ARRI ALEXA IN-CAMERA RECORDING USING AVID's DNxHD MXF FILE FORMAT
(7 November 2011, Munich) ARRI announces a major new recording feature
for its ALEXA camera range, offering in-camera support for Avid®'s
open standard and widely adopted Avid DNxHD® codec.
The ability to record native Avid DNxHD, as MXF files in-camera, creates
a unique proposition for the 35 mm digital capture industry and is
another first for the ALEXA camera system. The combination of ARRI ALEXA
quality and mission-critical reliability with Avid's respected codec
and editing technology delivers a powerful, uncomplicated workflow into
the film and broadcast TV market, building on ALEXA's position as
the first choice digital camera for capture and postproduction.
As a benefit to cinematic productions, ALEXA cameras record ARRIRAW
uncompressed 3K images that preserve the true 35 mm `digital
negative' for mastering and feature archival. Expanding ALEXA's
parallel recording capability to include native support for Avid DNxHD
eliminates a transcoding step for the dailies generated by the Avid
editing system and creates a more streamlined editorial workflow with
seamless final conformance back to the archived ARRIRAW digital
negative.
Neil Fanthom, ARRI's head of digital camera strategy, comments,
"The Avid editorial environment is an important cornerstone of the
broadcast and motion picture postproduction industry, and ARRI is very
pleased to be able to provide Avid DNxHD MFX file-based recording within
the ALEXA camera for Avid-centric productions. This further confirms our
commitment to add significant ongoing value to the ALEXA camera family,
in this case by allowing customers to choose which workflow suits their
own capture and postproduction requirements. No other camera in this
industry fulfils such diverse workflow needs."
Angus Mackay, pro video segment marketing manager at Avid, says,
"The Avid Media Composer family of non-linear editing systems,
featuring the high quality, low bandwidth SMPTE standard Avid DNxHD
codec, are the industry's first choice for professional editorial.
By providing native Avid DNxHD recording with the ALEXA camera, ARRI is
allowing producers to use high quality ALEXA cameras and quickly and
easily view dailies, and begin editorial, without the need to transcode
or re-wrap footage. Media Composer version 6 now offers the Avid
DNxHD444 codec, which will permit customers to preserve the high color
information in ALEXA footage while still having a low bit rate codec
suitable for editorial. This is great news for ARRI and Avid customers,
who will benefit from the advantages in quality, speed and streamlined
workflows."
The Avid DNxHD recording function for ALEXA will be distributed as a
cost-effective, downloadable software upgrade during January 2012 and is
now entering Beta phase testing with selected broadcast productions.
Avid DNxHD codec data rates of up to 145Mbit/s (bit depth 8 bit) and
220MBit/s (bit depth 10 bit) will be supported in the initial release.
Avid's highest quality version of the codec, Avid DNxHD 444, will
record at 440Mbit/s at 10 bit depth and will be provided as an upgrade
for all adopting customers later on during the first quarter of 2012.
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