Thomson Grass Valley Demonstrates Specter FS Technology
(International Broadcasting Convention 2002 – Booth 8.151) Amsterdam, 12 September 2002 – In technology demonstrations throughout the week, Thomson Grass Valley will highlight a key upcoming addition to its Digital Film Applications (DFA) family, a new virtual datacine system, the Specter FS (FilmStream). From feature films and documentaries to episodic television and commercials, the Specter FS system is designed to provide a server-based, post-production solution for HDTV, SDTV, and digital cinematography applications, including those using the Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream™ Camera System.
The Specter FS technology demonstration is part of a series of interoperability demonstrations within key Thomson Grass Valley product lines, including film imaging, routers and control systems, and digital news production.
The Specter FS system leverages key technologies within the popular Specter Virtual DataCine for 2K film applications to provide a cost-efficient post-production tool, one designed to offer real-time playback, spatial processing, integrated color correction, and format conversion of images up to a resolution of 1920x1080x10-bit RGB at up to 30 frames per second (fps). It also complements the rest of the DFA family, which includes the Phantom Transfer Engine, VooDoo Media Recorder, Scream Grain Reducer, and Shout restoration tools.
"We have promised creative professionals that we will continue to reinvest in critical digital technologies that enhance their story-telling abilities while bringing greater efficiencies to their workflows, and we are delivering on that promise through this week's Specter FS technology demonstrations," said Marc Valentin, vice president for the Thomson Grass Valley business.
Cost-effective Finishing for Digital Applications
The Specter FS system is ideally suited to the networked, server-based post production of digital material—material captured with either the Viper FilmStream Camera or transferred from film via the Thomson Grass Valley Spirit DataCine™ or Shadow Telecine systems.
Due to its unique ability to process full quality, full-resolution images up to 1920x1080 at up to 30 fps with 10-bit RGB color resolution in real time, the Specter FS system is designed to be at the core of the digital intermediate process. This design includes support for a wide range of built-in post-production tools, including pan and scan, restoration and format conversion. It enables users to seamlessly import, combine, conform and finish material shot on film, with a digital camera, or generated by another post-production system. It also integrates with any real-time downstream primary and secondary color correction system.
The basic Specter FS system is designed to include dual HDSDI inputs and outputs—and to accommodate optional dual SDSDI I/O as well as data I/O capabilities. It is designed to accept and support all current standard-definition and HD formats including 4:4.4 HD transfer direct from a telecine or from the Viper FilmStream Camera in the FilmStream format—and to support optional SDTV I/O as well as I/O for backup or fast data transfer of images up to 1920x1080x10-bit RGB resolution.
About Thomson
With sales of 10.5 billion Euros (U.S. $ 9.3 billion) in 2001 and 73,000 employees in more than 30 countries, Thomson (Euronext: 18453) (NYSE: TMS), provides a wide range of video (and enabling) technologies, systems, finished products and services to consumers and professionals in the entertainment and media industries. To advance and enable the digital media transition, Thomson has five principal activities: Digital Media Solutions, Displays and Components, Consumer Products, Patents and Licensing and New Media Services. The company distributes its products and services under the THOMSON, RCA and TECHNICOLOR brand names. For more information: www.thomson-multimedia.com.
A business within Thomson Digital Media Solutions, Thomson Grass Valley delivers open, integrated digital products that work together along the entire digital video chain to support a variety of workflows, from content capture and acquisition through production, post production, and transmission. With a proven track record in broadcast, including 17 Emmy® and multiple industry awards, it offers an award-winning, robust product portfolio that touches more high-quality content than any other; product and systems expertise that has yielded hundreds of patents and a number of industry standards; and worldwide software engineering expertise and customer support teams that are second to none.
For information about Thomson Grass Valley products please visit www.thomsongrassvalley.com.
Grass Valley Group, 400 Providence Mine Road, Nevada City, CA 95959. Tel: 888-526-8554 ; Fax: 503-627-5224.