MTI Film will showcase its new Cortex platform at NAB 2012. The company received positive responses when it previewed Cortex::Convey, the first offering in the Cortex family, at the Hollywood Post Alliance Technical Retreat in February. This new generation of Convey builds on the foundation of its predecessor – the automated, data-centric deliverables application used in MTI Film’s Control Dailies system. Cortex::Convey is a stand-alone application featuring a multi-threaded transcoding engine that supports all popular video codecs with an interface that is easy to use. The result is a simple, streamlined transcoding system that can be used at any phase in the postproduction workflow.
“The rapid shift to digital acquisition and tapeless delivery that has occurred over the past two years has changed the way post production is done and created new challenges,” said MTI Film vice president of product development David McClure. “Processes that were once housed under one roof are now often handled by different parties in different locations. Some of those processes can be unnecessarily painful or confusing to new users. Cortex is designed to eliminate that pain and confusion.”
Cortex::Convey is an alternative to automated transcoding applications that require specialized training or are needlessly complex. “It is perfect for editing rooms, post facilities, production offices, or any environment where transcoding from one format to another is required with a minimum of technical expertise,” said McClure. “Cortex includes a user-friendly template designer that makes transcoding an effortless process for all users.”
Cortex’s project management features include multiple deliverable templates per project, automated workflows, and a one-to-many render engine.
It includes MTI Film’s algorithms for down-conversion and color processing in a 32-bit floating point pipeline, as well as the latest real time, GPU-accelerated demosaicing algorithms for RAW camera codecs.
MTI Film plans to roll out other Cortex products to address other points in the production and postproduction process.
“A lot of time and money is wasted because creative decisions and other metadata cannot be passed seamlessly from one step in the process to the next,” said McClure. “It either has to be re-entered or is lost completely. The Cortex platform is designed to allow all the actors – from DITs to dailies colorists to assistant editors and more – to easily share this information while remaining focused on their central task, undistracted by a large, complex application.”
