Montreal: Discreet Logic has started to ship a new online nonlinear editing product called Smoke, a tool-enhanced system designed for video online finishing with some of the Flame effects power associated with Fire.

While Smoke delivers non-compressed 4:4:4 image quality and is ‘like Fire’s little brother,’ it is not a cut-down version of Fire, although it does run on an sgi Octane platform and priced in the $250,000 to $300,000 range, comes in around half the price of the bigger editing system, says Stephane Blondin, product specialist, editing, at Discreet.

The new edit and finishing system has a similar look to Fire, with simple, neutral colors, a large source area, uncomplicated control layouts and an Avid-like timeline.

Blondin says Smoke’s major distinguishing characteristic, relative to systems such as Avid and D-Vision, is its seamless online tool finishing set which includes color correction, dve with true 3D perspective, an array of keying options and a feature called the Tracker/Stabilizer for motion analysis of composited objects.

The primary DVE Tracker, keyer and color-correction tools are simultaneously accessible while the text and paint modules are not.

‘This is a finishing tool set with features you won’t find in any other system,’ says Blondin.

A core feature of the Smoke editing system is its dve module, ‘basically an online room in a box, in conventional terms the combination of a switcher, an edit controller, a dve tool set and color corrector, but more powerful,’ says Blondin.

Five different keying techniques are available with both luma and chroma keying in hls, yuv and rgb as standard features. The keyer can be accessed directly from the EditDesk, or through the dve for multilayer compositing.

Operations on Smoke have a seamless, tightly integrated feel, and are highly flexible in lighting and origination terms. Professional Avid editors may well think ‘operate’ on first sight.

In edl compatibility, Smoke supports cmx, Sony and Grass Valley formats.

A wider array of tools allows for color suppression, matte erosion and shrinkage.

‘One of the important things to understand is that this is a true 3D perspective system,’ says Blondin, who has worked on Smoke since its early development period.

Increasingly, he says, original footage from the ‘acquisition device’ is downloaded directly into the system. In film terms, users will go directly from the high-resolution scanner to Smoke, bypassing the time-consuming film-to-tape Da Vinci color correction.

‘It’s really pretty impressive. The tool set here (for Smoke) color correction is very close to what you’ll find in the Da Vinci. You can match colors or work on high-level concepts like shadows and mid-tones. With the flexibility of the keyer, the color corrector tools, the dve, and a tool we call the Tracker, this is where you literally leave systems like the (Avid) 8000 behind in the dusk,’ says Blondin.

The dve module has four layers and one color-correctable background, a new feature to both Smoke and Fire.

Object Tracker

Smoke’s dve Tracker/Stabilizer is a powerful image analysis module which can be used to accurately track layered objects over time, a common case in point, graphic commercial logos or titles against moving video images.

Otherwise, Blondin says conventional technology makes accurate tracking virtually impossible. ‘Even worse, because when you try to do that [track] you have to use live sources, vtrs that roll, so you can never actually stop on a frame.’

Smoke’s Tracker selects an axis point and automatically analyzes and records the path coordinates for both moving objects. As major motion picture f/x keep raising expectations, Blondin says precise tracking capability for composited objects becomes a primary asset.

Another Smoke system tool, a Retouch feature, eliminates dirt, scratches and wire, and fixes pixel problems with garbage masks and custom airbrush facilities.

Smoke’s creativity is one of its more competitive features, with a wide array of third-party software ‘plug-ins’ available for effects like lighting, snow, rain, film grain, old movie scratches and sprocket wear.

Smoke is a realtime, dual-stream system operated with a Wacom tablet and pen, a mouse and keyboard, with storage options ranging from 32 minutes up to two hours. Once the originating material is written to the Stone Disk array (two options available), assembling the master is done in seconds, opening Smoke to an offline familiarity of cuts, dissolves, zooms and other standard edit and storyboard features.

A Stream system 2 gb hard drive gives the system up to four hours of aes digital audio with four channels available for tape output.

Discreet clients using any of the company’s visual effects products can network effects clips created on Flint, Flame or Inferno for a test editing assignment on Smoke.

An additional wipe transition tool is being implemented, while upcoming Smoke 1.5 version features include character generation, a fully textured Text tool similar to traditional standalone computer graphics, a dve feature allowing users to create 3D text and load geometry in a real 3D environment with eight light sources and a camera, and Clip Libraries compatibility, an integration enhancement option across Discreet’s growing product lines.