American Cinematographer - March 1998 - 16

server.
on

his

ever

From that, every colorist can work
her project and output to what¬

or

format is

required."

As the Warner's gears up to trans¬
fer to 1080-line HD (the highest U.S.

high-resolution standard), the studio is in
putting the last pieces of
new telecine system into place and turn¬
ing theory into practice. Here, in theory, is
how the HD transfer system will work:

the midst of

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the film will be transferred

as a

best

one-

light

on the Philips Spirit DataCine, and
then stored with both the Panasonic D-5

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High-Definition Recorders and the Pluto
HyperSPACE High-Definition Recorders.
With the film transfer existing on the file
server,

Warner Bros, will down-convert

the HD version to PAL 625,

created

using a device
by the Burbank-based VAS

Group.
Next, the film will be colorcorrected and

size-manipulated in 625;
applied to
the HD one-light. "This allows us to
color-correct for high definition without
investing in standard-specific equip¬
ment," details Yarbrough. "If we outfit¬
ted our rooms for 1080 hi-def today, we
couldn't use it later on for higher resolu¬
these corrections will then be

tions. Instead, I can make all the color

corrections in 625 and not make

a major
equipment I'll have to
throw away in two years."
Cookson points out that the Pluto
server offers the advantage of complete

investment in

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and instant
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the widest selection of camera equipment under
one roof. Give us a call to find out how we can help
lighten the load of your next production.
-

access to

being restricted by the physical
elements. The system also offers bene¬
fits for directors and cinematographers.
"From the file server, the director and the

cinematographer, along with the colorist,
go through and make all of the decisions
about framing and color-correction,"
notes Cookson. "That'll get you a 1.33:1
version for conventional TV, both NTSC
and PAL. The next thing is to apply those

correction values to the
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212 691-4898

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high-resolution

image, looking at the HD monitor and
tweaking the values for HD. What that
amounts to is that the work you did for
the standard-definition version becomes
an

118 West 22nd Street, NY, NY 10011

the entire film,

without

offline color-correction session for the

HD version, so your time working

in HD is
productive. You're fine-tuning, not
working from scratch."
■
more
American Cinematographer - March 1998

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