Da Vinci Systems - History

History

• 1982 - Video Tape Associates (VTA) a Hollywood, Florida, USA based production/post production facility begins development of the Wiz for internal use.

• 1983 - Public introduction to The Wiz. The system controlled early telecines (RCA FR-35, Bosch FDL60) and offered basic primary and secondary color correction. The Editel group of post production facilities in the US evaluated the technology and asked that VTA build multiple systems for them. About 15 units were made and subsequently purchased by other post facilities across the US. The Wiz was essentially the prototype for what would become the da Vinci color corrector.

• 1984 - The da Vinci Classic analog grading system was released and became the most popular color corrector for the Fernseh FDL 60 and Rank Cintel telecines (Mark 3 and URSA). It had a customized external control panel with internal primary and secondary processing and also an internal NTSC encoder. The Classic operated on a Motorola 68000 Multi Bus 1 system computer. The program and color correction list were stored on a 20MB MMF hard disk, with backup to a 5.25" floppy disk.

• 1984 - VTA Technologies, the R&D division of VTA Post, became da Vinci Systems, Inc. Development of the da Vinci color corrector continued. Other products added to the line included an editor, machine control system, and routing system. The da Vinci was the only film-to-tape or tape-to-tape color correction system on the market that offered the capability to create a basic rectangular window shape isolating a secondary color correction. As the da Vinci product line evolved, the original da Vinci became known as the da Vinci Classic.

• 1986 - Dynatech Video Group (Utah Scientific, ColorGraphics Systems, Quanta, among others) acquires da Vinci and it is managed within their Utah Scientific business.

• 1988 - da Vinci Systems is spun off from Utah Scientific and becomes its own entity as one of roughly eight video manufacturing companies in the portfolio of the Dynatech Video Group. Later, in 2000, through corporate restructure and merger with WWG and TTC, Dynatech became Acterna.

• 1989 - da Vinci Renaissance was the analog system that followed the da Vinci Classic analog system. It was similar to the Classic but ran on a Motorola 68020 Multi Bus 1 system with a 3.5" floppy. Options like Kilovectors were later available for the analog Renaissance. Kilovectors secondary color processing, more advanced than what was offered on the Classic, would become an industry standard function of secondary color isolation.

• 1990 - Under direction from the parent company, daVinci introduces a low cost color corrector for broadcasters and small post facilities. To reduce cost the stripped down telecine-only programmer, called Leonardo, used a flat plate (vision mixer style) control panel and provided only scene-by-scene control of a telecine (similar to Cintel's Amigo). Leonardo did not offer da Vinci color processing and was not successful in the market, with only one unit sold.

• 1991 - The da Vinci Renaissance 888 was introduced to the color grading marketing. Operating at first with the original control panel interface and no GUI, the 888 was the first product in the world to offer digital 8:8:8 signal processing throughout. New groundbreaking features like Power Windows, Custom Curves and YSFX were to become part of its successful feature set.

• 1992 - Power Windows were introduced to the Renaissance 888 permitting masking of grades.

• 1992 - In a significant development in addition to vector grading, Custom Curves were introduced to the Renaissance 888. 1994 - da Vinci Systems wholly acquired the TLC product line from Time Logic. The TLC is still viewed today as the de facto standard edit control interface between telecines, color correctors, VTRs and DDRs. TLC (Time Logic Controller) is an edit controller for telecines, vision mixers (switchers), and VTRs. It provides accurate 2:3 editing when transferring 24fps film in a 30fps video environment. TLC 1 was originally made in Moorpark, CA (started in Redondo Beach, then Simi Valley). The TLC 2 was released later that year under the da Vinci brand.

• 1995 - The 8:8:8 DUI (da Vinci User Interface) was introduced to the market. The DUI offered the same color processing as the Renaissance 8:8:8 but featured a new Windows style user interface, an SGI hosted operating system, a migration of the external TLC controller into the DUI, and EDWIN, an extension of the industry renowned Power Windows. The telecine interface card controlled the telecine's internal color corrector. The 888 DUI came in two configurations: the first was the DUI with an SGI Indy workstation; the second 888 DUI system used an SGI O2 workstation (affectionately called the Toaster). These systems also supported da Vinci's new control panels which became the industry standard. The panel layout and configuration is still in use today.

During 1995 da Vinci also made the da Vinci Light. This was not marketed, so not many were sold. The da Vinci Light was a da Vinci DUI 888 without the digital 888 cards. The da Vinci DUI 888 had the electrical equivalent of the TLC2 designed on the IMC (along with Telecine Interface) boards. Software options to the DUI included the ability to edit, control VTRs, switchers, and use an EDL.

• 1996 - Dynatech sold most of the Dynatech Video Group but maintained the market leading da Vinci Systems.

• 1998 - Offering a significant technological breakthrough, da Vinci 2K, the company's first high definition and data color grading system for film and video, was released. It offered a huge boost in color processing quality and performance and included new features like PowerTiers, Defocus and Colorist Toolbox. These features, unmatched by any competitive product, become the standard that other companies attempted to emulate. Feature filmmakers began to use da Vinci 2K in the color grading finishing process, a process that would later become known as digital intermediate or DI.

