VTR INSTALLS EDIFIS GRADUATE TELECINE SERVERS

VTR, one of Britain's longest established and most successful post-production facilities, has purchased two four-hour Edifis Graduate telecine servers for use in the newly expanded digital area at its Soho premises. Designed by leading London architects Artillery, the new floor houses Thomson's Spirit and Specter Virtual DataCine forming part of the newly launched feature film division Digital Cinema @ VTR.

These latest acquisitions mean that all four of VTR's telecine suites are now equipped with Edifis Graduate telecine servers in line with the facility's policy of keeping each suite similarly equipped so that operators can move easily between the four locations.

Graduate allows telecine colourists to grade film to disk in any reel order (maintaining original discontinuous timecode), conform the video and audio clips, and play out to another application in an edit suite, all at the same time.

When used with the Pandora Pogle colour corrector, Graduate becomes a dedicated still-store and disk recorder and integral wipe generator and mixer, allowing comparison of frames from different scenes as well as saving the cost of an external third-party mixer. Sources can be between two disk channels, disk to external source, or between two external disk sources. An internal chroma-keyer allows a foreground to be graded with accuracy and speed against a reference frame.

Graduate is equipped with two independent uncompressed video, audio and source timecode channels. The system is available with up to 19 hours storage of full uncompressed 10 bit video and audio in one 4 U box, allowing multiple projects and work-in-progress to be stored easily. The implications go much further than the telecine suite itself as no time is wasted waiting for tape layback from telecine or re-digitising for the on-line session. Once graded, the clips are instantly available for editing.

VTR and Edifis have worked closely together for nearly two years in developing and understanding their particular workflows and providing precise solutions.

VTR Ltd Managing Director Ant Frend comments: "The versatility of the tools within Graduate allows a free-form approach to working which offers clients greater creative flexibility. Pressure can be taken off the assisting VT areas, where machine time can often be tight. Being able to time-shift bookings is of huge benefit, especially where back-to-back sessions are concerned. The potential storage capacity of Graduate means this can all be done comfortably".

Formed in July 1997 and located at the centre of Britain's Silicon Valley, Edifis (www.edifis.com) has achieved a high reputation for large-capacity uncompressed digital video and audio systems meeting film, post-production and broadcast requirements worldwide. Edifis hardware and software are independent of third-party computer manufacturers or operating systems, allowing highly reliable products to be produced at cost-effective prices to meet the rigours of outside broadcasting and for mission-critical on-air transmission.

Contacts for further information:

Richard Lilley, Edifis Ltd
Tel +44 (0) 118 971 2279
Email: richard@edifis.com

Ant Frend, VTR Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7437 0026
Email: ant.frend@vtr.co.uk

David Kirk, Stylus Media Consultants
Tel: +44 (0) 1342 311 983
Email: stylusmedia@compuserve.com