UPDATE RELEASE V9.6
Nov 7 '2023, build 1131
- Fixes on ARRI Raw reader using the new ARRI SDK, which could run out of GPU memory while at the same time the CPU mode could cause a crash of the application.
- Fix on the Canon Raw reader which potentially used a wrong default tint value.
- Fix on the XAVC reader for Canon media that failed to open certain files.
- Fix for DNx MXF reader where for files with a file name starting with V1, the associated audio tracks were not properly imported.
- The "Video IO: Show BMD sub-devices" Advanced Settings was not working properly.
- With a previous fix on ALE export, a new bug was introduced where 24 and 25 fps timelines were exported as 29.97 fps.
- The list of LED walls in the Stage Manager in Live FX was automatically sorted when saving the stage - undoing whatever order was set with the move up/down buttons.
- Fix for reading .pts (stitch) files, which not properly processes circular fisheye lenses (rather than only full frame fisheye and non-fisheye lenses).
- The ACES Compressor plug-in could sometimes invert the image.
Oct 20 '23, build 1130
- Removing leading and trailing spaces from scene and take metadata when reading broadcast wave files.
- The Media Browser did not show the projection type text for equirectangular 180 clips.
- The Stage Manager was not properly saved when deleting a wall.
Oct 9 '23, build 1129
- Converting drop frame timecode to have the correct start timecode was not working for 59.94 fps clips.
- No all (AVID supported) framerate where properly included in the header of an ALE export.
- Fixed an issue were connecting to a not existing Ip of a VideoIO router from Live Looks could potentially crash the application.
- When nesting a node in Live FX, the default input mode should be set to Loop.
- Fixed a potential crash on loading an XML timeline that contained compound clips,
- DJI ProRes RAW files now default to DJI D-Gamut and DJI D-Log for color space and EOTF.
- Updates on ARRI reader. Added an "HDR" button to use the HDR display render transform when applying the Look (when available) instead of using the default SDR transform. Fix on rendering the Look for ProRes files to match what is done with RAW files. The image proxy is now generated with the Look applied.
Sep 13 '23, build 1128
- Update ARRI Image SDK to the new 8.1.0 version. This version solves issues with handling the Look metadata for ALEXA 35 footage.
- Update on the Cineform RAW reader so it works natively on the Apple Silicon.
- Added a fix for USD rendering on an AMD graphics card.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.4.0. and included additional metadata.
Sep 1 '23, build 1127
- Fix for reading 16-bit monochrome DPX files created by DIAMANT-Film with uncommon resolutions and for SPIRIT-4K DATACINE 10-bit files.
- Update on the ProRes RAW to DNG converter where the exposure metadata is adjusted for Panasonic camera files so that certain other applications interpret the media correctly.
Aug 11 '23, build 1126
- Fix on the Live FX Projection Setup panel where the inner/outer frustum layers did not always behave correctly for certain equirectangular projection setups.
Aug 4 '23, build 1125
- ProRes RAW to Cinema DNG updates. Include extra metadata tags so that Resolve exposes V-Log/V-Gamut options when loading the rendered media. Increased performance of lossy encoding.
- Added an advanced system setting to always output source timecode with VideoIO, even when playing a timeline.
- When rendering a shot of a (derived) output node from the Media menu, the Range buttons would remain hidden when the render was stopped.
- Fixed an issue in the editor where the Varispeed control could show a wrong value if the active shot had a different framerate than the timeline.
- Updated the BMD RAW SDK to version 3.3.
July 4 '23, build 1124
- Various ARRI updates. The white balance controls did not always have the correct initial value for older footage. Applying a Look on ALEXA 35 could result in a corrupt image. Some footage with noise reduction parameters set could crash the application.
- Added support for the Vicon (camera) tracking system in Live FX Studio.
- Prevent starting Live Looks/Assist with not explicit channels created as this could crash the software.
- Added CDL values to the CSV report output.
- DMX updated. Output through sACN could miss the last channel of a fixture. Fixed an issue where if no network was available on the system, the DMX function could crash the application.
- The controls in the Lens (un)Distort plug-in could not deal with images bigger than 16k.
June 1 '23, build 1123
- Fixed an issue where in certain cases not all (embedded) audio channels of a QuickTime where processed.
- The Stage Manager camera display did not always refresh properly when the camera live link updated.
May 22 '23. build 1122
- SSL support did not always function correctly on macOS, which could cause issues e.g., publishing media or downloading DMX fixture templates.
- The default quality for jpeg output is set to 100%. This results in increased file sizes but prevents sub-optimal quality of e.g., snapshots or grade images in Live Looks.
- The Unreal Live Link in Live FX did not always pass the local timecode.
- When creating a projection setup, the inner/outer frustum layers did not always cover the full image.
May 10 '23, build 1121
- The Circle Take metadata item was not properly read when loading a rendered mov/mxf clip.
- Updated Blackmagic RAW SDK to version 3.0.
- The DMX function is now available in all Live FX versions.
- The Stage Manager in Live FX did not always update correctly.
- Fix on the Spout video capture which could show a random timecode.
- Fixed an issue with the watermark burn-in in the trial license.
- When a 2nd monitor was attached but the Dual Head was not enabled, the Vertical Sync would not work on the UI display.
Apr 12 '23, build 1120
Live FX
- Added the Spout/Syphon GPU texture share capture to the VideoIO framework. This allows you to record a Spout/Syphon capture, just like an SDI or NDI capture. The Spout/Syphon device and channel selection have been added to the VideoIO setup panel. The plug-in version remains as well. In addition, a Spout/Syphon GPU texture share sender plug-in was added to share an image with other applications.
- When creating a switcher node, maintain the in/out range that were set on the input nodes.
- Added the option to set a delay with Live Link parameters in the Live Link animation editor. In some cases, you need to use both realtime and delayed live link data in a single composition. When including a set-extension in the Projection Setup, the delay is now automatically used for the set extension tracker.
- Update on the Unreal Live Link. There is a new plug-in version available for UE5.11. This version includes applying the sensor size and update the focal length. The focus distance send through the Live Link was wrongly scaled.
- Extended the options of the 2DtoWall projection node for outer frustum display: a scaled inner-frustum display, use an equirectangular image or extend the frustum border pixels.
- When in the player with a single shot, the navigation markers could be reset to show keyframes.
- Added a Show Grid option to the USD node to display a "floor level" grid. This can be helpful with placing a 3D object in a scene.
- Various DMX light control updates.
- Added a Distribution Order settings with a fixture. This is meant for fixtures that contain multiple lights (light-beam) in multiple rows and the order can be per row or per column (second light is below the first).
- Added the option to select a network adapter for sending sACN data for cases where there are multiple network adapters. Both this network adapter selector and the one for ArtNet now show the names of the adapter rather than the Ip number.
- Added option to link a DMX channel to an OSC tag-value, to make it possible to remote control DMX channels. Ensure the OSC Source Live Link is enabled and enter the OSC tag to be used with the channel in the description field in the Channels tab in the DMX Control panel.
- Updated the Live FX manual.
General
- Updated Codex HDE SDK to version 4.0.3.
Mrt 31 '23, build 1119
- Various fixes and tweaks on the ARRI v7 reader. Updates for processing monochrome files. Color space setting was reverted when doing an undo for a color change.
Mrt 17 '23, build 1118
- Updated Chinese translations. 更新中文翻译
- Fix an issue where an output that had a color space set would revert to the colorspace of the input when deleting the rendered media.
- QuickTime render update. The transfer function tag is set to SMPTE ST 428-1 when the EOTF is gamma 2.6 and the color space is P3 or XYZ. This is a requirement for some other software when using the file for DCI mastering. Note that if the advanced setting "QuickTime: No gamma value" is disabled, the gamma value is added as tag.
- QuickTime audio fix to prevent a potential crash when opening a file with more than 16 audio channels.
- Fix on the use of project LUT path that was not saved properly.
- The previous build introduced an issue where certain panels (e.g. the channel controller in Live Assist) did not maintain their last used position.
- Added a field-of-view scaling option to the Unreal live link to adjust the focal length/field of view of the active camera that is passed to Unreal to generate an image based on the adjusted field of view.
- Updates on the NCam camera tracker implementation, including the option to pass the effective FoV of the tracker or tracker encoder value.
- The Camera Shot Link on USD nodes did not property pass along the xyz position.
Mrt 13 '23, build 1117
- Play Pro Studio. Rendering Pro Res Raw still images to DNG raw could fail with a message about the file naming not being unique. Further, in the AV menu - the Out setting was incorrectly limited for still frames.
- Fixed an issue for loading ultra large EXR files (resolutions greater than 17k x 17k). Note that the files will now load into your project but the grading options for depend on your graphics card. Most modern graphics card on Windows have a 32k x 32k limit. Older cards and on MacOS the limit is 16k x 16k. If you exceed the graphics card limitations, then the images are loaded tiled, and you can only apply a primary grade.
- Live FX. Added support for the sACN protocol with the DMX lights control. You can enable sACN and tie it to a range of universes in the DMX setup panel. In addition, next to repeating a fixture within a universe, you can now also easily repeat a universe over multiple subsequent universes. This allows for an easy setup of a light grid that links to (part of) a clip for color sampling. Furthermore, you can now also assign so called global channels: these dmx channels are only send after the n-number of repeats in a light-bar. The global channels can contain settings (like e.g., temperature or color space) that apply to all repeated light pixels in a light-bar. Lastly, this build fixes an issue with the color sampling if the color sampling area is rotated.
- Live FX. Opening the Preview from the Stage Manager could sometimes result in the dual head showing a black image. Also, the Preview sometimes did not have the correct size based on the Stage Manager settings.
- Live Assist. Added options to operate the Channel Controller through http: start / stop recording, update scene / take settings or select the active channel. This allows you to use and control Live Assist from another system / application.
Mrt 3 '23, build 1116
- Updated the BMD Videohub SDK to version 7.0.8. as the previous version could have issues with an Apple Silicon build.
- Fixed an issue with ProRes Raw to DNG writer that could cause a coloured line at the bottom of the frame for certain RAW image dimensions. Also fixed an issue with lossy compressed output, where the crop would not get applied in Resolve.
- Fixed issue with H.264 from a Canon EOS R7 where on the Mac the first two frames would not be played.
- Fixed problems with Phantom monochrome files where Log1/2 and ACES options did not disable the tone-curve and the exposure was showing wrong.
- The new setting to not minimize the dual head when the main window is minimized (only on Windows) did not work correct as playback appeared to have paused.
- Extended live links trackers to be able to pass lens (un)distort data. Currently implemented for the Mo-Sys tracker. The data can be live linked to the Lens (un)distort plug-in for realtime (un)distorting. You can use the Quick Path option in the Live FX menu to easily instantiate the Lens (un)Distort plug-in and live link it automatically. Other trackers will follow.
- Added a Set Origin to the Camera Calibration pane (on the Position-tab). Use this function to set the origin of your scene, without scanning an Aruco marker. The function presumes that the current position of the tracker is the scene-origin. The Origin Offset that you can enter in the panel is taken into account when setting the new Origin.
Feb 27 '23, build 1115
- Fixed a subtitle issue that was introduced with the v9.6 release where in case of switching between one and two lines the text was not placed correctly.
- Prevent a crash of the software when audio drivers are active while the device itself is not present.
- The progress indicator for the Consolidate / Backup was not accurate when including copy validation.
- The Trial version now includes (restricted) backup and (watermarked) ProRes Raw to DNG conversion.
- H.264 from a Canon EOS R7 with full range YUV was decoded to video range with AMD GPUs.
- Various fixes on the Live FX trackers. The NCam tracker would not always automatically recover when the server temporarily stopped. In some cases, the tracker server would send bogus data and crash the application. Prevent interpolation between tracker frames when using the MoSys tracker.
- Added an Advanced System (SConfig) setting to prevent minimizing the Dual Head when the main window is minimized (only available on Windows).
Feb 15 '23, build 1114
- Updates on Consolidate / Backup functions. The Parallel option was not functioning correct and, in some cases, copying to multiple destinations could lead to an error. On the Mac some hidden files were also copied. The xxHash64 checksum method did not function correct with multiple destinations.
