TORONTO’S Eyes Post Group is not the sort of post house that gathers moss. Nor will it allow its competitors to win a game of one-upmanship. In a move that further solidifies it among the top shops in town, Eyes recently unveiled its new telecine, the Innovation TK Millennium Machine. Izhak Hinitz, president and owner of Eyes, says although Eyes’ launch party for the product, attended by representatives from the U.K. manufacturer, was in February, Eyes has had the machine for a year.

‘Because we were instrumental in the development of it, it wasn’t really launched until not too long ago,’ says Hinitz. ‘Now it is a full-fledged, up-and-running telecine, and I believe 10 have been sold at NAB this year alone, three of which are replacing Spirit [telecines] in England.’

He says the Millennium is a solid telecine that can benefit both long-form and commercial producers.

‘The beauty is they use a flying spot technology with very minimal amounts of noise, if any,’ says Hinitz. ‘The resolution is truly variable, where you can increase the scan so that you can apply 100% of the scan to any area of the picture, thereby giving you incredible blow-ups and data scanning. At NAB, [ITK] showed 4K scanning, which is tremendous for commercial users wanting to end up back on film, or long-form people wanting to composite their effects work.’

Hinitz says the Eyes suite that houses the telecine is also home to a da Vinci 2K, which can do color correction in high-definition formats. He says the two machines work well together.

‘[The Millennium] enhances the product by giving the color corrector more to look at,’ he explains. ‘Everything in the optical path has been improved since the early days of scanning film, breaking out and picking up light much better. The colors on an ITK machine are far superior to any colors on any machine we’ve ever seen.’

So far, TV ads for Bell, Casino Windsor and Ford have all involved the Eyes Millennium. Hinitz believes there will be many more spots to come as word about the machine spreads through the industry. He says it was a slow process for producers to see how the Millennium could benefit their product.

‘It has taken two years to go from ‘What is that thing?’ to ‘Do you have one of those?’ ‘ says Hinitz. ‘Most people were skeptical at first, because they thought the technology would cause noise, but now that it’s a proven technology they can’t wait to use it. We’ve had nothing but tremendously positive statements from all sorts of people – directors, producers and even talent.’

The Millennium is Eyes’ fourth in-house telecine. The shop also boasts three editing stations with all the bells and whistles. Hinitz says it is important to him, as the force behind Eyes, to keep on top of the newest technologies hitting the market. He makes it clear, however, that Eyes is not the kind of shop to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars on a product just because it’s new and surrounded by often meaningless industry buzz.

‘I try to find the best way to fill clients’ needs and do it with the most bang for the buck,’ he says. ‘It’s easy to jump and buy the most expensive machine and then wait for the next ‘best machine’ to come along, but when you are being careful with your budget, you have to choose the right machine to start with.’

Eyes’ next piece of gear to install is the Quantel iQ. The first of its kind in Canada and only one of six in the world, according to Hinitz, the iQ is currently being debugged for use at the facility. Why is there so much industry buzz about the iQ?

‘It’s a resolution-independent nonlinear platform using uncompressed disc arrays,’ says Hinitz. ‘It’s capable of editing and compositing any resolution up to and including data. That’s a real proud addition to our stable of equipment, because we are planning to use it as a nonlinear, tape-to-tape disk-corder, so we can do nonlinear color correction.’

-www.eyespost.com