Emerging Help De Lane Lea Go High-Definition With VCube HD

Renowned London-based post-production House De Lane Lea has embraced fully high-definition picture dubbing with the installation of a Merging Technologies VCube HD video playback system in its main dubbing theatre.
The system was supplied by eMerging, the UK distribution and support company for Merging in the UK.
The change at De Lane Lea came in response to customer demand, particularly from film companies. Paul Jarvis, De Lane Lea's Technical Manager, said: "The standard workflow on films is now HD. All of the big pictures that we've worked on recently, like 'Hellboy 2', which we finished in the summer, are being provided as an HD picture source. Prior to purchasing the VCube HD, we were having to re-capture the HD pictures we were sent at SD resolution before proceeding with dubbing, which was rather time-consuming and clearly wasn't a long-term solution."
Although De Lane Lea has been a user of Merging's standard-definition VCube for several years, the choice of VCube HD wasn't a foregone conclusion.
Jarvis said: "We did look closely at the competition, but VCube seemed to offer us the friendliest user interface. Some of the competing systems were technically impressive, but couldn't offer jog/shuttle-type control, forcing you to jump through a video file increments rather than rewinding or forwarding in the traditional manner. We're used to systems that emulate tape machines - you can see what's happening with the image better. And the VCube seems to accept the major file formats and codecs without any trouble. 'Hellboy 2' was supplied AVID-encoded and although we had to download the codec from a web site, we just stuck it in the VCube and it worked straight away.
"VCube HD also has some very nice features. I particularly like being able to advance or retard the image in the VCube to compensate for delays in digital projectors, without having to change settings on the sychroniser and it has tri-level sync. We have another room upstairs where I'd like to make HD available and we'll be upgrading the VCube there to the HD version when demand merits it."
(KMcA)