Digital Garden Builds 8K HDR DIT System Around Blackmagic Design

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Blackmagic Design today announced that a number of Blackmagic products, including multiple Teranex Expresses, Teranex Minis and ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K, were used by Tokyo's Digital Garden to create a new 8K HDR video.

This video, created for one of Digital Garden's global technology clients, contains many high speed shots, and was shot using three 4K cameras, whose footage was then stitched into a single 8K, 7680 x 2160 video. On-set, Digital Garden needed to monitor in HDR 4K60P and mix camera output in real time to handle instant stitching.

To complete this, Digital Garden built a DIT system around a number of Blackmagic products, which included a variety of Teranex products for conversions, HyperDeck Mini 12G for recording, ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K switchers, Smart Videohub 20x20 and Videohub Smart Control for routing and Ultra Studio 4K for capture and playback. Davinci Resolve was also used for on-set HDR color correction.

The production took only three days, including test shooting, so the challenge was how to carry it out effectively. The products they chose to be at the core of their DIT system were Blackmagic's Videohub router and ATEM 2M/E Broadcast Studio 4K video switcher.

As shooting involved three cameras that sat next to each other, it caused parallax problems. To control distortion from parallax, we had to carefully monitor HDR range, focusing and the quality of the stitching, which is why we built the DIT system, said Shinichi Futagami, lead technical manager at Digital Garden.

Each camera's 1080 60P output was sent to a Smart Videohub and was then up-converted to 4K60P via three Teranex Express. The up-converted image was then sent to the ATEM 2M/E Broadcast Studio 4K, which was used for monitoring in HDR 4K60P. The video from the cameras was then composited into one video temporarily to check stitched images on set. The stitched video was then output to two consumer 4K TVs for the client to monitor, and a 4K master monitor for HDR monitoring. To send the feed to these monitors, two Teranex Mini SDI to HDMI 12G and a Teranex Mini SDI to Quad 12G were used. The HyperDeck Studio 12G was also used to record the stitched image so that they could show it anytime to clients when requested on set.

Futagami continues: To get the most of the beautiful HDR image, we needed to use a full range of what the camera can capture. Having a colorist on-set and decide the tone for this project as close as to final grade, we could do more accurate exposure control, throwing unwanted black and getting the most of details in highlight. So we graded on-set with DaVinci Resolve to carefully check how the tone of the picture should be.

Also, the camera outputs from the Videohub were captured on-set for use in post production in conjunction with three UltraStudio 4Ks to capture QuickTime files. The captured Quick Time files could then be accessed through a network. The footage was then composited with VFX software for rough stitching for post processing and then edited offline, which was all done on set.

Also, the final piece had to be in HDR, and Digital Garden used DaVinci Resolve for HDR grading. The color management feature in Resolve allowed us to simplify the HDR workflow. I also found that Resolve could handle the RAW footage from the camera used for this project very neutrally, bringing the beautiful and correct color to the shots.

There were no other options other than Blackmagic which would allow us 4K 60P monitoring. This would be a very complicated system but with ATEM at the center, we could connect everything with a single 12G SDI connections. The converters supporting 4K are also affordable, and easy to add to the system, said Futagami.

When switching on the ATEM, we made a preset based on the Super Source feature. We had to change the setting based on which lenses we used, so we saved each preset and loaded it when needed. The software panel was used for some complicated settings, and we did not want to mess with it. So when the client asked us to show them an output, we used the ATEM's front panel, which allowed us to switch outputs to their monitors without ruining the set up of the software control panel.

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About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world's highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design's DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company's Emmy award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

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