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4K Digital Intermediate Process ®

More Power, More Possibility, More Creative Control

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Starting with precise, stable color performance and tremendous exposure latitude on the sensor, Origin can either apply color processing in-camera or output raw image data. Combined with metadata embedded on the set, Origin’s output offers unprecedented control and flexibility to the color grading process. Origin’s 16-bit linear or 12-bit gamma data allow grading and color correction systems from leaders such as Discreet® to deliver more precise, higher-quality results, from the

most subtle to the most dramatic effects.

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Traditionally, the digital intermediate workflow began with film scanning. Origin® replaces the film and the scanner with unprecedented, cinematic-quality digital acquisition. To provide this quality, Origin outputs a mountain of image data. Even with optional L3 lossless compression, Origin requires a new generation of digital recorders for the studio and the field. DALSA has cooperated with leading-edge infrastructure developers to build field recorders capable of Gigabyte/sec throughput. To help manage all this image data, Origin can automatically embed a wide range of metadata into each frame and sequence—standard and custom information such as timecode and sync, lens and exposure, scene and take, crew, location, and even the cinematographer’s on-set commentary and instructions for post. With Origin, the paper “camera report” can go digital, helping to ensure vital information from the set is available throughout the post process.

Digital Infrastructure Origin’s performance is the first link in a data-centric 4K digital workflow. Clustered multi-GHz parallel processing power, multi-Gbps fiberoptic bandwidth and storage measured in hundreds of terabytes present considerable challenges, but throughout the industry, technology leaders such as SGI® are embracing our vision of the future. Taking advantage of Moore’s law and their own innovations, they’re making the entire 4K chain a reality.

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Origin’s unprecedented image quality begins with the best cinematography sensor in the world. No other sensor, CCD or CMOS, approaches its performance.

Editing and Compositing

Color Grading

4K Digital Image Capture from DALSA

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What makes Origin better?

Archiving Origin’s raw 4K data makes an ideal archival format, preserving the original data for any future advances in processing. The final digital master can also be stored at 4K resolution, allowing “oversampled” reformatting for almost any distribution channel for the forseeable future.

In a 2K digital intermediate process, editing and compositing systems need to do a lot of “heavy lifting.” In a 4K process, that appetite for processing power quadruples. Origin makes this task easier with the option to output raw data. Some edit decisions can be made on uninterpolated Bayer data, reducing the bandwidth by a factor of three. Lower-resolution proxy editing (with final edits done offline to a 4K master) can also reduce processing requirements. Hardware and software advances mean that industry leaders such as SGI®, Discreet® and

“The 35mm film lenses we were able to use to give us ‘normal’ [cinematic] depth of field, the optical view finder and the incredible image quality made us all eager to try this experience again very soon….” --Daniel Vincelette, CSC, producer/cinematographer

QuantelTM are approaching real-time editing of even Origin’s 4:4:4 16-bit linear data. Whatever the resolution, the metadata in each frame helps people and software manage their digital assets. These images, actual frames from sequences captured by an Origin camera, only begin to illustrate the camera's strengths: incredible resolution and detail in both highlights and shadows, and full creative control for the cinematographer.

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Distribution Digital intermediates provide both tremendous fidelity and flexibility. DI processes avoid the loss of fidelity inherent in film-to-film transfers, and from digital intermediates, a final digital master data can be projected digitally, written out to film, or reformatted for HD or even DVD.

“The detail and the range of the whites were absolutely incredible. I have never seen such range in the highlights with any other [digital] camera…” --Serge Desrosiers, CSC

First, its size (35mm full-frame) allows you to focus your image through real cine lenses onto an ultrahigh resolution focal plane containing millions of high performance photosites. Thanks to their size and our own patented design and fabrication processes, each photosite combines superior charge capacity and lower noise resulting in unparalleled dynamic range. In designing Origin’s sensor, DALSA drew on its 20 years of experience developing the world’s highest-performance image sensors and cameras. Origin benefits from dozens of patents our designers and our wafer foundry have earned, including our proprietary pigment process, which delivers the most precise, most stable color performance available. What does this mean to your images and your eyes? It means full creative control of depth of focus with the lenses you know and trust. It means engrossing levels of detail. It means at least 12 stops of exposure latitude delivering an astonishing range in the whites as well as the blacks. In one shot Origin can handle both the naked flame of a candle and the delicate, nuanced shadows on candlelit faces. It can handle the full glare of the sun reflected from a window and still resolve the subtleties of the shadows below. It can also handle over/undercranks—the sensor has been designed to output up to 48 frames per second at full resolution and image quality. The sensor’s performance is truly remarkable. And it is still improving. In 2004 our sensor evolves to provide even higher sensitivity (up to ISO400).