- USD Node updates. Adjusting the scale should not affect the position of the model. The scale is now properly considered when calculating the Auto position. Increase the display precision of some controls and adjust the default value of the Near-plane setting. No longer include the local camera translate and rotate when linking to the Shot Camera. Remove the Link factor control as that is covered by the scaling of the model in the general tab.
- In Live FX, when applying a camera tracker - either through the Live Link panel or through the setup wizard panels in the construct - the shot base position is set to 0, the manual-option is enabled, and a pixel scale is set.
Feb 7 '23, build 1113
- Fixed an issue that prevented DNG rendering of shots that had their in/out range set.
- In Live FX keep the play position could jump when switching versions.
- When entering the player with a single shot the in/out range could not easily be toggled on/off.
Feb 6 '23, build 1112
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.6
General
Version 9.6 requires a re-activation of your license. If you have a valid v9.5 license, then the license is automatically updated to include the new 9.6 version and the re-activation is as simple as clicking the Activate button. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.6. Also note that this version is not fully backward compatible. You should not downgrade from this version and open a project in a lower version after it has been opened in v9.5 or before. Always create a backup of your projects before upgrading and we advise not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Media Management and Formats
- Added a new ProRes Raw -> DNG writer to convert ProRes Raw media to DNG Raw frames. The writer has options to set compression type and level as well as the bit depth for the DNG frames to control the size of the output. Note that when the writer encounters non ProRes Raw media as input it will stop processing. Also note that none of the grade on any of the input media is included in the DNG Raw output.
- Universal Scene Descriptor (USD) node. You can now load USD files directly from the file browser the same as any other supported media format. Also, USD support is now included with the standard installer rather than having to install a separate add-on with the underlying Hydra renderer as in the previous version. The reader includes the option to render an equirectangular image of the scene. Do note that USD support is currently Windows only. The USD camera can be linked to the shot camera, including the field of view.
- Various updates on the Consolidate Timeline function. Next to consolidating you have the option backup a specific drive or folder to one or more destinations, including writing a Media Hash List (.mhl) report with checksum information (either in the 1.0 or 2.0 format). The timeline consolidate now also includes certain media side-car files, like the BRAW xml settings file.
- Added a new column "Processed" in the Render Queue panel to reflect the last date/time the item was processed. Also, the queue items are now properly sorted, whereas before a publish or consolidate item were not included in the sorting with regular render jobs.
- Added support for Nikon Raw (.NEV files).
- Updated ARRI Image SDK to version 7.1.1. The new ARRI reader/SDK is now used by default also for older ARRI media. To use the previous SDK, set the specific file-filter in the file browser.
- Updated Sony Raw SDK to version 4.1.0. and fixed an issue with loading 4K 17:9 XOCN files.
- Added Fuji Log2 EOTF. This is now used as standard when loading Fuji media.
- Added the option to debayer to AP1 in the ProRes Raw reader to allow for an easier ACES render workflow.
- Added a project LUT folder setting to have a virtual root folder for LUTs.
Color Pipeline and Display
- Added a new tab to the Player - Settings - Monitor menu to manage scaling and offset per output: dual head and available Video IO. In previous version you could only set these properties for all outputs at once.
- Added Source Alpha qualifier mode in the Qualifier menu. This option simply takes the alpha from the source image (no color picking) and allows to apply the keyer options (such as e.g. grow/shrink) to that alpha channel.
- Added an M(atte) button to the plug-in browser to explicitly load the selected plug-in as matte to a layer.
Misc
- Added Closed Caption support in the Burn-in plug-in. The Closed Caption mode is available from the Global tab. When applied, the closed caption display takes over and you no longer can set individual text items.
- Per frame metadata in the metadata stack in the Player now updates while in playback mode. Note that you still need the have the "Read per Frame Metadata" enabled in the advanced settings.
- In the log output with xml script processing in the watch folder was not properly formatted.
- The parameters of the Lens Distortion plug-in can now be adjusted in realtime. A new Crop option was added to remove any black created by the Undistort process. This is only available when entering the distortion parameters, not when using an external UV map.
- This build introduces the concept of a composite master-camera. Each node in a composite has its own camera setup. As of this build you need to explicitly activate the camera to use it in a render. If a camera is not explicitly activated, then the node will use the camera of its parent. This way, you only have to control the camera in the root node of your composite.
- Fixed an issue when saving a timeline to file with plug-in nodes that are not available on the system. The nodes were lost when loading the timeline back in on a different system.
- The size of plugins on a layer where not always properly adjusted when copying the layer from one node to another.
Play Pro Studio
- Play Pro Studio is a new product that builds upon Play Pro and expands it with a series of new tools.
- Added ProRes Raw to DNG Raw transcoding (see above). If a source shot contains audio, this is written to a separate audio file.
- Extended the existing render options with audio quality, bit depth, sample rate settings as well as an auto audio channel selection control.
- Play Pro Studio includes the media Consolidate and Backup functions to consolidate / backup a timeline or a specific drive or folder to multiple destinations.
- Added trim video functions in the (relabeled) AV Trim menu.
Live FX
- Live FX has been extended with a range of functions and features for LED Wall projection. At this moment, the full description of the functionality is not yet available in the Live FX manual but will be shortly.
- At the heart of projection is the new Stage Manager. The Stage Manager is where you define the position and shape of the LED wall(s) you are using. This information is used, together with the camera position, to determine the correct image to be send to each wall. In the Stage Manager you also determine how display outputs are mapped on each of the LED walls. The Stage Manager can be opened from the Projection Setup panel in the Construct (see below) or from the Live FX menu in the Player. You can maintain multiple stage configurations, however only one can be active at any one time.
- In the Stage Manager you can either load the shape and size of an LED wall from an object (.obj) file or create a wall model based on number of LED tiles, resolution and curvature of the wall. Once you have the wall mode you can adjust its (world)-position from the stage/tracker system origin.
- In the Mapper tab of the Stage Manager, you set how the LED wall(s) relate to the physical display outputs of your system. Aim is to prevent unnecessary scaling (by the LED wall processors). You can map a single wall to one or more outputs (with different offsets) or you can map multiple walls on a single big output. The latter case can e.g. be used with the Nvidia Mosaic option where a single big virtual output is defined that maps in turn to multiple DP/HDMI outputs. The advantage of this route is that you can output directly from the GPU rather than going out through VideoIO and as such can reduce latency.
- The mapper function also has a Preview option. This shows a test pattern to all the defined and mapped walls. For this, a Switch node is used. For each mapped wall, a channel is created in the Switch node. In the channel controller of the Switch node the channel is directed to the correct display. In case of a mosaic, the Switch node generates the correct mosaic image. Note that the Preview function does not take the shape of the LED walls into account. This is purely meant to ensure that the mapping (offsets) is correct, and no pixels are lost.
- The Projection Setup panel can be started from the main toolbar in the Construct and is used to quickly and easily create a complete composition for LED wall projection using the active stage. By default, the panel assume you will use the active stage configuration. You can enter the clip to play, which camera tracker to use, if you want to highlight the camera frustum on the LED wall (or rather dim the surroundings a bit) and if you want to capture the camera image back in and potentially do a set-extension in case the camera captures outside of the wall. Based on the selection the resulting composition shot is placed on the Construct and opened in the Player.
- At the top of the composition is usually a Switch node with for each mapped LED Wall a channel plus optionally a channel for the camera capture and set-extension. The input of each channel is a projection node and the source clip. Each of the channels can be managed and graded separately. However, for the projection composition a special Switch node is used that contains a number of controls to directly manage all channel projection nodes at once – e.g. to rotate the 360-background clip for all channels at once. Furthermore, I the channel controller for the Switch node you can toggle between Master and Channel mode. In Channel mode you effectively grade on the active channel. In Master mode, any grade that you create is applied to each channel (on top of the channel-grade).
- Depending on the type of clip you want to project on the LED wall, you would use the 2D->Wall plug-in (for regular media) or the Eq->Wall plug-in (for 360 equirectangular media). The plug-ins use the data from the active Stage Manager (wall shape, position and resolution, camera position) to create the image to project so that the Camera captures the correct image. With the 2D-Wall plug-in you can also project beyond the active camera frustum to generate ambient light on the LED wall on the part the camera does not capture. With the Eq->Wall plug-in you decide whether to create a projection based on the physical camera representing the center of the 360 spherical image or whether to have the 360 spherical image being shown in a dome and to navigate inside the dome based on the physical camera position.
- The Stage-Matte plug-in generates a matte based on the position and shape of the LED wall(s) and the current camera position. This matte can be used e.g. to highlight the camera frustum on the projection or when inverting the matte (effectively showing you where the wall(s) are not) to generate a set-extension image on the camera capture image.
Live FX (continued / general)
- In the previous version it was not possible to record multiple channels in a Switch node at the same time. That is fixed in this build. After recording, the channels are loaded back as separate clips, not wrapped in a new Switch node.
- The Channel Controller for Switch nodes now maintains all settings over sessions, including the master/channel mode. The control layout has been adjusted somewhat. The channel transition controls have been moved to the last tab.
- The Live Setup panel now has an option to add a Light Wrap to the composite, using the Matte wrap plug-in, to enhance the green-screen key.
- Added a "Light Card" option to the Quick Paths in the Live FX menu. A light card is basically an extra light-source on an LED wall (which should not show on the camera): in this case a round layer with a color frame.
Live Assist/Looks
- The menu for managing grades and recordings was relabeled to Library. In that menu, a range of new functions were added to easily rename, move or delete existing recordings or grades. Note that the delete function will physically remove the grade or recording from disk. No Undo option.
- Added a function to open a grade or recording in a Reference channel. This is a temporary (extra) channel so that you can view the output on a specific monitor or in a video wall with the other channels. To open a recording in the Reference channel, use the Replay dropdown in the Library menu. You can link the Reference channel to a specific monitor from the Settings tab in the Setup panel. Use the R(reset) option in the Channel Controller panel to clear the reference channel. Note that if a grade is loaded into the reference channel it can be updated and stored to update the grade. When using the Save All option, the content in the reference channel is not automatically saved.
- Added a "Show Notes.." in the Grades/Replay dropdown in the Library menu to make the function more explicit available than having to click the tag in the proxy image.
- Added a 'Rec No' column to the recordings list that shows the record number of a recording (useful in case of multiple recordings with the same scene/take numbers).
UPDATE RELEASE V9.5
Jan 24 '23, build 1116
- Updated Blackmagic RAW SDK for Windows and Mac to version 2.8.
- Fixed an issue on the Mac with loading DNx MXF media where the audio file that was tied to the video did not automatically load.
- Some of the reference frames in Live Looks/Assist had a reel-id and a specific timecode baked in.
- Ensure that the dual head display in Live Assist/Looks is automatically scaled to use the full screen.
- Update on the DNx writer where audio tracks did not automatically get deleted when deleting the rendered video.
- Fix on the BoxIO implementation and adding extra logging on requesting metadata from the LUT box.
Dec 19 '22, build 1115
- Fix on Video IO audio capture and playback which could stutter. The audio channel record settings in Live FX were not (always) properly (re)stored.
- Adjusting the in/out-points from the Live FX menu did not always update the player navigation controls correctly.
- The fit to shot function (Ctrl+T) in the Editor did not always work correctly
- The Nest option or adding plug-ins in Live FX did not always work correctly.
- The Switcher channel controller was only available when the switcher node was explicitly selected and not when navigating the node-tree, even if the navigation-lock was enabled.
- Include focal length, focus and sensor size in the OSC live link output.
Dec 2 '22, build 1114
- Rendered 4K DCI J2C files did not contain the correct TLM markers.
- Certain controls of the Matte-Wrap and Lens Blur plug-ins could not be animated or live linked.
- Fixes on the Phantom-reader. The Highlight Recovery option did not work correctly with certain shots. Sometimes an included user matrix did not show up for selection properly. Some BGR files were treated as RGB.
- In Live Assist the selection list of Video-IO channels did not always fit the full channel reference text. Also, the actual video-wall settings were not always properly reflected in the settings tab.
