Got a nice demo today of the leaps and bounds being taken by The Foundry‘s new and upcoming versions of its Nuke compositing software (version 5.2 was unveiled this week at NAB, and 6.0 will come out later this year). Lots of improvements worth checking out.
But when the demo was over, Foundry guys gave me a little lesson in the context of product development work. They revealed they have come up with an impressive little, for lack of a better name right now, plug-in called Rolling Shutter which, as the name implies, is designed to help filmmakers address and smooth out artifacts that can occasionally pop out of bits of footage shot with CMOS-chip-based digital cameras. In a technology demo, the tool clearly eased blur and quiver in test frames impacted by the rolling shutter technology that is part of CMOS design. (It’s all very complicated, but as I understand it, the rolling shutter exposes different portions of the frame at different periods in time, and certain anomolies can crop up in frames or between frames under particular circumstances in such footage.)
However, Foundry honcho and co-founder Simon Robinson explained the company isn’t entirely sure what to do with the tool right now, which is one reason it is showing it off as a tech demo at the Foundry booth. “We’re hoping for input on who would most benefit from it,” he explains.
Robinson points out that the context of the tool is an important consideration. Building Rolling Shutter as a plug-in for Nuke might not be the most logical thing since Nuke is, after all, a compositing tool, and this isn’t exactly a compositing problem. Plus, he suggests, makers of CMOS chips are already working on reducing or eliminating the rolling shutter problem, and their chips might give way to other technologies in the not so distant future anyway. This leads to the question of whether the problem they are solving will be moot long before their tool addressing it can become useful to the masses.
Simon says the Foundry is pondering the question, and they welcome your input. Stop by their booth (SL1028) if you feel like offering an opinion.
–MG
