Roundtable Films Invests In Alchemist XF

SAM has announced that post production facility, Roundtable Films has invested in its Alchemist XF format and framerate converter to meet an increase in requests for high framerate projects that need conversions between 59p and 50p.

"We initially purchased SAM's Alchemist XF for two projects we had coming up — Nick Broomfield's 'Whitney: Can I Be Me' and Marc Silver's 'To End A War'. Alchemist XF made sense for our work here at Roundtable because of its unique adaptive tone-mapping feature for SDR-to-HDR conversion. This was a big draw for us because it's really useful for creating client screeners of our HDR masters," said Jack Jones, Digital Colorist & Technical Director at Roundtable Films.

Alchemist XF builds on the success of SAM's older Alchemist PH.C – HD. Developed as an entirely software-based solution, Alchemist XF is a format and framerate converter, designed specifically for the file-based domain. It supports formats and framerates from SD up to 8K, 12Hz to 300Hz for a wide variety of file formats. It is the next generation of motion estimation technology, all in a cost-conscious software package that’s more powerful than its predecessor. The project at Roundtable Films was commissioned by SAM channel partner Thameside TV.

Jones added: "Having Alchemist sat on our editing network and being able to utilize the watch folders makes our conversions happen quicker and allows junior members to easily standards convert files without needing to learn another tool. This is obviously a huge advantage for us because it means we can automate our workflow and turn work around much faster without the need for extra staff or having to spend money on outsourcing."

Robert Szabó-Rowe, EVP and General Manager, Live Production & Infrastructure at SAM, said: "Alchemist XF is the perfect tool for Roundtable Films, offering them unrivalled motion-compensated image transformation on COTS servers. There are really no limits on the type of content they can process now."