- Added an extra option to the batch-functions in the layer list: remove all layers with the same name. Also, if a player range is set - the batch function will now only apply to the shots in the range rather than the full timeline.
- In some cases, the OCIO plug-in would show its input upside down.
- On the Mac, the (control surface) devices list in the system settings would not always show all available items.
Nov 17 '22, build 1113
- Fix on ARRI reader where processing could fail if the GPU used was not the first CUDA device on the system.
- Update on QuickTime output which now uses the Rec709 conversion matrix for RGB to YUV conversion for P3 color spaces.
- Fix for AJA (Io 4K) VideoIO where the HDMI input was only working for channel 1.
- Fix on the clip naming for recording in Live FX, where adding a letter based code to ensure the filename was unique did not work correct. In this build a new default naming mask is set (which overwrites any previous set filemask!), which includes the date and time of the recording. You can still update the default filemask in the Live FX menu in the Recording tab. To ensure any filemask results in a unique filename, a character code might be added automatically (A, B, .., AA, AB, ...).
- Implemented a workaround on capturing Sony SDI clip name metadata which on some cameras changes unexpectedly, interfering with the recording in Live FX.
- An earlier fix on Cinema DNG- and Photo raw reader was not fully included in the Mac build.
- When creating a stereo node from 180 side by side media, the created right- and left-eye nodes in the composite should not be flagged as stereo itself.
Nov 11' 22, build 1112
- Fixes on the Lens Undistort plug-in. Using a UV or ST-map could inadvertently cause a pixilation effect if the map had a different resolution than the plug-in. The direct load function for UV/ST-maps in the plug-in did not support for 32-bit media. In certain cases the plug-in could affect other graphics in the interface to fail.
- The video format resolution in an ALE header was not always correct when using higher than HD resolution.
- Fix on USD support for models without animation.
- Small improvement for chroma interpolation for 10-bit YUV to RGB conversion.
- Updates on processing Sony SDI metadata. Adjusted the check on the clip-name that is also used to determine the record-state. The first 4 characters of the camera clip-name are now always used as reel-id metadata.
- Added parameters to the #recname metadata code to make it possible to use a substring of the clip name.
Oct 31 '22, build 1111
- The USD render plug-in now also processes any animation in the USD model.
- Fixed a rounding error that could cause a small color shift in RGB to YUV conversion.
- On macOS also scan the $HOME//Library/Fonts and /System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental folders when building a fonts list.
- Prevent freezing of the interface or stalling of playback because the selected clip in the node-tree is a single frame or a short clip on top of a live capture node.
- Fix in Live Looks where applying a previous stored grade on a channel that had an effect from the Effects menu applied could crash the application.
- Fix on audio playback which could stall when the timeline wrapped with the synchronization set to audio.
Oct 25 ' 22, build 1110
General
- Another fix to prevent a potential stall on startup when using a Chinese input method.
- The Cinema DNG- and Photo camera raw reader did not always use the correct crop and size metadata. Also updated to libRAW 0.20.0.
- The Plug-in browser would sometimes open without the last used selection.
- Drag/dropping a clip from the staging area of a (parent) shot as fill/matte/input of a composite did not always use a clip-reference but made a copy of the clip.
Live Assist/Looks
- Setting an input LUT on a live channel in the setup panel would not show up next time when opening the panel while the LUT was still active.
- The quick keys for the main tabs at the bottom in Live Looks/Assist did not work anymore.
Live FX
- The switcher node no longer automatically scales its inputs if the resolution differs. To use clips of different resolutions in the switcher node, you should insert a transformer node to do the scaling.
- Added the option in the Eq->2D plug-in to also link the xyz position to the virtual camera (tracker). This option comes with a scale option to adjust the meter-offset to a pixel offset in the equirectangular sphere.
Oct 20 '22, build 1109
- Improved fallback on the ProRes software decoder in case the hardware acceleration fails.
- The trial watermark version produced flawed LUTs, especially visible in Live Looks when using a LUT box.
- Fix for a stall that could occur on startup when a Chinese inout method is used on macOS.
- Updated Canon CRM SDK to version 2.8.
- Updated ARRI Image SDK to version 7.0.4.
- Fixed an issue where the license panel would not always show the last activated key(s).
- HLS Livestream did not properly work with software encoding.
- In the Eq->2D the roll direction was inverted from the virtual camera.
- In Live FX in some cases a live link on a fill/matte node with a smaller length than the main node was not updated properly.
- Make sure a blue frame is rendered in case of an error to ensure it does not pass by unnoticed.
Oct 07 '22, build 1108
- ARRI Alexa 35 updates. Clip Name and Reel ID metadata were extracted incorrect, which also affected the record trigger for Live Assist and Live FX. Also fixed a potential crash when the Exposure Index was set lower than 160.
- Fixed an issue where dialing in softness on a layer with the opacity set could lead to the wrong overall opacity used.
- The Slip, In and Out controls for a fill/matte could have a wrong maximum allowed value set.
- Generator plug-ins are now instantiated (on a layer) with an explicit in/out range set so that animation of the plug-in controls behave as expected. Also fixed an issue where the controls of effect plug-ins with an animation did not always properly update to show the correct value.
- The colorspace and eotf lists in the various drop-down controls are now alphabetically sorted.
Sep 30 '22, build 1107
- Updates on the new Burn-in backdrop function. Improved antialiasing for rounded corners and prevent the margin from extending when the radius of the corners is increased. Fix issue with using the Fit option with right aligned text.
- Updated the Antilatency tracker SDK to version 3.5.3 in Live FX.
- When applying a plug-in on a node (rather than on a layer) in Live FX, the player and node-tree did not update correctly.
- Fix in Live Looks where a cached version of a look could be shown after updating the look and loading it in the split view.
- The shutter-angle metadata for Sony Raw media was shown in minutes rather than in degrees.
- The Fill blur did not always properly update when changing the shot Projection Type.
- Fixed issues with ProRes LT hardware accelerated encoding on M1 CPUs with macOS 13.
Sep 20 '22, build 1106
Live Looks / Assist
- Added an option to save just the single (active channel) grade rather than always update all channels.
- Fixed an issue with scanning / finding the IS Mini LUT box.
- Added the "Show grade in dual view" option to the Grades dropdown in the history panel to view the selected grade in the dual view for easy comparison. You can also drag / drop a grade (proxy) into the right view of the view port when in dual view.
- Removed the setting for a separate recording-path. Using two paths would interfere with the proper listing of recordings in the history tab and report generation.
- Fixed an issue with report generation where some proxy images of a report would not be included.
- The default clip vs grades filter in the history panel was not properly set for a Live Looks license.
- Drag/drop a grade onto the active channel in the view port did copy the grade but did not create an undo action.
Live FX
- Support for Antilatency (camera) trackers. In the Live Link you select the Antilatency environment (sensor layout) and tracker (position) placement to use. These can be defined using the Antilatency Service app.
- The USD reader can also handle *.usdz (compressed) files but the file-filter did not reflect this.
General
- Updated the ARRI Image SDK to version 7.0.3. and fixed an issue that could produce invalid values for per frame metadata with ARRI ProRes MXF.
- Implemented backdrop options in in the Burn-In plugin that allows you to set the backdrop transparency, color, margin and rounded corners.
Sep 12 '22, build 1105
General
- Fixed a potential Fail Fast exception on Windows that could occur when closing the software and prevented e.g. an auto restart after activating a license.
- Updates on ARRI 35 processing - ensuring the correct display position and added Look and Texture metadata items.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.3.1.
- Update on ProRes RAW where for ACES output an explicit D65 to D60 white point conversion was added when coming from Rec2020.
- No longer use the standard ACES ODT for the UI and Dual Head color space conversion when it is targeting Extended Dynamic range but rather use the regular matrix conversion to prevent any tone-mapping.
Live FX
- DMX updates. A DMX fixture is now always tied to the root node of a composition so that the color sampling remains the same when navigating through the composition. This also means that the overlays are only visible when the root node is selected or locked. You can now adjust which switcher node to use with each fixture separately rather than as a global setting for all fixtures. Finally, a fix for a potential fix when setting the repeat mode to a value that could cause a very small sample area.
- Two fixes for the FreeD tracker live link. The Z-axis tracking could be inverted. Second, the nodal offset from the calibration screen was not properly applies to the selected FreeD tracker. Note that this also means full / proper support for the new Vive Mars camera tracker. Make sure you update the firmware on your Vive Mars to the latest version to include FreeD support.
- The Layer picking model did not take the Relative option into account, making it hard to select layers in the viewport if the camera was not in its default position.
- The Scene-Take panel was not updated after recording while the auto-take update option was enabled.
Live Looks
- Added support for the new AJA Colorbox LUT box. The configuration panel for adding / selecting LUT boxes has been tweaked a bit to create space for the new LUT box option. The AJA Colorbox can capture both an image as well as the camera metadata.
- The Canon camera metadata tag was not handled properly when saving a grade.
- Added support for capturing camera metadata with the BoxIO LUT box.
Aug 31 '22, build 1104
- Various updates and fixes for processing new ARRI 35 media. Updated the SDK to version 7.0.2.
- Hardware encoding for ProRes 422 LT has been disabled after detecting issues with the M1 Pro/Max CPUs.
- Fix in Live Assist which could lose its live connections after restarting the application.
- Inserting a plug-in in the node tree in Live FX did not refresh the node tree correctly.
- Adding a plug-in on a layer on a shot with the in/out-point set could result in a freeze frame display unless a specific range was set on the plug-in in the fill/matt menu. If a plug-in on a layer does not have a specific media input (and thus implicitly uses the base shot) the slip/in/out options in the Fill/Matte menu are now disabled as they do not have a function - the range of the base node as set in the editor is always used.
Aug 23 '22, build 1103
Live FX
- Unreal Live Link. Updated to increase throughput of tracker data to Unreal. The UE Live Link plug-in was also updated (v8) to provide more stable timecode. Make sure you use the latest version of the plug-in with this Live FX build. The Unreal Live Links also did not take any live animation options (range / offset / factor) into account that could have been set for the scene camera.
- Camera Profiles are now stored as system settings rather than per project. To get previously stored profiles with a project available, just open and close the project they were stored in once.
- DMX update. The color sampling for DMX is now much more efficient to minimize any impact on media playback. Also the size of the sampling area does no longer affect performance.
- Notch Block processing. Rotations were not always processed in the correct order, resulting is an incorrect roll rotation.
- H264 was wrongly disabled as recording option in Live FX.
- The Spout plug-in was only available in Live FX Studio and not in the regular Live FX. The Lens blur plug-in is now available in SCRATCH as well (not just in Live FX). The (Un)distort plug-in was renamed to "Lens (un)distort".
General
- Various updates of the (XSLT) reports: When selecting a timeline (with the Basic, Consolidate and Metadata reports), the Duration in the header section is now shown in frames (rather than just in seconds). This is using the timeline framerate. When the report is created for a project, group of clip selection - the Duration is still based on the individual clip framerates and show in seconds, including a fraction. The Review report has been updated to include proper page-breaks so images are not split and is now showing timecodes instead of frame numbers.
- The "Wrap in Stereo Node" control in the stitch setup panel could be wrongly disabled.
Aug 05 '22, build 1102
- Timecode of Alexa 35 ARRI RAW was not always read correctly.
Aug 04 '22, build 1101
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.3.0.
- Updated ARRI Image SDK to version 7.0.1.
- Fixes for ARRIRAW metadata values Camera Model, Lens Focal Length and Lens Focus Distance.
- When decoding ProRes 4444 MXF files sometimes the alpha channel was ignored.
Jul 15 '22, build 1100
- ARRI Raw v7 reader updates. The new reader did not yet use the project media defaults. Fix on using ARRI Looks with ProRes.
- USD Plugin fix for combining the local camera and linked shot camera translation and rotation.
