Digital Color Grading System Revolutionizes Transition from Traditional Film Pipelines to Digital Intermediate Workflow—Delivering New Creative Power and Driving Productivity

Montréal, Québec—Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), today announced that lustre™, its award-winning, high-performance software-based digital grading and color correction system for interactive film look creation, is shipping worldwide. The first customers to deploy the lustre turnkey system include leading film laboratories and post-production/film studios who applaud the system’s creative power, productivity benefits and ability to integrate into diverse DI workflows.

Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California, and Technicolor Creative Services in Hollywood are the first film production facilities in North America to install lustre. In Europe, visual effects and editing house Mirage in Prague, Czech Republic, has also adopted the system, while Laboratories Éclair, a pioneering film laboratory in Paris, has already graded and mastered several motion pictures using dual lustre master systems and dual lustre assistant stations. In Sydney, Australia, high-end digital post facility Digital Pictures has also invested in lustre systems.

“lustre is a world-class product that will help us deliver the best possible Digital Intermediate service to motion picture clients,” said Jan Mikulas, partner and technical director at Studio Mirage. “It is also the perfect technology for us to attract business from bigger, more prestigious productions shooting in Prague. Because the lustre system runs on non-proprietary hardware, as well as offering an unmatched feature set, it offers accelerated creative growth potential and flexibility for our business.”

Using the lustre turnkey system, colorists and color timers can collaborate with DPs and filmmakers to digitally adjust the colors and look of a film—from the most subtle changes to extravagant color and lighting effects. Developed in conjunction with Colorfront (Hungary), the lustre turnkey system delivers an intuitive environment for interactive color correction sessions, and provides efficiency benefits for Digital Intermediate and digital film finishing processes. Because it is a software-based solution, lustre offers the unique ability to introduce a parallel grading pipeline where multiple tasks can be accomplished simultaneously on common data, plus significant speed advantages over serialized hardware solutions.

“The industry’s enthusiastic embrace of Discreet’s lustre turnkey digital grading and color correction system demonstrates that it is fast becoming the definitive benchmark for Digital Intermediate,” said Martin Vann, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Discreet. “The initial adoptions, by industry leaders as well as studios entering DI for the first time, underline the sheer flexibility of lustre to integrate into diverse and demanding workflow environments.”

Discreet has just published a white paper on Digital Intermediate workflow, which can be downloaded from www.discreet.com

Winamp3 was a failure in terms of what it hoped to achieve, many users reverted back to Winamp 2 as it was faster and more recent versions included some of the features that 3.0 introduced.

Winamp5 (working title) hopes to merge the best features of the two, as this is an alpha this version is not yet obvious but I am sure you guys will want to try it out anyway!

[ News source : NTFS.org check it to download the alpha ]

Steve McQueen in The Great Escape hits Xbox, PS2 and PC this summer

One of the most ingenious and suspenseful films of all time, The Great Escape is a World War II escape adventure classic that hits the Xbox, PS2 and PC this summer. It’s your chance to take part in the largest breakout in history from the “escape proof” Stalag Luft III German POW camp and participate in the most famous motorbike scene in Hollywood.

Following the massive hit, Conflict: Desert Storm, The Great Escape, Published by SCi Games, offers a unique variety of gameplay that takes you from slow, tension filled stealth scenes to adrenalin-filled action and chase sequences. Fans of the film, and all gamers will appreciate this masterpiece.

Control four key characters from the film, each with their own skills and characteristics: Hilts is the master of escape, MacDonald speaks German to distract and fool the guards, Sedgewick will repair the most complex machines, and Hendley’s lightening quick fingers will get his hands on almost anything you need.

Stealth is the key, so sneak up behind guards subdue them or knock them out with a punch.

Steal semi-automatic pistols, sub-machine guns, and sniper rifles to use in action filled gunfights.

Jump behind the wheel of jeeps, trucks, APC’s, fuel tankers and, of course, the infamous motorbike.

Sneak around in the shadows of a mountain-top POW camp, have an all-action shoot out on top of a moving train and ride the motorbike through heavily guarded German countryside!

The Great Escape game is truly authentic and captures the essence of the classic film. This will be the benchmark for escape adventure games!

All the action, excitement and suspense of Hollywood brought to you in The Great Escape..

Will be available on PS2, PC CDROM and XBOX.

Click here to download the Screenshots .ZIP file

Click here to view the promotional video

Click here to download the (French) Playable demo of the first level ( PC only )

Official website ( available in English, French and German ) : http://www.thegreatescapegame.com/

The files are now available in Surround format. Now that's what I call a good audio streaming ;) Don't you agree ?

File specs : 192kbps 5.1 Surround channels

About 4minutes each.

Listen here : http://www.onickz.com/audio

I just wanted to review again the actor names of Tommy Vercetti's voice, Ken Rosenberg (Bill Fichtner), Sonny Forelli etc.

Just check below who dunnit. An incredible casting for a videogame. The best one ever !

Ray Liotta .... Tommy Vercetti (voice)

William Fichtner .... Ken Rosenberg (voice) (as Bill Fichtner)

Tom Sizemore .... Sonny Forelli (voice)

Dennis Hopper .... Steve Scott (voice)

Burt Reynolds .... Avery Carrington (voice)

Luis Guzmán .... Ricardo Diaz (voice)

Robert Davi .... Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez (voice)

Danny Trejo .... Umberto Robina (voice)

Gary Busey .... Phil Cassidy (voice)

Lee Majors .... 'Big' Mitch Baker (voice)

Fairuza Balk .... Mercedes Cortez (voice)

Jenna Jameson .... Candy Suxxx (voice)

The Audio Streaming section of Area2-Deck91 is now opened. The direct url is www.onickz.com/audio

You'll find there some audio streaming files, such as, for today, an "Alien Space" sound ambiance, and a "Jungle" sound ambiance, both available as Windows Media Audio (wma) 9 format, 64kbits, Stereo.

Listen to it by clicking here

Release Date: November 5, 2003 (Theatrical & IMAX release)
Studio: Warner Bros.
Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
Screenwriter: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Monica Bellucci, Daniel Bernhardt, Jada Pinkett Smith, Matt McColm, Harold Perrineau Jr., Harry Lennix, Stuart Wells
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Plot Summary: Producer Joel Silver says that Reloaded & Revolutions are one big movie cut in half that takes place over a 24 hour period. Monica Bellucci plays an evil Matrix temptress, Nona Gaye and Jada Pinkett Smith play warriors in the PVC-clad Trinity mould. Both movies, but mainly Revolutions, will visit scorced Earth, where biomechanical machines terrorise Zion.

Quicktime trailers:

Dear visitors of Area2-Deck91 (A2D91),

Many of you were used to access my website through the url http://www.deck91.com

This url won't exist anymore, and won't access to A2D91.

If you have emails with @deck91.com, please let me know urgently. It's a matter of weeks.

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Update your bookmarks, and enhance your surfing experience with A2D91.

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