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SOURCE: ADOBE Plugged In

Camera manufacturing giants Panavision, Silicon Imaging, Dalsa, Weisscam and ARRI are joining with Adobe Systems in an effort to define an industry-wide open file format for video.

Announced in April this year at NAB in Las Vegas, Adobe’s CinemaDNG aims to streamline workflows and ensure easy archiving and exchange for video editing professionals.

Based on the successful DNG file format for still photography, CinemaDNG adds features for cinema-related workflows. Under its plans, Adobe says CinemaDNG will be free for manufacturers to implement, and designed to improve compatibility between RAW video files from different camera manufacturers.

As well as camera manufacturers, CinemaDNG will be developed in collaboration with software vendors, in an effort to improve video workflows and alternatives for cross-application editing. Collaborating with leading industry manufacturers is a way of ensuring Adobe’s initiative to establish its Digital Negative Specification will be a useful standard for the cinematic industry. As the quality of digital cameras has improved and the speed and flexibility of shooting and editing digitally has become apparent, filmmakers are moving from shooting on film in favour of digital cinema cameras. Similarly, television shows are invariably shot digitally, with news and current affairs shows being shot and transferred digitally often right up until broadcast, indicating the flexibility and speed of editing digital cameras can provide.

By proactively leading the development of an open, public, and enduring standard that can be adopted throughout the production pipeline, Adobe and other companies collaborating on the CinemaDNG initiative are helping to solve an important, emerging workflow issue.

Benefits to all
The industry adoption of the CinemaDNG initiative will provide numerous benefits to all channels within the film industry, including:
? enhanced collaboration,
? improved archiving and retrieval, and
? workflow compatibility

Enhanced collaboration and compatability
Film makers will benefit by having a universal file format, which will reduce the number of vendor-specific raw file formats enormously. It will allow film makers ease of file transportability across industries and broadcast standards, making collaboration on projects far easier.

Additionally a universal file format will massively increase productivity by enabling compatibility of workflows between devices, vendors and file formats. Film makers will be able to shoot digitally with confidence that the file format will be supported well into the future, as Adobe hopes CinemaDNG will provide an open, durable, standard format available for many years to come. Adobe is currently working with the previously mentioned camera manufacturers to design the format for use in the capture phase, however they are also working on a conversion solution for cameras that may be older, or may not support the file format.

Archiving and retrieval
Archiving and retrieving footage will also be greatly enhanced due to the consistency of format, and CinemaDNG would also provide the foundation for an editing workflow that would allow filmmakers to work with the highest quality source material.

Workflow compatibility
For camera manufacturers and software developers, CinemaDNG is intended to help remove a key obstacle to the adoption of new products by providing reliable, instant compatibility with existing workflows. CinemaDNG is also planning to deliver support for proprietary metadata, helping manufacturers to differentiate their product offerings from competitors.

According to Pete Brownstein, Adobe’s Business Development Manager for Dynamic Media Asia Pacific, this is a massive step forward for the film industry. ?The film industry current has no standard open video file format, as file formats are invariably determined by the camera manufacturer,? Brownstein said. ?What this means is that workflows for digital video production and film making can be held up substantially while converting RAW files to a consistent video file for editing purposes. Additionally, as content producers are limited to hardware and software solutions that support the format of their camera, collaboration with peers can be time consuming and present roadblocks, if peers are not using the same hardware.

By using the open, public CinemaDNG format, content producers can ?simplify their workflows and ensure maximum compatibility.? Brownstein says the film industry has been particularly receptive to the idea of an industry standard. ?Adobe announced their intention at the American National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) earlier in the year, and the announcement has created a lot of positive discussion in the industry,? he said.

Quality of archived footage
CinemaDNG, according to Brownstein, will use lossless data compression, meaning that the quality of archived footage will be unparalleled. It will also enable RAW-based digital intermediate workflows.

?Anyone who has been working in film, or digital video production knows the difficulties presented in working across an almost infinite number of file types, and quality. Adobe’s Cinema DNG proposal is the digital equivalent of a film negative, based on the DNG format for still photography, meaning it will preserve pristine image data and important metadata,? Brownstein said. ?Not only does this improve efficiency in post production, and allow greater flexibility and collaboration across the industry, but is also means the quality of the archived footage will not be compromised.?

What does this mean for the future?
With an industry standard open file format for video applied to the film industry, Brownstein says this means filmmakers are no longer hamstrung by technology. ?The film industry is currently working with an enormous number of file formats and hardware solutions which don’t necessarily work well together. Collaboration amongst film making peers is restricted due to infrastructure,? he said.

?While each country has its own film making presence, international transportability in film production is not easy as there is no guarantee that another country, or even studio will support the file format you’ve been using. In my opinion, a lot of the creativity in film making comes from collaborating with others to get different perspectives. This is currently not as easy as Adobe would like it to be. Cinema DNG aims to open up the film making market, to allow greater collaboration and integration.

?It’s a bold and necessary step Adobe is taking, and it is being very well received? he said.

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