In Broadcast - November 2014 - 72

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 37 - NOVEMBER 2014

N E W S

InFORM

AJA Io 4K Supports 4K Reference
Playback For 'Gone Girl' VFX Review
A

JA Video Systems' Io 4K device
for professional video and
audio I/O was used to facilitate 4K
playback for VFX review on Director
David Fincher's Gone Girl, from
20th Century Fox and New Regency.
The Gone Girl production workﬂow
was very ambitious from the get go,
captured in 6K using RED Dragon
cameras. The ﬁlm's post-production
engineer, and CTO of Open Drives,
Jeff Brue oversaw the systems
integration supporting the complex
workﬂows required of working in
such high frame rates.
"AJA's Io 4K was used as a
reference grade device as it allowed
us to playback DPX frames without
any tearing or artefacts when
reviewing VFX shots," explained
Brue. "The Io 4K was ultimately
chosen for the quality level, absolute

sync and also for the fact that it can
operate in 10-bit."
AJA Io 4K connects to any
Thunderbolt 2-enabled device, and
offers a broad range of professional
video and audio connectivity,
supporting the latest 4K and UltraHD
workﬂows. For Gone Girl, Io 4K was
connected to the Thunderbolt 2
output from an HP Z820 workstation
running Adobe After Effects CC and
Adobe Premiere Pro CC, which was
used to edit the entire film.
This was the hero VFX workstation
driven in-house at David Fincher's
production company to complete
subtle visual effects that mostly
included performance retiming and
recombination, split screen comps
and opticals.
"When you're working on a feature
ﬁlm project with this high a data

Gone Girl stars Ben Afﬂeck and Rosamund Pike (Picture: 20th Century Fox)

rate, you have to have a cohesive
system to manage all of the 6K, from
storage to the playback device.
"You have to know that everything
works together and that the
performance is reliable. AJA Io 4K
provided that reliability along with
absolute frame accuracy which was

72
AJA Video Systems Io 4K

a necessity," said Brue.
Based on the bestselling novel
of the same name by Gillian
Flynn, Gone Girl stars Ben Afﬂeck,
Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris,
and Tyler Perry and was released by
20th Century Fox on October 3.

Getting Closer With 'Remote' Access Operations
By Simen K. Frostad
Chairman of Bridge Technologies

T

he development of remote
control and remote operations
is one of the most profound trends
reshaping our broadcasting and
telecommunications world. It
allows operators to evolve radically
different business models, make
better use of human resources, and
pursue market opportunities with
greater agility.
With the ability to run and monitor
operations remotely, media and
telecommunications enterprises
can decentralise, regionalise and
build unprecedented levels of
resilience into their infrastructure.
In commercial terms, the ability
to run operations remotely means
businesses can expand into
new territories and acquire new
audiences more easily, and at lower
cost. It's now possible to run TV
channels on a single board located
at a remote transmitter site with
no staff, with content fed from any

location, and command and control
over the net.
Remote operation has always
been an important part of the design
philosophy at Bridge Technologies.
From the start, we've had a range
of monitoring probes developed for
deployment at remote locations, and
these have often been ruggedised
for extreme conditions. The quality
of monitoring information provided
by these probes makes it possible
for broadcasters and telcos to
have the same conﬁdence in an
infrastructure node 500 kilometres
away as in one across the road.
As the industry seeks more ways
to beneﬁt from remote operation,
we've worked with some of the
major operators to exploit our
advanced monitoring technologies
in new applications, and this was the
impetus that led to the introduction
of a new line of intelligent switching
products for ASI and satellite. These

in situations where local manual
use an array of sophisticated
analysis technologies, coupled with
control is required.
a decision engine that can operate
In a world where every device -
according to rules deﬁned by the
even if it's as mundane as a light
user for any operating conditions. A
bulb - is potentially accessible
wide range of system metrics and
via the internet, even the meaning
rules can be set for validation of
of the word 'remote' is changing:
the input status on both sources,
because in many cases, operators
together with switch-back rules to
have greater understanding and
allow for any combination of fully or
control of their infrastructure devices
partially autonomous scenarios, or
now, no matter how far away they
manual switching.
are located.
Providing a more reliable
autonomous switching
capability than was possible
before, these intelligent
switches can nevertheless
accommodate semi-manual
or completely manual
operation if required. The
unit supports partial or
complete remote control
from a network management
system, and can be
operated in a SuperLocal
mode, in which all remote
commands are disabled.
Front panel illuminated
controls and a graphical
illuminated representation
of the signal path make
it simple to understand Remote operation - an important part of the
and control the switches design philosophy

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?first=Phillip&last=Izzard&search=Go https://twitter.com/inbroadcast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpzEatLsHdE&feature=youtube_gdata_player https://www.facebook.com/InBroadcast http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inbroadcast/id468652679?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.branded.inbroadcast&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5icmFuZGVkLmluYnJvYWRjYXN0Il0 http://WWW.INBROADCAST.COM http://www.aja.com/en/products/io-4k http://www.bridgetech.tv/

In Broadcast - November 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - November 2014