News for February 2006

Autodesk Incinerator Shipping…

Autodesk today started shipping its Incinerator add-on for Lustre 2.7.

The Incinerator system uses computing cluster technology to provide real-time capabilities for complex primary and secondary colour correction, as well as real-time visual effects processing at high-definition and 2K resolutions and accelerated 4K processing.

It only works with the Linux version of Lustre at the moment…

Read on for the full press release.
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Posted: February 7th, 2006
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Cleaner XL 1.5 update…

Product: Cleaner XL
Version: 1.5
Manufacturer: Autodesk
Price: $599 (full) $125 (upgrade)

See also the full review of Cleaner XL 1.0

Cleaner XL 1.5 Update


Cleaner XL 1.5

Cleaner XL 1.0 was released around 2003, and in my recent review in September, I complained that it was showing its age. Fortunately, Autodesk released an update in December, bringing the version up to 1.5. I’ve had the opportunity to try it out for the last month, and see how it compares to version 1.0.

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Posted: February 6th, 2006
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I made this…on my phone…

Reuters is carrying a story about a South African filmmaker who shot a movie entirely using cell phones. The “radically low budget” was set at $160,000, and it is being proclaimed as an incredible achievement.
But is it?
I mean, surely $160,000 would be better spent on actual cameras? Is it not more likely that the whole thing was done as some sort of gimmick?
I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, it’s just I can’t for the life of me see how it has any benefits doing it that way. He talks about being able to film non-stop, and yet, every cellphone I’ve used stops recording after about 3 minutes, and there’s only so much you can record onto a memory card, certainly less than an hour offered by video tapes. For a camera phone with a decent lens, it’ll cost more than hiring even the most basic video camera, and the frame rate is something like 12 or 15 frames per second. Even if you forget about the spatial or chromatic quality, what’s the plus side to all this? Apart from maybe an endorsement from Nokia*?
Anyway, I propose some ideas as to how the budget may have been spent:
1) Champagne (every night, as they laugh at the rest of the world for being suckers)
2) Bribing Reuters into running the story.
3) Regular laser eye surgery, needed to combat the effects of squinting at a small display.
4) Endless takes, because people’s phones keep ringing during the shoot.
5) Phone calls…

*note, digitalintermediates.org is not affiliated with Nokia in any way… We just like their phones.

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Posted: February 2nd, 2006
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