Jul 12 '22, build 1099
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.5
General
Version 9.5 requires a re-activation of your license. If you have a valid v9.4 license, then the license is automatically updated to include the new 9.5 version and the re-activation is as simple as clicking the Activate button. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.4. Also note that this version is not fully backward compatible. You should not downgrade from this version and open a project in a lower version after it has been opened in v9.4. Always create a backup of your projects before upgrading and we advise not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Live FX / Live FX Studio
Assimilate Product Suite version 9.5 introduces a new member to our product family: Live FX. Live FX targets virtual production, both green-screen and LED wall workflows. For a quick overview:
- Green / blue screen keying & garbage masking
- Camera tracking: Mo-Sys, NCAM, Intel, HTC & more
- Volume Grading
- Live Compositing with 2D and 3D Environments
- Support for 3D Notch Blocks
- LED wall control
- DMX lighting control based on LED wall image content
- Recording of video & metadata
- Metadata & Comp prep for VFX post
- Live Link to Unreal Engine
- SDI/NDI capture & output
- Direct GPU texture sharing with other apps
- Native support for Universal Scene Descriptor (USD) format support with the Pixar Hydra renderer.
For a full overview of the Live FX functionality go here (please note that this is still a WIP getting it updated with the very latest build).
Live FX comes in two flavors: Live FX and Live FX Studio and is available as a monthly subscription, a 3 month, 1 year or permanent license.
When you participated in the Open Beta for Live FX you can continue using the license key. Reactivate it with the new build. It will still be fully functional for another 2 weeks. After that, the license will need to be reactivated once more and from then on continue as a personal learning edition with a watermark. In the online store you will find early adapter promotions for the open beta participants.
Live Assist / Live Looks
- A new menu was added for managing recordings and/or looks. The menu includes extensive search and filter options to quickly retrieve and review earlier made recordings and looks.
- The “All” recording option is now also available in combination with the Auto-record option. When setting the All option, the system will start recording all active channels when only one channel is triggered by the camera. The recording will stop all channels when that same channel gets the stop trigger.
- You can now set multiple in-and out points during a recording. The in- and out points are marked with blue and cyan notes. A Range dropdown control is available in Replay mode to select a specific in-out range of the clip.
- The Keyer menu has been replaced by two Comp menus to allow for an additional compositing layer with the live input.
- Added flip-flop controls to the framing menu.
- Video IO panel updates. The Video IO panel now shows an image for all active input channels. All USB devices are now listed as separate devices (with a proper device name rather than just having a generic USB device and having to select input sources with it. NDI source selection is now also done from within the Video IO panel. You can now set / override the color matrix (for YUV/RGB conversion) per input channel.
- Allow to record ACES cc/cct format directly. This allows for a full ACES workflow without running the risk of clipping media when recording.
- Added the option to save a look over a/multiple prior stored looks, including updating the proxy and grade image.
- The Replay button on the Channel Controller always plays back the latest recorded clip. The Replay button in the Recordings list menu replays the selected item.
- The Channel controller panel has been simplified. The date-control has been removed. The current date is now always used to tag a new recording / saved grade. Notes with a recording or grade can now be made through the new recordings/grades list menu and tied to individual recordings and grades (use Quick key ‘N’ to open the notes editor with the selected recording/grade item in the list of selected proxy image). The button to refresh the LUT box image has been replaced by short key 'l'.
SCRATCH: General / Formats / Color pipeline
- Added ACEScc and ACEScct as EOTF options and allow ACES AP0 and AP1 color spaces to be combined with any EOTFs. ACEScc and cct were before only available as grading spaces. By treating them also as regular EOTF options you can now also render / load ACEScc/cct media.
- Update on in/out points handling of fill/matte shots. When adding a plug-in on a layer, the in/outs of the node are no longer explicitly set. This prevents freeze frames when copying layers with plug-ins. Also, using the Reset on the Calculator for the in/out controls in the fill matte menu clears any earlier explicit set in/out of the plug-in.
- Support for the ARRI Alexa 35 using the v7 SDK. An additional ARRI reader was added for this. By default, all earlier ARRI media formats are still read with the original reader, unless the new reader is explicitly selected. All Alexa 35 media is read with the new reader. Note that the the old and new reader might produce slightly different results when compared.
- Support for BMD Raw version 2.6, including support for per frame metadata.
- Added a highlight recovery option with the Phantom Raw reader.
- Added support and panel mappings for Streamdeck devices. To get a device fully functional, you also need a Streamdeck template which is available from here.
- Added the option to create groups of guides and as such display multiple guides. Added an aspect control to more easily enter the data for a new guide template.
- Allow using #code when batch adding notes from the Construct menu.
- Update on the (un)Distort plug-in. You can now add a UV or ST map directly to the (second) input of the plug-in. Use the ST Mode option to interpret the image as an ST-map rather than a UV-map.
- Updates on the Timeline Consolidate. The progress of a consolidate jobs is now also shown from the logon screen.
- Support for USD (Universal Scene Description) 3D scene format and Pixar Hydra renderer, using the new USD plug-in. Currently this is for Windows only and requires an additional setup of the USD/Hydra library (see below). In the USD plug-in you can adjust the position and rotation of the scene, toggle whether to use the scene lights and textures and adjust the position and settings of a custom light. You can optionally link the scene (virtual) camera with the virtual camera of the shot. To set things up follow these steps:
- Download the USD library - http://downloads.assimilateinc.com/misc/USDLib_v01.zip.
- Unzip and place in a folder on your disk (e.g. c:\USDLib\)
- Enable and add the folder path to the [USD Package location] Advanced System Setting in Live FX.
- Open a shot in the player and add the USD plug-in (Live FX section) to your composite.
- Use the Load button to actually load a 3D model from file.
- Support for NotchLC rendering – requires special license.
- Updated BMD Decklink SDK to version 12.3. Updated the AJA SDK to version 16.2.2.
- The #audiofile hash code no longer includes the file extension of the audiofile. That way the extension can be set separately and is better usable in a file naming mask.
UPDATE RELEASE V9.4
Jun 24 '22, build 1099
- Not all per frame metadata items with ARRI and RED were tagged as such and did not properly update.
- The metadata included in Broadcast Wave output was not formatted correct.
- Update on the AJA Video IO which should only send HDR metadata if that is enabled for the device in the Video IO configuration.
- Scanning for LUT boxes over wifi did not always work correctly on Windows.
- Fix in the Mac installer to prevent getting the "You need to install Rosetta" message on Apple Silicon Macs.
- Update on the YUV conversion that could with cause issues when rendering certain resolutions.
May 20 '22, build 1098
- When saving an EDL it could happen that the output file was overwritten by a binary export of the timeline.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.2.2.
- Added the DCI XYZ color space that includes a white point adaption and the DCI normalization scale (of 48 / 52.37). The white point adaption for DCI XYZ and P3 DCI can be configure with the "DCI white point" Advanced Setting (DCI, D65 or D60), by default the DCI white point is used.
- Added Leica L-Log EOTF.
- Editor fix where after switching between versions the in/out point controls where not always properly updated.
- The Stream Reader did not correctly read RTSP streams.
- Added the ND Filter metadata when live capturing from an ARRI camera.
- Fix for audio capture which could still be active when coming from a Live Assist session and then entering SCRATCH, causing the regular clip audio not being played.
- The Auto record state for recording was not properly restored in subsequent sessions.
- Pressing the End key while in the multi-line textbox did not move the cursor to the end of the line.
Apr 29 '22, build 1097
- Fix on AJA Video IO where when capturing 2 channels, channel 2 would get the same audio as channel 1.
- If a node is not rendered yet, the #rdate should just return the current date rather than the 'yyyymmdd' mask.
- Added default settings for white balance, kelvin and tint for Canon media.
- When changing the color space of a nest node through the properties panel in the construct, the Apply mode was always switched off.
- Opening v9.3 or older projects in v9.4 could result in grades not being visible because the camera settings contained the wrong far plane value.
- Clicking the Guides on/off on the Display Panel settings was not always working properly.
- You can now double click the title bar of the various tool panels (e.g. Annotate / Scene-take) to collapse/expand them.
- In Live Assist, snapshots are now automatically loaded back into the Gallery-References tab.
- Editor fix where adjusting an out-point was not always correct.
Apr 10 '22, build 1096
- Updated ProRes RAW SDK for Windows. This version should add back support for the AMD GCN 4 architecture (Radeon RX 580).
- Fixes in Editor. Changing the vari-speed mode would undo any prior action. Adjusting the vari-speed with the mouse wheel did not always work properly.
- Still frames loaded through the New Timeline Option panel did not get the default still frame duration set.
- Using the length parameter with a #code set to 0 (e.g. #note[3,0]) did not pass the full text starting character onward.
Mar 25 '22, build 1095
- Update on OpenEXR writer to increase performance especially when writing to network storage.
- Updated the Avid EuCon SDK for Mac to version 2021.6.1.7 with support for Apple Silicon.
- The record tag in live assist was not properly stored.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.2.1.
- Updated AJA SDK to version 16.2.0 with support for the Io X3.
Mar 3 '22, build 1094
- Update on Canon Raw reader. Added support for per-frame metadata. Added "As Shot" option for ISO which uses the ISO settings in the metadata - also when the settings changes per frame.
- When using a standard ISmini LUT-box, the application would try and capture an image from the device while it does not have that capabilities. This caused issues.
- The filename of timeline audio was not shown in the editor menu when not explicitly clicking the channel.
- Updated the ProRes RAW SDK for Windows, with improved compatibility for AMD GPUs.
- Pdf reports generated on the Mac did not contain any proxy images.
- Fixed an audio issue with Sony ProRes MXF files.
- Updated Sony SDK with updates for new camera versions.
- The Replay function in Live Assist did not show the proper range of the shot being played.
Feb 18 '22, build 1093
- Fix a potential crash when playing a QuickTime file that contained more than the max audio tracks or channels that are allowed.
- Creating a new or copying a collector node could contain references to the source shots rather than copies.
- Update on the Canon Raw reader. Added an [ISO] option and a playback performance improvement, in particular when using a proxy resolution.
- Fix an issue that prevented adding a plug-in on a the root node when in Source mode.
- The pdf report function was not working on the Mac when in native Silicon mode.
- Fix for potential jitter and softness with animated scaling (framing) when using high order filters.
- Various fixes for the Play Pro Render options. The color space was not correctly set when render was not same as source. The 'To Separate Files' option was not always correctly available. A potential crash when rendering after the player was started from double clicking a file. The file name spec preview was not always correct.
Feb 11 '22, build 1092
- Slipping a shot in the editor by holding down Shift was not always working properly..
- Fix on XDCAM decoding which did not always use the correct YUV to RGB matrix .
- Fix on D10 AES3 audio decoding.
- JPEG2000 DCI encoding update - always use the default number of wavelet transform levels, given the specific output resolution.
- Entering the player with a single shot could be interpreted as a live capture node.
Feb 8 '22, build 1091
- Editor Updates. Allow extra zoom-out to easier adjust last shot in the timeline. Prevent unnecessary scrolling of the timeline.
- The Razor mode no longer automatically adjusts the play position. When hoovering over shots the when in Razor mode, the proxy overlays in the Viewport show the before and after frames where the cut would be made. The Razor automatically snaps to the play position if snapping is enabled. The Record In and Length controls were not always properly usable in Select and Trim mode.
- Transitions are now drawn without the glow so the edit is better visible. Improved the display of the timeline elements for higher resolution displays. Added Quick-key Ctrl+J for the Join function, introduced in the previous build.
- Updated ProRes RAW SDK for Windows which fixes issue with AMD GCN5 architecture GPUs like the Radeon VII and Radeon Rx Vega.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.2.0.
- Fixed an issue with the pdf report generator where selecting the same report but with a different proxy image position, maintained the same proxy images.
- XML scripting fix that prevented creating more than 2048 slots in a timeline.
- When using the "All" option with updating the framing, the rotation should only be included on the rest of the timeline in case of an explicit "Apply", not with any of the Fit options.
- Do not set the shot out-point (only the slot length) when doing a reverse assemble from an xml.
- Fix on NDI where the proxy image could be displayed wrong and a wrong YUV format conversion could lead to artifacts.
- The fix for Live Assist on updating the scene with the increment buttons from the previous build, now also applies when entering the scene directly in the textbox.
