Model Details

Avid|DS is the industry's most comprehensive and versatile nonlinear postproduction (NLP) system for real-time creative editing and finishing of projects in compressed and uncompressed standard-definition formats. Avid|DS systems provide companies with superior performance and flexibility by empowering them with a deep, broad, creative toolset ideal for creating and/or finishing a wide variety of projects, including TV commercials, station bumpers and promos, music videos and corporate videos as well as graphics and effects-rich TV programs.

The versatility of the Avid|DS Version 6 system offers companies a highly creative environment with which to capture a more expansive range of business than was ever possible before in a single system.

Key Benefits of Avid|DS
Frees digital artists and editors with a broad range of tools and real-time effects to focus on their creative vision rather than on moving media between applications and making separate tools work together
Works with uncompressed or compressed images and allows users to edit material of multiple resolutions within the same project, for delivery in NTSC or PAL in standard 4:3 or anamorphic 16:9 aspect ratios
Efficiently conforms programs created on Avid Media Composer and Avid Symphony systems with the most complete support for OMF files and the ability to read Meridien-based hardware uncompressed media,
Avid|DS HD Offline mode allows for real-time HD offline at one-quarter resolution* (Equinox video subsystem required)

Features:

Picture Editing

• Features the flexibility of Media Composer-style editing, using a bottom-up track hierarchy, track patching, track solos and mutes, sync lock, track resizing, complete source/record approach, JKL trimming, drag-and-drop of color-coded effects to the timeline, locators, Matchframe, and scratch removal
• Avid|DS HD Offline mode allows for real-time HD offline at one-quarter resolution* (Equinox video subsystem required)
• Unlimited number of video and overlay tracks
• Mix multiple compression ratios, resolutions and proxy images, within a sequence
• Direct timeline manipulation of all edits
• Source-side timeline display mode
• Timeline multi-selection for copying, moving and adding effects to multiple clips
• Ability to overwrite, insert, and replace editing with fit-to-fill capabilities
• Split edits and sync-point editing
• Video interlacing and de-interlacing
• 3:2 pull-down removal and replacement
• Sync selection for adding edits to multiple clips simultaneously
• Sophisticated sync-locking capabilities
• Global and local timeline ripple controls
• Full-featured edit trimming, clip rolling and slipping tools
• New zoom and pan controls for easy manipulation of the image
• Unlimited clip, track and timeline-based effects
• Timeline overview area for fast orientation and navigation
• Ability to display tracks in small, standard or large format
• Ability to customize start time in the timeline
• Match-frame and match-clip capabilities
• Clip and timeline-based markers for navigation and synchronization
• Containers for managing multi-layer effects and organizing complex timelines
• Reference clips allow sharing and reuse of containers with multiple layers and effects
• Simple powerful user interface including Swift Menus for fast gestural selection of common functions in the Avid|DS system

Effects, Filters, Time Effects + Transitions

• Real-time compressed and uncompressed software-based effects *
• Real-time playback of Z-rotation and perspective moves providing immediate visualization for common DVE moves
• Real-time picture-in-picture effect, improving ability to work interactively with basic scale, border and translation effects
• Dissolves, fades, superimpositions, picture-in-picture and standard SMPTE wipes
• Sophisticated keyframe-animatable, interpolated timewarp with position and speed curves
• Motion effects, including strobe, freeze frame, reverse and frame averaging
• High-speed Gaussian blur, noise effects, fractal noise generator, edge detection, custom, emboss, fades, sharpen, reticulation, stamp, ripple, threshold and gradient effects; deflicker, dithering, posterize and solarize effects; film effect simulates appearance of celluloid film
• Automatic drop shadows with independent 3D DVE control
• Hundreds of Avid|DS Painterly Effects and Impressionist effects presets to choose from-or create your own
• 3D Warp effect for loading and rendering 3D scenes
• Shape-to-shape spline warping and morphing (based on Elastic Reality technology)

