According to a report in The Record.com, Dalsa is discontinuing its digital-cinema division, which it launched in 2000 to develop and build the world’s sharpest-resolution digital movie camera.

The Origin camera, launched in 2004, won many accolades but may have been ahead of its time, as it was never used to film the entirety of a major studio’s feature-length film.

Yesterday, Dalsa announced that it will no longer make cinema cameras. If a letter of intent turns into a final agreement, it will instead license its camera technology to German camera maker Arnold & Richter Cine Technik GmbH, (ARRI) which will use the technology in its own products.

According to a report released from Dalsa to the stock exchange, under the terms of the deal, Dalsa will sell its camera division, help develop future sensor chips for Arri, and seek to also sell its rental division separately. Faced with continuing losses in their high end camera sector, compared with modest profits in their other chip and sensor operations, Dalsa is off-loading their cameras to Arri.

Fifteen to 20 of Dalsa’s 350 employees in Waterloo, and an equal number of people in Los Angeles, will lose their jobs, according to company spokesperson Patrick Myles.

As a note, it is interesting to speculate the impact the RED camera may have had on this decision.

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According to a recent article in Apple’s KnowledgeBase:

Logic Pro 8 allows you to utilize the processing power of additional computers (nodes) on a Gigabit ethernet network. Most of the plug-ins native to Logic, and many third party Audio Unit plug-ins, can be processed by node computers.

You must install third party and DSP powered plug-ins on all node computers and the main computer. This means that all nodes need the physical hardware required to run the plug-ins. For example, to run Universal Audio (UAD) powered plug-ins from a node, the master computer needs a UAD card and each node connected to the master needs a UAD card. However, there is no practical advantage to running DSP powered plug-ins on nodes. Any DSP powered plug-in assigned to a node computer will also be opened from the main computer, so there is no net gain in power.

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Boris FX announced that a new Unit of the Boris Continuum family of visual effects plug-ins, Film Look, is now available.

The new Boris Continuum Film Look Unit includes the following plug-ins:

Film Process: The Film Process plug-in can help “filmize” digital video by deepening the color response range of the digital image to emulate film’s dynamic color range. It can also be used to color grade and mimic an infinite variety of analog lens filters, optical processes, and special effects. This capability allows for a broader aesthetic and creative palette that filmed imagery offers – but without the higher cost of 35mm film production.

Film Damage: Film Damage simulates the appearance of old film stock. Users can add scratches, grain particles, hair or fibers, and dirt, dust, or water spots, as well as simulate camera shake or a flickering image.

Match Grain: Match Grain takes a snapshot of telecined media and generates a grain signature which can be used as a matching grain sample for a destination clip containing little or no grain. A common application of this filter is adding grain to computer-generated imagery to lend to a more realistic composite. Match Grain can also be used to grain footage shot on video so it edits more seamlessly into a sequence with telecined media.

Film Grain: The Film Grain plug-in creates an auto-animated noise effect designed to simulate the appearance of grain particles in the emulsion of movie or photo film.

Deinterlace: The Deinterlace plug-in converts interlaced video clips into progressive-scan frames, such as footage shot on film. Deinterlace can render “simulated telecine” style by adding pulldown. This filter can also convert 29.97fps NTSC video into 24fps film-style frames.

Prism: Prism is typically used to simulate the photographic effect of chromatic aberration in which a bad lens can generate prismatic color fringing along edges of high contrast within the image.

Boris Continuum Film Look supports Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Apple Motion. For Avid systems, the Film Look filters are included as part of Boris Continuum Complete AVX.

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Apace Systems Corporation, a leading media workflow and storage solution provider for all media, announces immediate availability of its integrated system workflow solutions enabling global media access, collaboration and distribution of non compatible multi-vendor workgroup islands.

For the first time, a comprehensive suite of system and software tools enable the necessary building blocks to offer support of video editing, graphics and animation and audio workflows. Software from Apple FCP, Avid, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, Thomson/ Canopus EDIUS and AfterEffect can work together smoothly. Apace provides hardware and software solutions to streamline the content creation process with enhanced mechanism for various levels of communication and management. Apace product families consist of vStor/ eStor storage systems, postMAM media asset management, ViEW online editing and Octopa facility-wide storage management.

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