Jan 21 '22, build 1090
- Editor updates. Using the Length control while in Trim mode did not work correct. Added a Join function in the Timeline menu in the Editor to remove an edit and extend the left shot. Note that this function does not yet have a key-shortcut. Fix in audio menu where dragging the waveform to set the slip did not work anymore and you could not properly edit the video track. The move shot up or down a track function with Shift Up/Down keys did not work in trim mode and could crash the software when moving multiple shots at once.
- When setting an in/out point while in Replay mode in Live Assist, the audio could playback out of sync.
- The Add All (Video IO) Channels option in the Setup panel of Live Assist did not work.
- When using the increment/decrement buttons for the Scene will now also update the identifier if it contains an (alphanumeric) shot id. The scene now by default requires 2 digits (was 3). The default is still 3 digits ('001').
- Fix a freeze of the UI when recording in Live Assist. This could happen when changing the Video IO settings on the fly (e.g. framerate) or when recording while processing was not real-time.
- The Audio menu in Play Pro was not available anymore in v9.4. Also, when adding audio to a shot on a timeline that did not contain any audio yet could result in the audio only being audible after refreshing the project.
- The vertices animation channels where not visible anymore even with the corresponding advanced system setting enabled.
- Adding option in the Media Browser to select the specific checksum type to use (MD5, SHA1 or xxHash64).
Jan 13 '22, build 1089
- Various Editor updates. The Editor no longer uses the orange outline to indicate the current viewed shot as that caused confusion with the actual selected shot. The control state for the shot and transition when on the last shot in the timeline was not always correct. The (shot) Insert mode did not always behaves correct. Sometimes an slip offset was applied when extending shot. The in/out settings of a shot were still restricted to the media length even with the Clip Media Length preference enabled.
- In Live Looks toggling the grade on/off for the right view also toggled the grade on a linked LUT box. The LUT box should only follow the left / main UI view.
- Updated the Canon CRM SDK to version 2.7 with support for new Canon camera formats.
- Fixed an issue that prevented displaying the Guides on the SDI output.
- Fix crash in editor when dragging one DNx file on top of another.
- A new Draw Overlay function-suite for OFX plug-ins was added.
Dec 28 '21, build 1088
- Various updates on the Editor. When adjusting the position of a shot in Trim-mode, ripple is active. Slipping the media in Time-mode is done by holding down shift. The edit- and insert-modes were not all properly stored as user settings. Moving a shot to a new track followed by an undo would crash the application. Various fixes on editing the media inside a collector node.
- The TC-display for various controls in Color FX tab are not properly saved in and restored from the user settings.
- Fixed a potential crash when opening the Curve Editor from the Curve menu.
- The QuickTime reader could crash over certain audio codecs.
- The (un)Distort plug-in was now also available in SCRATCH (rather than Live FX only).
- The hdr-metdata report generator now also creates a pdf-version (next to the html version).
- Live Assist - fix on handling the clip-name metadata from an ARRI camera SDI capture which could cause recording invalid clips.
- Update on handling Extended Dynamic Range for the UI and/or Dual Head monitor on Windows. The default output was a little bit too bright. Also, the color scheme is automatically adjusted when the Extended Dynamic Range setting is enabled.
Dec 21 '21, build 1087
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.4
General
Version 9.4 requires a re-activation of your license. If you have a valid v9.3 license, then the license is automatically updated to include the new 9.4 version and the re-activation is as simple as clicking the Activate button. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.4. Also note that this version is not fully backward compatible. You should not downgrade from this version and open a project in a lower version after it has been opened in v9.4. Always create a backup of your projects before upgrading and we advise not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Main
- Live FX – Live Composition and Virtual Production. This is a new product and toolset within the Assimilate Product Suite. The product has its own release notes, available here. The product is currently still in a beta phase, where we encourage everybody to participate in.
- Full support for the Apple M1 Silicon.
- Editor update. The Editor has a new set of edit modes that align better with existing editors. The drag/drop model for multi-tracks has been improved and includes functions to prevent creating freeze frames by exceeding in-/out point ranges. Note that in the User Preference for the Editor you can switch the option back on to allow range settings beyond a clip's media size.
- To utilize the HDR capabilities of new computer screens and dual head monitors / tv’s, the advanced settings "Extended Dynamic Range for OpenGL for UI / Dual Head” were added. These settings ensure that the output is not clipped and can be interpreted as HDR. The settings have a slightly different effect on Windows and the Mac. On Windows the effect on the display of the UI controls is slightly more prominent. After enabling advanced setting you update the colorspace and EOTF of the corresponding monitor. For the Mac set the monitor colorspace to the actual colorspace of the monitor (P3, Rec2020) and the EOTF to a Gamma 2.2. On Windows the monitor should be set to sRGB with a Scene Linear EOTF. The operating system will then do proper HDR transform.
Color
- Update to ACES v1.3, including an option in the project settings to select between versions. Existing projects by default stay on v1.1. ACES v1.3 contains a series of new (P3) HDR transforms for different brightness levels. The software uses the Max Luminance settings in the HDR Mastering parameters in the Project Settings to select the suitable transform.
- Upgraded the OCIO plug-in to use OCIO v2.
- A Qualifier update with a number of new controls and the controls split over 2 tabs. A new de-noise option as a pre-keyer filter. New Clip White / Black options as post-key operations. The possible range of the Expand option has been substantially increased (do note though that higher values do affect performance).
- Added a new layer matte Copy blend mode, which causes that the only alpha passed is that which is generated by the layer itself.
- Added a new Matte Wrap plugin to create a matte for a light-wrap effect. Add the plug-in as matte on a layer after the keyer layer by selecting the Matte section in the Fill/Matte menu before opening the plug-in browser. Navigate the node-tree to get to the plug-in controls to set the size and gain of the Matte Wrap as well as the option to expand it outward or inward (Invert).
- To indicate even slight changes, the color-balls now show a tint in the middle area when a grade is applied.
- Added an Unlink colorspace/eotf advanced setting to prevent automatic update of the EOTF when selecting a color space.
- CIE plot did not always use linear XYZ as input. In the CIE plot settings you can now set both a colorspace and EOTF override used for the CIE plot.
Formats / Media
- Added an "Auto" options for selecting the audio channels when exporting ProRes, DNxHD and H.264/HEVC. When Auto is enabled the number of audio channels being exported is the same as the number of audio channels in the source files.
- Implemented dynamic per-frame metadata for Sony Raw media which includes e.g. the posture angles (pitch / roll).
Video IO / Monitors
- The Video IO panel can now be opened directly from the start screen. The output latency has been reduced. An advance setting to override the default number of pre-roll frames/buffers for video output was added. Furthermore, a separate Vertical sync option for UI and Dual-Head display was added (previously this was an implicit part of the selected sync mode).
- The GenLock function on the VideoIO card now automatically uses an external reference clock if available and if it is using the same framerate as the output channel is set to. All output channels are now synchronized.
- VideoIO devices are now hot-pluggable and settings can be updated while inside a project without the need for a restart.
- The startup logo and reference monitor splash screen could show too bright on HDR displays. The display now takes into account the EOTF settings for the display. Alternatively you can force the startup logo display in HDR PQ by enabling the corresponding advanced settings. Furthermore, the text display on the splash screen has been improved if the Video IO or Dual Head screen size differs from the UI screen.
- Note that the changes in the VideoIO setup also had consequences for external applications that use this functionality – like e.g. external software scopes. Check with the vendor of that software if it already supports the new VideoIO interface of the Assimilate Product Suite.
Product Specific
- Play Pro now also shows the Metadata entry panel in the project tree to enter metadata used in various reports.
- Added the paste options panel, including the Paste Forward function to Play Pro.
- The record-state did not always come through properly when using Teradek Bolt wireless equipment. You can now specify Teradek as the source (rather than the camera type) to ensure that the Auto record option works.
- Added Brompton as LUT box option in Live Looks and Live Assist to control the look on a video wall. This function can apply a (LUT) grade to one or multiple Tessera video wall controllers from Brompton Technology.
- Fix on the image capture function from the IS-Mini 4k LUT box for Live Looks / Live Assist.
Tools
- The Sync-player function can now handle longer computer names (mac-os recently extended the potential size of computer names). This does mean that you no longer can sync with older version systems.
- Added F1 - F5 function keys to the Remote Control function. These functions can dynamically be assigned to specific functions in the Remote Control panel.
Camera
- The Camera menu has been updated to accommodate various functions for the Live FX toolset. In general these changes do not affect compositions in a post-production / non-live context unless the virtual camera was explicitly used.
- The main change is that the virtual camera is no longer specified in just a (vertical) Field of View but rather with a Focal Length settings and Sensor Size (width, height and crop), which together determine the Field of View. The default values in the new setup differ from the original Field of View default.
- The virtual camera position is now specified with an origin position and an offset (which can be animated).
- The Far-Plane setting in the new setup is dynamically adjusted, which prevent the issue that layers could end up ‘behind’ the far-plane and effectively become invisible with very high resolution media (>8k).
Misc
- Added the SHA1 and xxHash64 checksum options next to md5 in the Construct consolidate. The Consolidate report to show the Checksum type that was used in with the timeline consolidation process.
- Importing still images automatically get a user defined length. The default length can be set in the Preference panel of the Editor.
- The Import function of the Animation Editor now allows loading in general csv files with animation data.
- New Lens (Un)distort plug-in.
- Update of the camera menu (to align / accommodate various Live FX functions).
- Playback is no longer stopped when minimizing the app (on Windows - macOS already had the correct behavior).
- Added a "Relative" option to the layer-Canvas setting.
- The startup screen now shows more specifically which modules are licensed.
- Some of the Assimilate plug-ins did not properly pass the alpha of their input.
- Use Ctrl + Shift + Arrow to move 10 frames. The exact number of frames can be set in the player preferences panel.
- Search function enhancements where you can specify the metadata item to search for: e.g. 'scene 01a' searches all scene metadata fields for the value 01a*
- The in/out parameters on the Fill/Matte menu can now show as a timecode.
- Added the [Note Delete] panel mapping to delete the note of a shot at the current play position.
UPDATE RELEASE V9.3
Dec 7 '21, build 1071
- ProRes RAW decoding was not properly working with the hardware accelerated decoder on Apple Silicon.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.1.1. Various tweaks for KOMODO and V-RAPTOR clips.
- The day/scene/take/shot metadata in Live Looks and Live Assist is also used in the underlying file naming scheme and as such certain characters should be filtered out.
Nov 19 '21, build 1070
- Fix on Aja VideoIO to prevent crashing of the application if the driver passes invalid data.
- Write CDL data in an EDL/ALE with 6 decimals.
- Fix in the Sync-Player tool where linked computers with long computer names could give issues.
Nov 5 '21, build 1069
- Fix on decoding H265 files where the coded width is larger than the presentation width.
- Performance improvements for scaling media that e.g. especially impact timeline renders where the media is decoded to a different resolution as the final output.
- Updated Blackmagic RAW SDK to version 2.2.
- Added a log warning for WDM audio when the software had to fall back to 16 bit stereo output because the required format is not supported by the audio hardware.
- The LGG option for the color wheels in the Dailies / Play Pro toolset (to produce CDL output with Lift, Gamma, Gain controls) was only working properly with a control surface when the color wheel menu was active. Otherwise it would produce Lift, Gamma, Gain values. Also, the JKL quick-keys were not working properly with the LGG option.
Oct 12 '21, build 1068
- Under certain conditions when rendering Sony RAW to EXR, an image could appear in the alpha channel.
- An update which aims to solve a Fail fast exception that certain users experienced when closing SCRATCH. Since this is not reproducible on any of our systems, it is not yet clear if this update will fix the issue.
- Various fixes for Live Assist: the auto record with a Panasonic camera did not result in the correct file names. Fixed an issue where selecting a recorded shot for Review could crash the application.
- The full serial of the IS-mini 4k should now correctly be displayed in Live Looks.
Sep 23 '21, build 1067
- Changed the order of tracks in a QuickTime render: audio tracks always after the video track and the timecode track last (the timecode track used to be always the second track). The new order better aligns with most delivery requirements.
- The DNx reader only explicitly sets an audio timecode when the source file contains one - rather than duplicating the video timecode as audio timecode.
