SGO Launches Mistika Live At IBC

SGO has launched Mistika Live, its powerful new stereoscopic 3D production tool at IBC 2010.
Mistika Live was recently used in the impressive live stereoscopic 3D broadcasting of the latest Metallica, Hall & Baron Rojo concerts at Rock in Rio live music event in Madrid.
It was involved from the stereoscopic 3D production stage where twin Sony Ex3 cameras were used to film the bands, with the images being fed via Mistika Live to correct the geometry and colour, before being fed to a large viewing screen.
A JVC monitor, a Z400 CPU and a DVS plaque, including Mistika Live's powerful software, were the key components required on the set. SGO teamed up with CEV, Superior Communication, the Image and Sound School, in the high profile joint venture.
SGO's latest innovative development, extends the market leading stereoscopic 3D post production tools of Mistika into the production environment. The application is a specialised Mistika hardware and software configuration which is also available as part of the toolset in Mistika Version 5.
Mistika Live enables Mistika's stereoscopic geometry correction and colour correction tools to be used either on-set as a preview facility while shooting, or in the demanding live environment where camera feeds are corrected "on the fly".
Taking a stereo feed from dual HD-SDI inputs, Mistika Live can make geometry adjustments to match the stereo camera line-up, as well as colour matching, to correct any colour differences that arise, between the cameras. The result can be viewed in real-time, live and in 3D.
Mistika Live is the ultimate viewing station in a stereoscopic 3D shoot environment. As a rule, stereoscopic 3D cameras are set to shoot in a "parallel" configuration, which means they are converged on infinity. Although this provides the most flexible set-up for further production, the resulting images are hard to watch on-set because all objects in the scene will be in a negative parallax which means the image will appear to be emerging from the screen, due to the camera's convergence setting. This is normally corrected in post production with a simple convergence shift, however, Mistika Live allows this to happen live on set, thus making the shots easy to evaluate at the time.
Furthermore, Mistika Live allows for additional colour corrections, with or without the use of a Look Up Table (LUT) to correctly transform the cameras' outputs. The feeds to Mistika Live and its corrections can be maintained as HD MPEG 4 Dallies. These can then either be used for reference, or edited together on Mistika Live's timeline, in order to convey the progress and status of the production as well as highlight any other stereoscopic issues that might affect the edit. All corrections can then be exported to a Mistika post production system to ensure the finishing process is streamlined and seamless.
Miguel Angel Doncel, CEO of SGO, confirmed: "The main focus of Mistika Live is to provide a valuable tool, that not only enables the director to watch a live shoot, but to also make the required corrections. Mistika Live presents a significantly cost-effective and post production time-saving application.
"The pre-visulation option within Mistika Live will certainly facilitate the creative process in both production and post production.
"From my point of view, Mistika Live is an absolute must-have application for production workflows, as it not only enables the director to analyse and fix all the stereo 3D details including disparities and alignments in real-time, but it also tests and prepares the footage for the postproduction process."
(KMcA)