With the 2004 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show set to happen April 17-22, UK developer The Pixel Farm has announced six new tools aimed at digital video professionals, as well as an upgrades to the company’s PFTrack application, which tracks computer-generated video output against the original footage. The Pixel Farm will display all their new and updated applications during NAB.
PFTrack 1.6 features new optical analysis tools that track individual pixels from one frame to the next and build a data model of all the pixel movement in a sequence. It will be available April 30 at a cost of US$5,000.
The new technology in PFTrack forms the basis for four new Pixel Farm applications: PFClean, which quickly removes moving objects from a sequence — such as wire rigs — and replaces them with the correct background pixels; PFRetime, which can speed up or slow down shots and link elements so that changes to one are automatically made to others; PFBlur, which adds motion blur to moving objects; and PFPlate, which stitches footage into large panoramas. PFClean, PFRetime, PFBlur and PFPlate will ship at the end of April for $800, $500, $330 and $500, respectively. Bundle pricing will be available, but The Pixel Farm hasn’t revealed it yet.
The company has also revealed two more applications that will debut at NAB: PFSilo and PFPlay. The former provides analysis tools that build data models for DV clips as well as asset management capability that tracks video elements as they move through the production process. The latter can function as part of PFSilo or as a stand-alone environment; it provides a VCR-like way to view video clips in progress. PFSilo will ship at the end of the third quarter; no pricing has been announced. PFPlay will ship at the end of May in three footage capacities: one hour for $24,000, two hours for $28,000 and three hours for $33,000.
As MacCentral went to press with this article, product pages were not yet available on the Pixel Farm Web site, nor were system requirements.