirements with an improved and more powerful architecture and more than 70 additional new features.”
The new Autodesk systems for visual effects and film editing also use the possibilities of multi-core, 64-bit Linux workstations and thus offer greater interactivity and higher speed.
The Autodesk Backdraft Conform 2007 software is new. It is a solution for media management, background input and output, and conforming. The decentralised utility is intended to relieve editing assistants and other users who have to edit the data of repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Backdraft Conform 2007 offers tools for capture, assembly, conforming, comprehensive media management, output and archiving.
The new versions of Autodesk’s visual-effects and editing systems, as well as Autodesk Backdraft Conform 2007 and Autodesk Wiretap 2007, are to be available in September 2006. Information on prices and configurations is available only directly from the manufacturer.
Further Links:
- Autodesk Backdraft Conform
Autodesk Media & Entertainment
