Iridas has released SpeedGrade DI 2007. The high-end color grading and film finishing application offers a long list of new features and enhancements including the optional DualStream stereoscopic module for true 3-D color grading, and realtime RAW for playback and grading of unrendered RAW footage. Iridas will present SpeedGrade DI 2007 at the Ciprico booth (7.907) at IBC (Sept. 7-11) in Amsterdam. SpeedGrade DI 2007 is immediately available from Iridas or through its reseller network.
SpeedGrade DI 2007 is the only realtime film finishing system to run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The application features an intuitive, timeline-based interface and applies grading, conform, masks and pan & scans non-destructively to locally stored, or SAN-stored, footage. This means that all work remains fully editable until final rendering. New features include more powerful conform tools which simplify EDL imports and allow for easy comparison of takes, refined secondaries, including blur, support for the ARRI defect map for film scans and film restoration work, faster rendering, NVIDIA QuadroFX 5600 support and support for the Tangent CP200 control panel series.
Rather than requiring users to purchase additional plug-ins, SpeedGrade DI ships with numerous FX shaders such as bleach bypass for creating stylized looks. The 2007 edition adds several new FX shaders including Technicolor two-strip and three-strip, day-for-night and more.
"For me the best thing about SpeedGrade DI is the scope it offers for designing creative looks," said Laurens Orij, vfx supervisor at Crabsalad in Amsterdam. "I can simulate film lab processes like bleach bypass or Technicolor two-strip using FX shaders in realtime. 3D LUTs can be used as a basis for looks so that I can, for instance, grade video footage using a Kodak print film's response curve. This flexibility sets SpeedGrade apart -- and all my looks can be saved as .Look files for archiving and use on other projects."
SpeedGrade DI also offers special advantages to vfx and motion graphics work, two of Crabsalad's specialties. "I can stack different layers of grading and make quick composites using alpha channels," explained Orij. "We can have live-action shots with vfx or motion graphics on top: the layers can be graded together or separately."
Crabsalad makes good use of SpeedGrade's interoperability with FrameCycler in their commercial and feature film work. "The timeline setup is excellent. We can review shots in FrameCycler with looks applied, setup timelines and then send the whole package back to SpeedGrade DI for final grading and finishing."
For more information about Munich-based Iridas, visit www.iridas.com.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