- Add (source file extension) '#sext'-code for burn-in and file-masks.
- The ISMini 4K update of the previous build did not yet allow capturing an image from the 4K LUTbox
Sep 17 '21, build 1066
- Certain illegal characters in the metadata of an EXR file could cause the metadata editing and storing on the shot in SCRATCH to fail.
- Double click in the Grade list panel in Live Looks could switch the player in the wrong play mode.
- Messages in the event viewer referring to a slot position did not take the "Count from 0" (advanced) setting into account and as such point to the wrong slot.
- In certain circumstances reports did show the correct summary info. When a report was based on a selection of nodes could also contain the reference node that was set in the Editor for the timeline. The total length in frames could be off for framerates with a fraction.
- Support for the ISmini 4K LUTbox in Live Looks / Assist.
Sep 10 '21, build 1065
- Deleting the middle point of the curves could result in a black frame and potential crash.
- The DNx writer now creates an extra "Comments" metadata field that holds all the combined annotations as a single text. The individual metadata fields "Notes01_yellow" that hold a single annotation remains. The single Comments metadata fields is helpful for AVID Composer to have faster access to all notes.
- Extended the maximum length for project- and timeline-names to 128 characters. Since the names have a relation to physical folders and files on disks the names cannot be unlimited in length.
- The Extended Metadata and CDL export options for EDL and ALE were not properly maintained in the user settings.
- The initial Collapse mode in the file browser was not always correct.
- Updated the EULA with a section about streaming and uploading content from the the application.
- The Clone and Reveal offset controls of the vector paint had a maximum resolution beyond which they could not be used.
- The blinking text cursor was not very well visible in the notes editor on a high resolution display.
Aug 4 '21, build 1064
- Write Scene and Take metadata in QuickTime with the keys that are recognized by FCP.
- Audio scrub did not play the audio of the frame you scrubbed to but rather of the frame you came from.
- Added text-start and text-length parameters to the #scene and #take burn-in / filename mask-codes to filter out part of the scene and take values.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 8.0.4. with performance updates for AMD graphics cards.
- When creating a frame-reference the shot did not always properly included all the metadata of the original shot.
Jul 2 '21, build 1063
- BlackmagicRAW update to SDK 2.1. The shot color space was not always correctly set when changing the debayer settings.
- Added support for a new 2880x2880 format that will be available with Alexa Mini LF SUP 7.1.
- The same-as-source render was not working correctly for still images.
- Fixed an issue with audio playback through Apple Airplay for audio with a non-standard sample rates.
- Fixed an issue with selecting notes through #notes for the burn-in.
May 26 '21, builds 1062
- The Tint metadata value was not applied when loading a Sony Raw shot.
- In Live Looks, a double click in the History panel did not properly open a clip into the fual view show mode.
- The project name and label of the first channel in the project were linked - where changing one would change the other.
- You could not set a (regenerate) timecode of 23:59:59 for nodes with (decimal) framerates.
- We added an advanced setting to allow processing Blackmagic RAW media in half-float, to reduce VRAM consumption.
- The Quick-key j did not work in full screen mode
- Images not always updated while adjusting certain plug-in controls (only once at the end of an update).
- Sometimes the IP address of a BoxIO LUT box was not properly save.
- Added support for encoding / decoding alpha with DNx. We also added a leading zero to the audio-track filename track number so it reads back in properly with the video file.
- Added a Video/Full range option for encoding Cineform RGB(A) media;
- Fix on GPU code to prevent compilation errors with certain NVIDIA drivers (416.78, 417.35).
May 5 '21, build 1061
- Updated ProRes RAW decoding - where the various decoding options (ISO, Temperature, etc.) are now implemented through the Apple SDK to get the same result as other applications decoding ProRes RAW. In earlier versions the decoding options were not available in the Apple SDK and handled in the SCRATCH pipeline. As such, the results from this version might differ. Please keep this is mind when upgrading - this build is not backward compatible when dealing with ProRes RAW! Furthermore, with the new ProRes RAW handling, the decoding options supported might differ per camera. The available options per camera are listed here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204203#proresraw.
- The Auto-record option in Live Assist could sometimes produce multiple clips for a single take when using a ARRI camera.
- Added 'Capture Frame Rate' metadata item for Sony media.
Apr 16 '21, build 1059
- Fixed an issue with encoding h264 on systems with a high number of (virtual) cores.
- Activating NDI could sometimes lead to a freeze on exiting the software (Windows only). Also fixed an issue with selecting an NDI source input in Live Assist / Looks.
- Fix a small image offset that could occur when scaling to a resolution with an odd height.
- Fix for an issue with decoding 12K BRAW clips to proxy resolutions. Also added Blackmagic DWG and Blackmagic DI as native color space / eotf.
- In certain cases a wrong crop was applied when decoding ProRes RAW files (mac only).
- The auto-update in the Scene-take panel did not take a shot-identifier into account.
- The first annotation that was added to a shot from the metadata stack in the player was not always linked to the correct frame position.
Apr 2 '21, build 1058
- The MXF reader interpreted XDCam D10_30 - D10_50 incorrect.
- Fixed QuickTime issue with audio encoded with the Apple Lossless Audio codec.
- Another fix on HLG scene encoding.
- Update BRAW SDK to v2.0, fixing issue were certain files did not load with previous included SDK version.
Mar 19 '21, build 1057
- Fixed an issue with the software crashing on macOS 12.6 when trying to decode R3D files.
- A fix for issues when the situation where a single clip has multiple audio files linked that in total exceeded the max number of audio channels.
- BlackmagicRAW support updates. Removed 3D LUT as standard name/value metadata as that could interfere with exporting an ALE. Updated the RAW SDK to support their latest formats.
- OFX updates. Fix on display of 3D OFX parameters. Adjustment to bit format of image exchange with OpenGL based plug-ins.
- The HLG transforms to and from display linear incorrect. HLG can now also be used as an option for HDM metadata for HDMI video output.
Mar 11 '21, build 1056
- Some tweaks on OFX plug-in interface. Potentially set the 'use half float' option in the advanced settings for performance if the plug-in supports that bit format for GPU processing.
Mar 5 '21, build 1055
- Rendering H264 could on machines with a high number of processor cores sometimes result in missing frames in the render.
- The color space override for the CIE plot was not working correct on first opening the scopes.
- No longer include a "_v1" postfix in the filename for DNx mxf output for the video files. Audio files maintain the channel extension.
- Prevent crash with loading XDCAM with the -all formats- file filter.
- Auto downscale Aja VideoIO HDMI output when format is set 4K quads without 2SI (as AJA HDMI 4k output requires 2SI).
- Certain AIFF audio files did not load correctly.
Feb 26 '21, build 1054
- Fixed a render error for Panasonic OP1B XAVC source files with audio.
- The CIE Plot used a wrong color space on first frame render. The Waveform did not always render correct on macOS.
- Setting a display LUT for SDI would also change the display LUT for the UI. Resetting the Dual Head display LUT wrongly cleared the Dual View LUT.
- New R3D SDK to version 8.0.1 with fix for OpenCL ACES decodes.
- The new #audioslip code sometimes returned a wrong slip value.
- In live looks / Assist the Guides rendering on the reference displays was not enabled by default.
Feb 12 '21, build 1053
- Update on statistics and scopes. Waveform now has 3 options: RGB, RGB Parade and Luma. Colorize option for CIE Plot, Waveform and Vectorscope. ColorSpace override option for the CIE plot. Full and Video range for the Waveform.
- Improved performance processing Canon RAW.
- Fixed an issue with the Same as source render in Play Pro where when using a burn-in overlay the colorspace metadata was not properly included in the rendered media.
- Project metadata was not included when generating xml for scripting on opening of a project.
- Fix for CineForm RAW files from Kinetta film scanners.
- Light Illusion plug-in was not included in the Windows installer.
Jan 26 '21, build 1052
- Fixed error that was introduced in previous build where the circle-take metadata was included incorrectly in an ALE.
- The 'Disable high res. display' advanced setting was not working correctly on the mac.
Jan 22 '21, build 1051
- The Circle take metadata item was not included in an ALE export. Also added Circled to the basic- and clip metadata-report.
- The Panasonic IDT that is included in the installer die not load properly due to an invalid reference.
- Added code #audioslip for burn-in to display the audio slip (in milliseconds).
- Added an advanced setting to set the size (width) of the proxy images that are created with a report. That way you can potentially re-use the images for other purposes.
- The batch-function to delete all disabled layers could leave group-layers without a child layer active, which could affect the grade.
- Live Assist - added option to select the NDI source of a capture channel.
- Changed label 'ISO' to 'Exposure' for Sony Raw shots to better reflect that control by default takes the Exposure Index value of the shots’ metadata.
Dec 23 '20, build 1050
- The Pick and drag function of the Curves and Vectors were not working properly if the image was rotated.
- Added a Batch option to the Layer list panel. With this function you can update the active/inactive states of multiple layers on the shot / on the full timeline at once. This way you can easily alter the state of certain transforms over the full timeline, given that the layer in the various shots use the same naming scheme.
- The state of the History panel in Live Assist was not always restored properly.
- Video playback from a Safari browser through the Live Assist - Production Central webserver interface was not working properly.
- In Live Assist certain quick keys in the Gallery tab could crash the application.
- Updated R3DSDK version 8.0.0. Note that the OpenGL GPU decode option with this SDK is labelled Beta. It is not enabled by default but can be activated through the Advanced setting. Note that this function is still very slow on AMD hardware.
- Updated ARRIRAW SDK to version 6.2.3.0.
- Updated Codex HDE SDK to version 3.5.2.
Dec 4 '20, build 1049
- Certain media formats did nor handle (SMPTE) timecodes over 40fps correctly. This also applied to VideoIO capture/output.
- The #rtc naming code produced the record timecode including colons - even for filenames which are illegal characters. The code now produces a frame number similar like #tc and #stc.
- The QuickTime aspect metadata was not always correctly taking the aspect of the timeline into consideration.
- Loading annotations from Assimilate Online Dailies into a project did not continue processing if it could not resolve a reference to a (removed) clip.
- Blackmagic RAW from the Pocket 6k camera did not always load properly due to a bug in the camera that added wrong resolution values in media file.
- Another fix to prevent artifacts when converting REC709 to ACES.
- The (manage) color space on/off setting in the project settings did not produce the correct (initial) display settings for a new project.
Nov 19 '20, build 1048
General
- The annotation tool now maintains the 'per-frame' setting when drawing during playback.
- Fix in tagging a QuickTime for REC2020 media.
- Rendering a QuickTime output could potentially be tagged with an 'Untitled' reel-id.
- Fix in ACES REC709 transform code which on certain older graphics card could produce invalid values.
- Opening the scopes settings panel could show some garbage lines in the UI.
- Updated BMD DeckLink SDK to version 11.6. Added detection of input signal bit depth.
- Fix on internal webserver interface which could cause a crash when connecting from (mobile) device or take long time when closing SCRATCH.
- The CIE plot now has an Auto-mode to automatically draw the primaries of the color space of the clip that is showing in the plot. Further, the display of P3D60 used a wrong white-point conversion.
- Fixed a green tint that could appear when using the new highlight recovery for DNG media.
- A Collector clip showed the remapped to the underlying clip timecode, rather than just extrapolating the timecode of the first input. This could lead to problems when using collector nodes in an EDL conform.
Live Assist
- Custom framing was unintentionally reset every time when entering and exiting the setup panel.
- Update on the reporting functions of Live Assist, which did not include information on all recordings.
- Added option to automatically increment the Take number after recording (note though that this interferes with the direct Replay option as that takes the selected take to determine the replay clip. Replay from the History panel can always be used.).
- Added option to set the output LUT format (3dl/cube) for Live Looks.
- Switching between project would not update the History panel properly.
- Update on Instant Review (web interface): added note editor to annotate recorded clips. Clips playback through the web interface start/stop at the in/out set in Live Assist.
- Clips in the History panel now show annotation overlays. The clips can now be double clicked to instant start Replay. This also accounts for double clicking a row in the media list in the History panel.
- Add (missing) quick-key 'p' to toggle Replay mode.
