CINESITE SELECT PANASONIC'S HDD5 FOR MASTERING FORMAT

SOHO-BASED Post Production company, Cinesite have selected Panasonic's HDD5 as their high-definition mastering format.
The London offices of Cinesite, owned by Kodak, have one of the largest teams of creatives in Europe and specialises in a wide range of digital effects and post production services. They are launching their new digital services in mastering, high-definition television, intermediate and super 16 to 35 mm blow-up with the re-colourisation of 'Band of Brothers', the ten episode follow-up to 'Saving Private Ryan', based on the book 'Band of Brothers' by Stephen Ambrose. The production is Executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and co-produced by Tony To.
Cinesite chose to use Panasonic's multi-format digital HD studio VTR, the AJ-HD3700, to supply them with the mastering formats that Panasonic could provide. Courtney Vanderslice, Head of Production at Cinesite, said: "We carried out a shoot-out with HDD5 against other HD formats to see how they differed. We decided to use HDD5 because we felt that this offered the best possible quality, with no sub-sampling and consequently easier editing capabilities. Furthermore, this format is already established in Hollywood and allows us easy inter-change with other facilities around the world.
We found that the AJ-HD3700 with its high picture quality and high-end functions and specifications met all our needs from programme production to film mastering. Panasonic have been most helpful in supporting us during the integration of HDD5 into our post production system, and we are delighted with the result.”
Cinesite will transfer the finished footage of 'Band of Brothers' from 35mm film to Panasonic's digital HDD5 format, so that a high definition master is created, which will be graded using Cinesite's new interactive mastering service. The finished 10 episodes will then be supplied to the broadcasters in various HDD5 formats.
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