Compositing + Tracking

• Graphics and animation sequences, including full-motion alpha channels created in other applications, can be brought into Avid|DS systems with the ability to play back and key the media over a sequence in real time (real-time effects performance is available with SD, compressed SD, and one-quarter HD formats)
• Compositing on unlimited layers and layer duplication
• Effects Tree-A powerful interface for creating and managing complex multi-layered composites made easier to use with interactive features such as node folding and unfolding, attract and repel and the option to display the name of the connected node in an input port; 'kissing,' 'twanging' and 'ripping' for modifying connections
• Unlimited external mattes per layer with Boolean operations for combining mattes
• Extensive set of compositing operations between layers and mattes
• Full animation of all layer parameters
• Intelligent caching to improve interactive performance
• Direct-manipulation DVE for each layer with motion path editor and real-time wireframe preview
• Global DVE for manipulating several layers at once
• Extremely fast 1-, 2- and 4-point motion tracking including the ability to track in fields
• Motion stabilization and de-stabilization
• Corner-pinning
• Painting directly on any layer
• Direct support for images with pre-multiplied alpha
• Field and frame-based rendering per effect
• Comparison buffer—Compare two images using a snapshot (before/after)

3D DVE + Character Generation

• User friendly 3D environment with interactive OpenGL-accelerated display and true 3D X,Y and Z coordinate space
• 3D rotate, scale, translate and skew controls
• Animatable camera for simulation of common camera effects, including rolls and zoom-ins
• Full object hierarchy with multiple, high-quality specular light sources, reflection mapping and materials editor
• Deformation effects such as cylinder, sphere and 3D page curls
• Interactive manipulation of text and shapes with 3D extrusion, displacement mapping and Boolean combinations
• Independent control over face, edge and drop-shadow properties
• Projected, soft and textured drop shadows
• Fully integrated WYSIWYG 2D and 3D text module
• Text along a path, inter-character kerning, fully animatable down to individual characters
• Paragraph formatting controls
• Support for all TrueType fonts; hundreds of Avid|DS fonts included; utilizes MIME for support of multi-byte character sets for Far East fonts; EPS import

2D Character Generator

• WYSIWYG, automatic real-time title rolls and crawls
• Copy/paste support for quick insertion of text from other applications; import HTML files
• Per-character animation, kerning, leading, offset and tracking controls; tabulation and justification
• Per-style selection-Select and modify multiple text elements with common font, style and format attributes with a single click
• Independent control over face, edge and drop-shadow properties
• User-defined text and style presets
• All Avid|DS paint effects can also be applied to titles

Keying Tools

• Keying can be performed on any layer or inside any paint stroke
• High-quality blue-green chroma keyer with enhanced spill correction
• Built-in garbage matting tools for all keyers
• General-purpose real-time HLS keyer, linear luminance keyer and chrominance keyer based on selected color
• Difference keyer
• Matte enhancer with sub-pixel shrink and grow
• Painting with keys for fast garbage mattes

Color Correction

• Real-time, high-quality color correction
• Global hue, saturation, gain and brightness control
• Constant-luminance controls for shadows, midtones and highlights
• Interactive color-curve manipulation
• Selective color correction based on image alpha channel
• Per channel gamma, gain and offset tools

Paint

• Vector-based, nondestructive paint system with high-performance raster mode for rotoscoping
• Freehand, polyline and shape-based drawing, animated handwritten strokes, ability to combine or separate strokes, clusters
• Animated stroke morphing and text-to-strokes feature
• Pressure-sensitive painting tools
• Fully animatable and editable brush strokes, shapes and parameters, including interactive brush resizing
• Painting with effects including keying
• Reshaper effect for interactive freehand selection and manipulation of a shape 's geometry, without being constrained to control points
• Wireframe preview command for previewing then rendering animated strokes in wireframe mode
• Hundreds of Avid|DS preset brushes, styles, effects and textures
• Custom brushes and custom preset and stackable effects
• Clone and noise tools for single-click scratch, dirt and dropout removal
• EPS file import with retained color properties
• Rotoscoping and matte creation tools
• Paint strokes can be animated using unlimited tracking points
• Independent viewing and operating on R, G, B and Alpha channels
• Magic Wand tool for selecting image regions based on RGB or HLS value
• Animatable cutouts for selecting and manipulating image regions
• Graphics object view for fast timeline-based selection and manipulation of graphics objects

