Snell Announces Enhancements To Conversion Products

Snell has announced that it has enhanced systems across its line of award-winning motion compensated conversion products, introducing new features and capabilities that deliver the ultimate in quality visual results.
For its Alchemist Ph.C-HD standards converter, the company offers a new software release that extends format and metadata support and incorporates even more sophisticated audio and image processing tools.
Snell has also upgraded its Mach HD by adding Dolby E support and by enhancing the system's ability to handle content with fast-moving objects.
Paola Hobson, Product Manager for conversion and restoration at Snell, said: "Snell's programme of ongoing innovation ensures that Alchemist Ph.C-HD continues to meet our customers' current and future conversion needs. In fact, the additional tools and improved performance we've brought to both the Alchemist Ph.C-HD and Mach HD conversion products give customers the functionality and performance they require to deliver the superior-quality HD outputs that are so essential in a highly competitive global marketplace."
Alchemist has dominated motion compensated standards conversion for more than 15 years and the release of Alchemist Ph.C-HD version 5.1 software maintains this leadership. The release adds 3Gbps 1080 50p and 60p support (available only with the 3Gbps 1080p option) to ensure future-proof operation. Snell has also upgraded the system with further advanced audio processing tools and, with the Dolby E Authoring option, added support for external Dolby metadata. An even more sophisticated adaptive noise reducer not only preserves image clarity, but also enhances efficiency in downstream compression processes.
Improved deinterlacing in format conversion modes allows content owners to achieve yet higher cross-conversion quality for same frame-rate format conversions, even with fast-paced sports action and complex detail. Version 5.1 upgrades also include SNMP control and monitoring and a new VANC bypass mode so that data carried in the VANC can be seamlessly transferred in all pass-through or ARC modes.
The FilmTools option for Alchemist Ph.C-HD also has been enhanced, and now features a user-adjustable Video-to-Film Blue utility that facilitates the addition of controlled blur to areas of movement during any video-to-film conversion. Snell's Emmy Award-winning Ph.C motion measurement technology ensures that the among of blur is proportional to the direction and speed of the motion so that fast-moving objects will be blurred more than slower ones. This feature allows users to add a more film-like look by mimicking the blur usually associated with production on 35mm film.
The Mach HD SD/HD motion compensated standards and cross converter with synchronisation capability provides upconversion, downconversion and crossconversion both within and between frame rates. Snell has upgraded units now shipping - the Mach HD Version 4 - with a new Dolby E option that supports the passing of a single Dolby E stream in frame-rate conversion modes and enables Dolby E decoding and transcoding. Supplied with Dolby E processing, these Mach HD units can automatically process eight pairs of PCM/non-PCM audio.
Mach HD version 4 is available with four modes of Dolby E audio processing: frame-rate conversion, same frame-rate mode (pass-through), same frame-rate mode (decode and encode), and Dolby E decode. The newly enhanced Mach HD offers even better performance when frame-rate converting SD and HD content and incorporates new algorithms to further improve the quality results when converting content with fast-moving objects.
(KMcA)