Nov 3 '20, build 1047
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.3
General
Version 9.3 requires a re-activation of your license. If you have a valid v9.2 license, then the license is automatically updated to include the new 9.3 version and the re-activation is as simple as clicking the Activate button. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.3. Also note that this version is not fully backward compatible. You should not downgrade from this version and open a project in a lower version after it has been opened in v9.3. Always create a backup of your projects before upgrading and we advise not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Live Looks / Live Assist
- Update of the Channel Controller panel which now has controls and quick keys to start/stop recording, setting in/out points and markers while recording.
- Added a Router control interface to manage the AJA Kumo or Black Magic Video Hub hardware. Create and manage presets to easily switch between routings. The Router control is available from the Production Central dropdown.
- Added framing controls to manage positioning and scaling of live channels.
- Added options to display standard or custom Guide overlays.
- Set a Record type metadata tag with each recording: Rehearsal, Pick-up, Part.
- Auto-synchronization of clips with the Replay function. If the live sources are time-synced then the replay function will automatically sync the clips based on timecode – even if the channels did not start recording at the same moment.
- Notes are now automatically stored (per scene/take) rather than only being maintained when explicitly saving a grade / look.
Assimilate Dailies / Formats
- Media defaults. You can now set default decode / debayer settings per media type to speed up the loading of media.
- Update on ProRes RAW color spaces processing where for log spaces a normalized to reflection scaling has been added. This scaling factor has also been implemented for conversions from/to Canon Log 2 and Log3. Note that this affects existing setups.
- Added a Highlight Recovery option with DNG media format.
- CineForm RAW updates: added Exposure/Saturation, added Kelvin/Tint options which were not yet available with CPU debayer, highlight recovery with GPU debayer.
- Update R3D SDK 7.3.5 with various GPU decoder fixes.
- Native support for Panasonic Op1b MXF media, including audio.
- The FFmpeg reader now also processes multiple mono tracks of audio (rather than a single mono or stereo track).
- All QuickTime renders now include an explicit gamma metadata value (rather than a reference to a standard eotf, which is not interpreted the same by other software such as the QuickTime Player). In prior versions you had to explicitly enable this option in the advanced settings. In this version you can disable the behavior through the advanced settings.
- Added support for Network Device Interface (NDI) output. To enable NDI output you have to enable the (virtual) NDI device in the VideoIO settings, similar to enabling an SDI device.
- Rendering EXR could crash if the (EXR) source and destination were both ACES.
Color
- In the Luminance waveform the Video scale was not entirely correctly rendered.
- Added a project setting to set the default state of the colorspace Apply mode in a project. This Color Management setting is switched off by default.
- Added a CIE plot display with the scopes
- You can now associate a panel-group with a specific ColorFX menu. The application switches automatically to the menu if a panel mapping in the group is used.
- Added a system setting to include layers with a qualifier in the creation of a LUT. By default grades on a qualifier layers are not included in a LUT as they span only part of an image.
Misc
- Added an advanced system setting to specify a specific Frame Heap memory size used by the application for its image cache.
- Added new render date metadata code '#rdate' for filename mask. The date is fixed at the start of the render and does not change when the render runs into the next day (like the #date code does).
- New user settings to toggle on/off the quick keys for adding/removing/resetting keyframes to avoid unintentional adjustments of keyframes.
- When a layer was selected you could not change the source LUT (which is tied to the primary layer).
- The Note editor did not always insert a new note on the correct position. Also, the note markers on the timeline in the player now show all colors of notes at the same frame position.
- Fixed an issue where effects (like re-timer) where applied in a reverse assembling.
- The Validate Media was not always working correctly for items in the Render Queue.
- Added a user preference setting to enable/disable using the spacebar for start/stop playback. Some users want to use the spacebar exclusively for panning the image in the Viewport.
- Added the Ligth Illusion plug-in for generating color patches which are used for calibrating a monitor / projector. The plug-in can be instantiated from the Tools menu / default Construct menu in Play Pro.
UPDATE RELEASE V9.2
Oct 26 '20, build 1052
- The ProRes Raw Kelvin control was adjusted to better reflect specific camera temperature settings. Note that this change will affect existing setups.
- The AAF conform function did not deal correctly with drop-frame timecodes in the AAF file.
- A Reverse assemble on a (not yet rendered) output node would result in all frozen clips.
- Saving a LUT did not always properly include all grading layers and could potentially skip some layers.
Oct 16 '20, build 1051
- Fixed an issue with maintaining the ACES mode for individual shots. The issue was introduced in the previous build. Please note that with this build you need to explicitly set the aces mode of shots again if a shot has a different mode than the project default mode. This fix also resolves a derivative issue with saving a LUT of a grade that includes an ACEScc / cct transform.
- The Burn-In sometimes had problems finding certain Italic font.
- Fix an issue with the Qualifier Expand option with the edges of an image.
- Fix for reading 10-bit monochrome DPX from DIAMANT-Film.
- SCRATCH did not properly write / load the shot-aspect with a dpx file.
- Added slot-numbers to file-mask duplicate filename error messages.
- A new tray Frame-Reference automatically showed in the default project colorspace rather than that of the source shot. Similar, a new created collector node would also be flagged with the default project colorspace. As of this build, the collector will inherit the colorspace of the first input (unless explicitly set). Note that this can change the display of existing collector nodes in your current setup.
- Set a Keep-alive TCP option for the BoxIO to prevent disconnecting after long time of inactivity.
- The Audio matching function in the Timeline Load Option did not properly set the sample rate override.
- Added a Load Timeline option for Play Pro and fixed an issue with the Export Timeline. Note that you can only load a timeline from another Play Pro version - not from SCRATCH as that contains more features than there are available in Play Pro.
- New Canon CRM SDK version (v2.5 R3).
Sep 25 '20, build 1050
- Fixed an issue where the aces-mode did not always stick when creating a new version of a shot.
- Reel-id was limited to 32 characters.
- Now using the ACES -> P3D65 + PQ conversion at 1000nits, rather than at 100nits.
- Fixed incorrect GPU debayer for Cineform for Stereo 3D RAW files in top-bottom mode.
Sep 11 '20, build 1049
- Colorspace management updates. Negative color values were clamped with a colorspace transform. Conversions from / to XYZ did not always incorporate the correct white point. The ACES to ACEScg conversion did a clamp on out of range values. Settings an Aces-mode on a shot without a grade did not persist.
- Loading / saving xml for scripting did not handle effects nodes correctly and did not include an input-slip.
- Fixed rendering differences between CineForm GPU debayer and the debayer from the CineForm SDK
- Fixes and unifies correct flagging colorspace information in QuickTime output (ProRes, DNx, H264/265 and CineForm).
- Fix on processing ARRI Alexa Mini LF MXF ProRes 2048x1152 footage, which was coming in as 1080x1152.
- In the Video IO Setup we changed the "Enabled" buttons to "On"/"Off" to make it more clear when a device or channel is enabled or not.
Aug 28 '20, build 1048
- Updated ProResRAW SDK for the Mac to version 20200805_14184 to be compatible with latest OSX and VideoToolbox versions.
- Fixed an issue in Live Assist / Live Looks, where moving a channel position could clear the channel properties.
Aug 26 '20, build 1047
- Fix on rendering QuickTime output to prevent a gamma switch when viewing the movies in the QuickTime player on OSX.
- New Canon CRMSDK 2.5R2 with support for new EOS R5 camera.
- New R3D SDK to version 7.3.4. wit tweaks on GPU processing on various devices.
- Live Assist external audio capture. Live Assist already allowed you to record audio that came with the live video (SDI) input. Now you can also capture external and optionally slip/delay that audio to sync it with the camera video capture. When switching from/to Replay mode, the audio capture is automatically toggled on/off to playback the recorded audio. Note that on macOS 10.14 and newer you need to get microphone permission for the software to be able to record audio.
- Fix on the A/B over-mode display on SDI / dual head monitor in Live Assist. The over-mode is automatically shown on all monitors that are set to display the current selected view.
- Publishing clips with timeline-audio to SCRATCH Web could result in out-of-sync audio on playback.
- The quick key references in the tooltips for the Audio panel and Memories top menu buttons were incorrect. Also both did not show up in Live Assist / Looks.
- Scene-Take updater panel was not always in sync with actual node metadata: use can update scene/take through metadata panel or by loading audio file with metadata from the Editor.
- When drag/dropping a plug-in node in the fill or matte proxy control or when dropping it in the viewport - the new fill node did not always show properly.
- The right view slip was not properly reset when switching the right view from a Reference clip to one of the camera feeds in Live Assist.
- In Live Assist, the view type of the first SDI device was not properly stored.
- The record-state metadata of ARRI cameras was not properly processed if the cameras were gen-locked.
- SetStrea.io was added as a standard option for live streaming. We removed Facebook as default as this was not working properly anymore after they changed their interface.
Aug 7 '20, build 1046
- Added an option to set the in/out points of background clip in Live Assist/Looks and added 'Cue Up' button to reset backgrounds of all cameras to their starting point with single click.
- Fix on Assimilate Live Assist / Looks where in certain cases the dual view would only show a videowall rather than the explicit camera view that was set.
- In replay mode Live Assist now shows the full length of the recorded clips and auto-set a player range to limit playback to the synced portion of all cameras.
- Various tweaks to process and detect colorspace metadata in H264/H265 QuickTime media.
- Added the #sintc code to get the timecode of the in-point of the source shot for burn-in or file naming.
- Markers in an EDL were not always processed correctly in that they could be combined with other EDL content.
- Update on remote control html interface to get better response when using a touch interface.
July 10 '20, build 1045
- Fixed a performance issue with H.264 encoding on the CPU for Live Streaming.
- Added Kelvin, Tint and ISO controls for ProRes RAW.
- Next to remote controlling the Player you can now also add/edit text annotations with clips through the local web-interface.
July 8 '20, build 1044
- Fix for handling Canon EOS C300 Mark III.
- Various tweaks and fixes regarding the Assimilate Live Assist / Live Looks - Instant Review and report functions.
June 29 '20, build 1043
Assimilate Live Assist / Looks updates and fixes
- Added Perspective controls with the Keyer in Assimilate Live Assist / Looks to adjust the background perspective so it is easier to use the same background in a multi cam setup.
- Reloading looks in from the history panel did not fully restore the grade with any keyer or effects used missing.
- Added an option to (vertically) centre the images in a videowall when only having 2 inputs.
- Dissolves in Assimilate Live Assist / Looks could also show on displays that were assigned a specific input.
- Switching the view of a specific display device changed it for all channels rather than just the selected channel
- The Tools menu in Assimilate Live Assist/Looks is now relabelled Production Central to better reflect its (intended future) use.
Assimilate SCRATCH / Play Pro updates and fixes
- The Vectors grading tool could cause artifacts when inputting negative color values.
- Generating a report / csv could fail when selecting over a certain number of metadata columns.
- The default port for the http server is now 8080 because using 80 is not allowed on OSX when the user does not have admin privileges. Also, the panel to manage the webserver now better displays its status / possible issues.
- The controls with a Matchbox shader effect now show a tooltip if defined in the underlying shader code.
- OFX (plug-in interface) update where plug-in controls where not always dynamically shown/hidden if required by the plug-in.
- A wrong matrix was used when converting ACES to a colorspace not covered by a specific (Academy) ODT and as such using a generic ACES-XYZ transform first.
- Publishing to SCRATCH Web with Chinese (character) titles and names failed.
June 10 '20, build 1042
- Updated FFMpeg reader to use lib version 4.2.2.
- Optimized R3D per frame metadata processing.
- Fixes and tweaks to the http interface which was not fully functional on OSX and did not correctly use an alternative selected port number.
- Added extra logging about the OpenCL device used to easier diagnose an issue.
June 17 '20, build 1041
- Added support for per frame metadata from R3D files. To use this function you need to enable the Read Per Frame Metadata advanced system setting.
- Updated R3D SDK to version 7.3.2 with GPU decode fixes for Komodo clips.
- Another fix related to using ACES(log) clips in a fade to color transition, which could result in invalid pixel values.
