Codex Demos 4K workflow
at SMPTE/ASC
A Codex Recorder was the hub of a pioneering workflow demonstration, held jointly by The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). Codex showed the assembled attendees of DPs, camera technicians and post houses just how fast and efficient flow of 4K material can be from set to screen.
The Codex Recorder was heart of the on-set workflow for this demonstration. Taking 2880 x 2160 RAW images from an ARRI D-21 camera, the Recorder fed a Truelight OnSet colour management system which DP David Stump, ASC, used to give the scene an ASC CDL “look”. Thias “look” was sent back to the Codex Recorder as metadata, which the Recorder then sent to an Avid Media Composer (as an MXF file in both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios), and as raw data to a Bright Drive TXP, a storage device from Bright.
This was all done on the fly.
The Avid then created an edit list with the CDL notes, which it sent to a Baselight colour grading system. The TXP drive was inserted into a Bright Drive and output the material to the Baselight. The Baselight conformed the shots, did a complete debayer and uprezzed them to 4K for output through Sony’s SXRD 4K projection system.
Toby Gallo of Codex told the fascinated attendees that this was the first time debayered pictures had been delivered E-to-E to a monitor on set. Perhaps an even more amazing testament to the Codex workflow, was that the 90 seconds of 4K material took less than one hour to go through the entire process – from capture to projection.