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In 2003, DALSA

presented a prototype of Origin®, the world’s first digital cinematography camera. Working closely with a group of industry veterans who truly understand the needs of the professional cinematographer, DALSA designed a revolutionary camera from the ground up, delivering stunning, unprecedented image quality and unrivalled creative control. The industry applauded. For 2004 Origin evolves, and the industry does too. Origin is becoming more refined and more sensitive, and the industry’s leaders are forging the other links in a new digital chain—a 4K workflow that exploits Origin’s power to deliver an unprecedented cinematic experience.

Watch the future evolve. Origin is the first and only digital camera to offer performance that is truly worthy of the big screen. • Designed for Cinematographers: Origin has not grown from videocam roots. Its revolutionary power and performance have been focused directly at the needs of moviemaking and moviemakers. • Unprecedented imaging performance: Origin’s superior resolution, huge exposure latitude and tunable, film-like response charateristics deliver stunning detail from the deepest shadows to the brightest highlights.

Origin can output data in a variety of formats and bit depths to allow the configurations or conversion necessary for postproduction. We firmly believe that our 16-bit linear data is the way of the future, but 10- and 12-bit gamma formats are compatible with today’s standards. Origin Output Formats

Color Encoding

Primary 4K Output (4046 x 2048)

Color Space

Mbytes/s1

Protocol: 4xInfiniband over FiberOptic

Raw Native, 16 bits per pixel, linear2

Bayer pattern

—

Interpolated RGB, 16 bits per channel (48 total), linear

4:4:4

RGB, film or DLP gamuts

R’G’B’, 12 bits per channel (36 total), gamma

4:4:4

R’G’B’, film or DLP gamuts

906

R’G’B’, 10 bits per channel (30 total), gamma

4:4:4

R’G’B’, film or DLP gamuts

755

R’G’B’, film or DLP gamuts

199

YCbCr, Rec. 709 gamut

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Super 2K Output (2048 x 1080)

Protocol: Dual HD-SDI over Copper Cable (SMPTE 372M)

Interpolated R’G’B’, 10 bits per channel (30 total), gamma4 HD 2K Output (1920 x 1080)

402 12083

4:4:4 DPX

Protocol: HD-SDI over Copper Cable (SMPTE 292M)

Interpolated YCbCr, 10 bits per channel (20 total), gamma

4:2:2 DPX

Notes: 1. Mbytes/s @ 24p, uncompressed, including overhead and metadata. 2. Color interpolation required in post. 3. Exceeds 4xInfiniband bandwidth (1Gbyte/s). Lossless compression required, reducing bandwidth to ~500Mbytes/s. 4. Compatible with any recording device supporting the protocol, such as Director’s FriendTM.

DALSA is an international high performance semiconductor and electronics

semiconductor wafer foundry services for use in MEMS, power

• Film-sized sensor, real cinema lenses: Origin’s large sensor allows you to use real 35mm PL mount cinema lenses. You can use the lenses you know and trust to get the depth of field you expect and achieve the effects you’ve spent years honing.

company that designs, develops, manufactures, and markets digital imaging

semiconductors, image sensors and mixed signal CMOS chips.

• Optical viewing system: Origin delivers the clarity and precision vital to serious cinematography with a reflex viewfinder that taps into the optical path between lens and sensor, just like a film camera. Electronic viewers, while useful, must drastically downsample images from the sensor, making it difficult to judge focus during action. The professionals we consulted demanded the performance of an optical viewfinder, so Origin’s viewfinder is optical, allowing a ground glass with frame lines to show out-offrame objects and action.

products and solutions, in addition to providing wafer foundry services. DALSA’s core competencies are in specialized integrated circuit and

DALSA is a public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the

electronics technology, and highly engineered semiconductor wafer processing.

symbol “DSA”. Based in Waterloo, ON. Canada, the company has operations

Products include image sensor components; electronic digital cameras; and

in Bromont, PQ; Colorado Springs, CO; Eindhoven, NL; Munich, Germany and Tokyo, Japan.

Origin is a registered trademark of DALSA Corp. SGI is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc. Discreet is a registered trademark of Autodesk Inc. Quantel is a trademark of Quantel Ltd.

DALSA Digital Cinema 605 McMurray Road, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2V 2E9 Tel: (519) 886-6000 • Fax: (519) 886-8023 • Email: [email protected]

Printed in Canada, April 2004