OpenCubeHD MXF server used to master MXF JPEG2000 Lossless for 20th Fox Studio Production

TOULOUSE, France — 22 November , 2010 — EVS-OpenCube, a world-class provider of turnkey MXF digitization servers and software, announces that it has signed an agreement with Fox studios to supply them with OpenCubeHD units for MXF-file format ingest and production management. 20th Century Fox is one of the six main U.S. Film studios located at Century City in Los Angeles.
Film studios and post house are currently facing a major challenge: the volume of generated video material is increasing dramatically, especially in cases where production is based on an uncompressed format. The result is a significant increase in the needs for storage capability in production facilities. There is also the challenge of developing the HD Tapeless workflow so that is scalable and delivers optimal performance. This aspect is critical as the HD workflow ensures a smooth video file exchange with full interoperability, adding substantial value to the production chain.

For Twentieth Century Fox Studios, a compressed production file format, with no concessions as to video content quality and the actual fabrication process, was obviously the right road to take.

The Studio finally opted for Jpeg2K as a master format, and EVS-OpenCube proved to be the best-of-breed solution for mastering their file production. Based on OpenCubeHD servers, the Studio generates Mezzanine files in HD with Jpeg2K mathematically-lossless compression for encoding. The files are encapsulated in the appropriate MXF wrapper for audio/video aggregation, offering complete and reliable interoperability with third-party file exchange. The MXF file generated by the solution also happened to be standard-compliant and highly compatible with the systems already in place for Fox Studio’s workflow.

OpenCubeHD servers were easily integrated in the existing production workflow, controlled by a SOAP web services API for automatic ingest and conversion, making it a highly operative and scalable installation.