The 2K was designed to work for SD, HD, and Data and to have room for future upgrades. The base system has In/Out Primaries, Secondaries, New Power Windows and a new interface. Originally controlled by an SGI 02, it was later upgraded to Linux which provided easier support. The 2K was to have a newly designed machine control system also called TLC. Since this functionality was a bit late to completion, the ability to use the external TLC2 connected to the 2K provided some necessary breathing room. It was this configuration that required the A/B RS-422 switch box in the Tape to Tape configuration, allowing the TLC2 to synchronize the decks, while the 2K provided the necessary frame accurate color corrections.

• 1998 - da Vinci Academy was formed to provide training to the growing number of aspiring colorists.

• 1999 - The 2K add a new PowerTiers option permitting up to 8 channels, each with Power Windows, full Primary and Master Secondary control.

• 1999 - da Vinci acquired Sierra Design Labs, Incline Village, NV, at that time a worldwide leader in HDTV storage and workstation interface solutions. Using disk arrays before and after the 2K to provide nonlinear grading became a key goal in product development and the basis for many innovations in the years to come.

• 2000 - A Defocus option was added to the 2K, offering inside or outside defocus or sharpness effects (in and out with Defocus Plus) plus Power Windows, In/Out color, and matte defocus. The defocus was adjustable and included realtime Gaussian blur in HD making it the top quality realtime broadcast video defocus engine of its time. 2000 - da Vinci acquires Nirvana Digital of Singapore, creator of the Revival film restoration system, and incorporates the product into its line up. 2001 - PowerGrades are added to the 2K feature list.

• 2001 - The Gallery, an integrated reference store, was offered as another 2K feature with an optional Central Server and Palette paint program interface. The Windows interface converted stills between resolutions and exported them as jpg, tiff or bmp files. This later became standard on all 2K Plus systems.

• 2002 - 2K Plus was launched to support HDTV and SDTV, using an IBM PC computer running Red Hat Linux software. The 2K Plus was used on high-end DataCines and telecines, like Thomson-Grass Valley's Spirit DataCine and Cintel's C-Reality & ITK Millennium. The 2K Plus operated with a 4:2:2, 4:4:4 or 8:4:4 input in NTSC or PAL. In HDTV it operated with either a 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 input. Redesigned Primaries, Secondaries and Keys made this more than just a 2K upgrade.

• 2002 - The TLC Assistant was offered to the market providing an external Linux terminal with keyboard and mouse for those facilities that needed permanent access to the editor. It was offered in single and dual user modes.

• 2002 - Colorist Toolbox option was released for the 2K Plus. A hardware upgrade for those who had outgrown the Defocus option, Colorist Toolbox added 4 PowerVectors, each with its own matte Defocus, Power Windows, In/Out Master Secondaries, Filter Effects and Textures. The Filters included the equivalent of a Defocus Plus board.

• 2003 - da Vinci Systems' parent company, Acterna, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while reorganizing its business and emerged after just 5 months. da Vinci business was not affected and during this year while developing the concept of non linear grading from its Sierra Labs and 2K experience, the Resolve software color corrector has its first public showing.

• 2003 - Nucleas is launched, providing a server-to-server software interface to existing 2K Plus systems to work from data disks and storage networks. Both HiPPI and HSDL interfaces are offered and the system included data waveforms, CMS and data playback. While the Nucleas business did not reach expectations, computer systems continued to become faster, permitting a refocus of engineering into a completely new software grading system.

• 2004 - Resolve, a software-based, resolution-independent color grading system is launched. Resolve was developed specifically for the Digital Intermediate market and in its early years operated on conventional PC hardware with optimized performance via da Vinci's own custom designed PC based PowerPlant acceleration and Transformer image translation hardware.

Resolve offers color enhancement at the core, but also features a highly advanced toolset including conforming, network file browsing, image resizing and formatting.

da Vinci also created Nucleas Conform in 2004 which built a data timeline from an EDL, rendered dissolves and allowed switching between Source and Record order. The system was shown at NAB configured as server-to-server and server-to-video.

• 2005 - JDS Uniphase acquires the assets of Acterna including da Vinci Systems. 2005 - 2K Plus development continued and the Toolbox 2 option included improved user interface and filter presets. During the year 2K Plus configurations Emerald, Sapphire and Ruby were announced with elite logos for systems with Defocus, Toolbox and 4 PowerTiers (Emerald), 3 PowerTiers (Sapphire) or 2 PowerTiers (Ruby)

• 2006 - With ever changing edit decisions in digital intermediate workflows, the ColorTrace option was offered for 2K Plus and Resolve to track color grades when the EDL is revised. 2006 - Splice is presented to the market as a server-to-server system enabling 2K systems to work from data disks and storage networks. Delays in delivery ultimately see the product dropped.

• 2008 - Impresario, a new control panel for Resolve, is launched at NAB 2008 and demonstrated at NAB 2009.

• 2009 - The assets of da Vinci Systems are purchased by Blackmagic Design and Resolve and Revival are offered at IBC under the BMD brand with a commitment to significantly expand the R&D resources and further develop Resolve.