Audio Editing + Mixing

• Unlimited audio tracks for editing
• Support for multichannel audio mixing and panning including 5.1 Surround Sound
• Up to 8 channels of simultaneous 24-bit audio playback*
• Sample and frame-based audio editing
• Automatic audio sample-rate conversion
• Real-time, animatable mixing with volume, pan, mute and solo per track; real-time 4-band parametric EQ, 10-band graphic EQ and 3-band tone control
• Direct monitoring of up to 8 audio channels*
• Real-time full dynamics effects, including compression, expansion and limiting
• Real-time fade-ins, fade-outs and cross-fades
• Fast timeline waveform display; sync status on timeline
• Analog-and digital-style audio scrubbing
• Matrix routing
• Input and output VU metering with user-controlled headroom, alignment, minimum level, peak level, peak hold and max hold
• High-quality audio time warp*; reverb effect
• Support for optional third-party hardware fader control surfaces

Global Features

• Uncompressed standard definition NTSC and PAL media from projects created on other Avid editing systems can be automatically re-linked along with the bin, clip and sequence metadata
• Support for Advanced Authoring Format (AAF)
• Bins, clips and sequences can be loaded from Avid Xpress, Avid Media Composer, and Avid Symphony systems, with automatic conform of many effects, key frame settings, and even recreation and vectorization of titles created in the offline
• Full cache recovery
• Resolution independence-mix and match different resolutions in a composite and customizable output resolutions
• Unlimited levels of undo and redo
• Interactive viewer: comparison buffer, onionskin mode, channel selection, proxy resolution, pan and zoom
• Parameters of effects can be animated with an unlimited number of keyframes
• Unified Animation Editor for editing effect parameters across all toolsets
• Automatic keyframing
• Import and export animations (function curves)
• Unlimited user-definable presets for all effects
• User-configurable drag-and-drop toolbars
• User-configurable key accelerators with visual keyboard mapping
• User-configurable interface layouts
• Automatic save
• Support for dual display monitors with on-screen video playback*
• Graphics tablet and customizable MIDI control surface support
• Available optional Software Development Kit (SDK)for creating software extensions
• Support for Toonz cel animation software within the Avid|DS production environment

Video + Audio Capture

• Uncompressed ITU-R 601 images
• Compressed-quality ITU-R 601 images with variable M-JPEG compression ratios from 2:1 to 25:1
• Variable hardware-based video scaling for proxy resolutions
• NTSC and PAL support on the same system without reformatting drives
• Streaming capture and on-the-fly logging
• I/O support for tapes with timecode breaks and repeated timecodes
• Assembly insert mode for output
• 16:9 anamorphic media support
• 8-and 10-bit Serial Digital input
• 8-bit Serial Digital output
• Analog composite and S-Video monitoring outputs
• Sony RS-422 and RS-232 machine control; additional support for VISCA, LANC, Panasonic, and JVC Protocols*
• Up to 8 channels of 16-bit digital (AES/EBU, S/PDIF, ADAT) audio input and output*
• Audio sampling at numerous rates, including 48 kHz, 44.1 kHz and 32 kHz
• Log and capture from tape; capture on-the-fly
• Capture and recapture from still and movie files, frame sequences and audio files in numerous industry-standard formats including QuickTime 5.0.2, AVI, PhotoShop 6.0.1, TIFF, SOFTIMAGE PIC, Cineon, TARGA, YUV, RGB, AIFF and PICT
• Batch capture and auto-conform from EDLs (CMX and GVG)
• Conforms OMF 2.0 compositions; OMF audio media support; direct playback support for uncompressed Meridien hardware-derived media (Avid Media Composer and Avid Symphony systems)
• Imports Avid Log Exchange (ALE) from external clip-logging stations
• Automatic image scaling and audio sample rate conversion on capture

