DFT FLEXXITY Includes Native Support for ProRes

ARRI Feature at Creative COW

Debra Kaufman
Santa Monica California USA

©2011 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

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DFT Digital Film Technology recently added native support of ProRes files on the Linux OS to version 1.2 of its FLEXXITY suite of software applications, which includes Dailies, Playout and Archive -- which speaks especially to ARRI Alexa output.

DFT Digital Film Technology recently added native support of ProRes files on the Linux OS to version 1.2 of its FLEXXITY suite of software applications, which includes Dailies, Playout and Archive. First released in October 2011, FLEXXITY software, which runs on the Linux operating system, is also among the first software solution to offer native ProRes files on that OS.

DFT FLEXXITY Product Manager
Morris Lindenkreuz

"Our customers have been asking for native support of ProRes files for some time," says DFT FLEXXITY Product Manager Morris Lindenkreuz. "All three applications in FLEXXITY require the ability to handle a variety of different camera formats. The ProRes support is most important for Playout and Dailies applications because ProRes is the preferred standard used by the productions shooting with the ARRI Alexa camera."

"The ARRI Alexa produces QuickTime files with the ProRes format inside," he continues. "Most TV shows or features produce a huge amount of data in the ProRes format, and our Dailies customers want to directly use this format on a timeline, synch audio, do some color correction and then go directly into editing. Editing is done either with Avid or Apple Final Cut Pro. It it's done in FCP, QuickTime ProRes is also the preferred format."

Before native ProRes support was added, DFT FLEXXITY couldn't handle the format on the ingest side directly and, on the output side, couldn't create ProRes files. "Being able to handle the files natively gets rid of the need for transcoding," Lindenkreuz says. "All those transcoding steps take time and require more storage. It's cumbersome."

The FLEXXITY on-set and post production Dailies software application with ProRes codec support maintains high quality compressed video while enabling real-time dailies processing. FLEXXITY Dailies' collaborative toolset includes audio ingest, image ingest, audio/video synchronization, metadata logging, grading and playout-file generation. Files can now also be preserved in the ProRes format.

FLEXXITY Output page rendering QuickTime ProRes files

In addition to the ProRes format, FLEXXITY software applications can natively read and de-Bayer ARRIRAW files, RED raw R3D files and many other formats. ProRes, an intra-frame codec, requires less disk space compared to uncompressed video and retains consistent quality in every frame, which speeds up editing and grading. The ProRes format also provides a robust workflow for projects inputting multiple acquisition formats and then standardizing on a single codec.

"Our customers are all based on Linux, which they like for its power and because they have more control," says Lindenkreuz. "Because it's an open system, Linux is also better to integrate with other systems. It allows you to use your hardware resources much better and have more freedom to configure the hardware." Among DFT's first customers for the relatively new FLEXXITY application are FotoKem's Budapest facility and Thought Equity in the Netherlands

FLEXXITY software applications are available either as software only or as turnkey systems that include workstation, interfaces, storage and grading panels. Lindenkreuz reports that DFT matches its software with powerful, 12-core workstations with high-end graphics cards from companies like NVIDIA. "We use hardware resources in a way that we can achieve the highest performance possible for such uses as 4K in real-time," he says. "That's not something that many applications can do."

FLEXXITY Process page handling QuickTime ProRes natively

Still, DFT has the Macintosh platform in its future: Lindenkreuz says the company intends to unveil a FLEXXITY version for the Mac platform at NAB 2012.

With the ARRI Alexa being used on nearly every pilot this last TV season, it makes perfect sense that DFT -- and other companies that cater to productions using Alexa -- want to make sure their workflow is Alexa-friendly. On the editing side, many editors -despite rejecting FCPX -- continue to edit with earlier versions. With Alexa on one end and FCP on the other, working in native ProRes is a no-brainer…and a smart move for DFT Digital Film Technology.