Media Management

• Media Composer-style bins with icon view, text view, details view, thumbnail view, and script view
• Media management tools for sorting, viewing, moving and deleting media; share media across projects and machines
• Automatically discovers and lists all available Avid|DS RP stations on the network. When processing is complete, media is automatically linked to the cache on the Avid|DS or Avid|DS HD system without requiring acknowledgment from the operator
• Automatic tracking of multiple media compression ratios and resolutions per clip
• Purge tools for selectively deleting unused media
• Thumbnail and details view of annotatable clips and sequences, with clip-data tracking
• Search tool for locating clips and sequences
• Sophisticated cache management
• Outsource effect-Allows shots to be sent to third-party applications with a live update in Avid|DS
• Ability to import PhotoShop .psd files and preserve all of the layers
• Output QuickTime movies that reference original media in DS timeline
• Integration of Avid Unity ProEncode capability for background conversion of media files into popular web formats
• Print EDL functionality
• Remote Processing System* (option) - enables you to quickly process day sequence or project in the background with fewer interruptions to the creative process

Remote Processing (Avid|DS RP) System* Option

• Allows you to continue working while CPU-intensive tasks are processed in the background on a remote system
• View icon or receive e-mail notification once processing is complete
• Functional with both Avid|DS and Avid|DS HD systems
• Ability to install on a wide variety of workstations -from one to many, with the same operating system as Avid|DS
• Uses standard network configurations such as 10/100-Base-T Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet or a central storage system such as Avid Unity MediaNetwork

Archive + Restore

• Multiple methods for archiving of project data, video and audio media and cache files
• Complete archiving of all effects setup information, including paint strokes, compositing and audio mixing parameters
• Selective restore of any part of an archive
• Automatic conversion of effect; Alpha channels to mattes for archive
• Automatic, unattended restore of all project data, media and caches

*Dependent on specific hardware configuration

 

Specifications:

Hardware

• Avid Equinox Video Subsystem (64-bit PCI Video I/O card and break-out box)
• High-performance 32-bit PCI Audio Board (2-channel SPDIF/8-channel ADAT I/O)
• (1) Merging Technologies Dua II Audio I/O converter
• Compaq Evo Workstation W8000 featuring dual Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz processors
  • Rackmount or deskside packaging for workstation and storage array
  • 1.5 GB ECC RDRAM
  • High-performance OpenGL accelerator card
  • 40 GB Ultra-ATA system and audio drive
  • Dual-channel LVD SCSI external storage interface
  • Internal CD-RW drive
• Storage configurations of four hours uncompressed 601 (40 minutes HD) and up
• Two 21-inch monitors (4:3 aspect ratio)
• 9x12-inch Graphics tablet with pen, keyboard, and mouse

Software

• Avid|DS Version 6.0 software
• Avid|DS Documentation
• Avid|DS Overview
• Avid|DS Tutorial Workbook and Source Material
• Graphic Tablet Underlay

Avid Equinox Video Subsystem for High-Definition and Standard-Definition I/O

• SPMTE 292M SDI for high-definition video I/O
• SMPTE 259M SDI for standard-definition video I/O
• Uncompressed I/O for ATSC formats: 1080i at 30,29.97,25 Hz, 1080 PsF at 30, 29.97, 25, 24, 23.976 Hz; 720p at 60, 59.94 Hz
• Avid|DS HD Offline mode allows for real-time HD offline at one-quarter resolution plus one-half resolution
• Uncompressed and compressed PAL/NTSC ITUR-601 formats
• Real-time proxy generation