- The Instant Review function for Live Looks/Assist added in the previous build was not fully functional and could show as unavailable on the remote device.
- A reset for a Display LUT for a Video IO device was not always stored correctly.
June 10 '20, build 1040
Live Assist / Looks updates and fixes
- A new Instant Review option that uses the Live Assist / Looks internal http server to (re)view looks and recorded clips from other devices like tablets or mobile phones. You can start the Instant Review option from the Tools menu in the top bar. This will start the internal http server and show the QR code / url to connect to. From the Server tab you can also set it to auto-start every time you start Live Assist/Looks. When you connect from any device to Live Looks you are presented with a list of grades (per scene/take) and you can compare the reference image with/without the grade. When connecting to a Live Assist system the device can also request a list of recordings (per scene/take) and play back the clips (note this is only possible when the Live Assist system is recording in H264).
- New option to have a (dissolve) transition when switching active channels. Use the Transition option with the channel buttons in the Grade Controller panel to select between a Cut and a Dissolve.
- Added a new Skin Retouch effect to easily adjust skin tones on the live captured channels. To use the function first select the base skin-tone and adjust the selection with the Gain, Value and other controls. Next use the Smooth and Texture parameters smoothen the skin-tones. Note that this function is also available as Skin Retouch plug-in in regular SCRATCH.
- Fix on the Grain effect where the option to control gain per channel or overall was not working correctly.
- Starting Live Looks/Assist with the output path set to a root drive could cause a spinning cursor / crash situation on startup of the project.
SCRATCH / Play Pro updates and fixes
- The DNx QuickTime reader did interpret the video/full range metadata incorrect.
- When starting SCRATCH the first time, the new project dialog showed over the setup and intro dialog.
- When entering the player in Compare mode, the Version stack tab was disabled.
- Back by popular demand – all ACES IDT transforms are included with the installer as well as adding the ACES bookmark shortcut in the file browser. Note that all ACES core transforms as part of the SCRATCH color management are still done on the GPU.
- SCRATCH now stores the last export file type (edl/ale) and uses that as default for the next export – saving additional mouse clicks.
- Updated Chinese translations.
- The default ACES mode for project now is ACEScct (was ACEScc).
- There was an unexpected slowdown on OSX when having multiple layers with the same Matchbox plug-in applied.
- Two fixes related to ACES – one where an ACES (ODT) transform could have rounding errors and show garbage pixels and one where in combination with a dissolve invalid pixel values could be generated.
- Added a number of hotkeys. Shift + Insert to create a version. Shift + K to toggle Pick on/off in Curves and Vectors. Shift + X to toggle annotation drawing display on/off. Alt + Z to reset the full grade of a shot. Ctrl + up/down arrow in the Construct to jump to previous/next timeline.
- An adjustment on the Log3G10 conversion as it was slightly different from the RED specifications.
- The Bypass option with the Vectors was not saved properly and did not transfer in a Remote color session.
- Added a collapse-option to Remote Setup dialog to easily save screen space in a remote color session.
- Fixed an issue that was introduced in the previous update that could crash SCRATCH on startup on earlier versions than macOS 10.12.
- When loading ProRes RAW from Z Cam, the default colorspace is now set to Rec2020 and V-Log.
- Fix on the (GPU) Stitcher-function where not all resources used were properly freed, slowing down the system substantially.
- When opening the player with a sub-track of a multi layered timeline and between tracks it could happen that not all changes made on other tracks were properly saved to the database.
May 15 '20, build 1039
- Updated R3D SDK to version 7.3.1 with some fixes for clips from the upcoming Komodo camera.
- Added a Scale(%) parameter for Live Looks/Assist overlay text sizes.
- Fix for anamorphic (Sony) media where the size of a layer could unexpectedly change when working on the shot.
- The Annotate toggle on the main toolbar now highlights if a shot contains annotations.
- Added a Show Edge overlay function in Sticher node. This is only functional when not using an explicit blend mode to give an indication of the camera-rig setup.
May 8 '20, build 1038
- Fixes / tweaks on BMD capture in Live Looks/Assist to handle certain PsF framerate correctly.
- Dnx recoding in Live Looks/Assist could potentially fail if the project resolution was adjusted. If the project framerate or resolution is changed a new appropriate DNxHD codec is automatically selected.
- Added Live Streaming out of Live Looks/Assist. From the Live Streaming dialog you can either select to stream out the current selected channel or a videowall of all available channels. The Live Stream option is available from the top toolbar Tools dropdown.
- Update on ProRes decoding where if the manufacturer metadata says Z CAM the shot is flagged with Z-Gamut and Z-Log.
- When opening the Tray menu the overlays of layers did no longer show in the viewport.
- When drag-drop a layer with a plug-in form one shot to another, the resolution of the plug-in was adjusted but not its aspect.
- In the Load Options dialog an option was added to update the clip's reel-id with its name. This was formerly an option in the Advanced System settings menu. Making it part of the load options makes it more direct available.
- When using the Create Collector option in the Construct menu without the Replace option was not working properly anymore
- Added Save CDL/LUT option in Live Looks/Assist Numeric menu
May 2 '20, build 1037
SCRATCH
- Updated R3D SDK to version 7.3.0 with support for Metal GPU decode.
- Added support for reading and playing back 32-bit float WAVE audio files as well as writing 32-bit float audio with the Bwf-Writer
- Rotation during a dissolve was not working properly.
- Added #sres code for displaying source resolution.
- Added an 'Audio path' option to the Load Timeline template to automatically match audio from a specific location with new footage that is being loaded.
Live Looks / Assist
- Recoding was limited to ProRes. Now also H264 and DNx are fully implemented, including an Alpha option with ProRes recoding so that any green-screen masks are included.
- Added a slip-option in the Grade Controller panel of Live Assist for use in the Replay mode. When switching into Replay mode with multiple cameras the cameras are automatically synced (in case the recording did not start on exactly the same timecode). The slip value can also be manually adjusted.
- Replay shots are now cached for faster response.
- The Save Grades option now also always exports a LUT file when in CDL mode.
Live Streaming and Remote
- Added a B-Frames control to Live Stream setup dialog (removing the SConfig setting) so that each live stream option can have its own optimal setting.
- The Live Stream bitrate setting was not stored properly between sessions.
- If a plugin custom command (e.g. a burn-in) on the dual-head or SDI output is enabled, then this is now also used for the Live Stream output.
- Added a #version code for the burn-in to be used in a livestreaming setup - to show the client which version you are currently displaying.
- The over mode (wipe) now also works for live streaming.
- In case no GPU H264 hardware encoding is used - the encoding is accelerated by doing the YUV conversion on the GPU.
- The play position in a Remote session was not following the range and loop modes.
April 10 '20, build 1036
- Include audio capture and recording for Live Assist and Live Looks.
- Fixed an issue that could sometimes crash the application when opening the history-grade/recordings panel in Live Looks/Assist.
- Live streaming updates. Adding metadata burn-in option to the stream could flip the image upside down. The output stream can now show annotation overlays.
- Added an option to the Scopes to select the scale overlay for the waveform and histogram. Setting the scale to Auto has the original behavior where the color space and EOTF of the shot determine the scale. Alternatively you can set it to a specific scale like e.g. PQ with a nit-level.
- Updated color space and EOTF mappings for Black Magic RAW.
- Fix for incorrect timecodes for R3D files where the timecode framerate is different from the video framerate.
March 26 '20, build 1035
- A fix on Live Stream output from SCRATCH which reduces the total latency of the stream from SCRATCH to server to client in orders of magnitude so that it is a viable option for a remote client-session. Also, added the option in Play Pro to start playback of an rtmp or hls media stream so you can view a stream in a color controlled environment.
- Fix on Publish function that could corrupt the project database when using timeline audio for the published timeline (rather than per shot audio). Also, notes where not always properly displayed in a SCRATCH Web report.
- Fix on Canon CRM, where the fallback to CPU decoding was not always properly working if OpenCL decoding is not available.
- Fix on processing record-state and filename from ARRI camera.
- Decoding a QuickTime/MP4 with audio could in certain circumstances produce a memory leak.
- Improved seeking / scrubbing in an FFmpeg decoded clip.
- The Apply button in the Tray in SCRATCH was wrongly always disabled.
- Updated Blackmagic RAW SDK to version 1.7.
March 17 '20, build 1034
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.2
General
With the release of version 9.2 we introduce 2 new products: Live Looks and Live Assist. These products can be used as stand-alone product or can be licensed together with SCRATCH or SCRATCH VR. For all our products we maintain a single installer which is labelled the Assimilate Product Suite. After installation the software presents itself with the familiar circle icon but with the label Assimilate. After you entered and activated your license key(s), the splash screen will display the actual product name: Play Pro, SCRATCH, SCRATCH VR, Live Looks or Live Assist.
On Windows the v9.2 installation will automatically overwrite any prior version that was installed. However, because the name of the software has changed - installing v9.2 on OSX will result in a second installation next to a prior version of SCRATCH. As such, we advice to explicitly remove any earlier SCRATCH or Play Pro version before installing Assimilate Product Suite v9.2.
Furthermore, version 9.2 requires a re-activation of your license. If you have a valid v9.1 license, then the license is automatically updated to include the new 9.2 version and the re-activation is as simple as clicking the Activate button. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.2. Also note that this version is not backward compatible. You should not downgrade from this version and open a project in a lower version after it has been opened in v9.2. Always create a backup of your projects before upgrading and we advise not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Licensing
With v9.2 you can activate multiple license keys at once on a single system so you can easily combine products. Furthermore, v9.2 allows you to de-activate a license and unlock it from a specific system so you can activate and use the license on another system. In order to de-activate a license you first need to enable the unlock. You do this through the MyAssimilate website where you set the allow-deactivate option for a specific license key. Read more about the procedure to unlock and deactivate a license here.
Live Looks / Live Assist
With the release of v9.2, Assimilate introduces 2 new products targeted for use in an on-set context: Live Looks and Live Assist. Both are available on Windows and OSX.
- Live Looks is a complete on-set grading tool, which allows you to capture and work on multiple (however many your hardware supports) live camera inputs and/or use LUT boxes. It is resolution independent with up to 8k SDI/HDMI capture. Offering a full grading toolset or (if required) CDL restricted. Create a green screen setup with just a single-click. With a seamless workflow for transferring looks into SCRATCH for dailies and/or post as well as other third party software.
- Live Assist extends this functionality even further by including simultaneous recording and instant playback of multiple live camera feeds. Record ProRes, H264 or DNx. Start/stop recording live capture streams manually or based on the camera record state. Create your review-dailies without transcoding.
For more details and in-depth story on Live Looks and Live Assist, please have a look at these videos:
Or have a look at the manual and product pages here:
Note that in the current build, the Live Assist recording function does not yet include audio or DNx. This will be available soon in an update release build.
Color
- A new set of clipping- and softness controls in the LUT menu for soft-clipping your grade.
- Most noticeable – a new look and feel of the color-ball controls. Note that on the Color menu the original color A / B color-balls have been replaced by sliders. The menu also comes with a Dim button to adjust the display saturation of the new color-ball controls.
- The layout of the Player-Settings-Monitor menu has been updated. With the update of the VideoIO implementation (see below) you can now have multiple reference monitors. Each of those can have its own color space / eotf setting, which the software uses to convert the image into before displaying it on the particular monitor. Alternatively you can set it to <Source> which will leave the image as is. This corresponds to the Apply option in prior versions.
- The ACES implementation is now fully processed on the GPU rather than creating in-between LUTs from the IDT / ODT transforms in CTL scripts. This improves the accuracy of the transforms. Note that with this update we also updated the Rec709 and sRGB ODTs; in prior versions we used a different (D60) white point. This can cause a slight change in how ACES media is displayed when compared to v9.1. You still have the option to use the same transforms as in v9.1 by enabling the 'Use ACES-REC709 D60 transform' advanced system setting. With the new ACES implementation it is now also possible to set a display LUT after the ACES (ODT) transforms. This was not possible in prior versions as the ACES transforms were handled as the display LUT. Note that with the update of ACES implementation, the application no longer uses external CTL files and as such it does no longer come with all the IDT/ODT files. Furthermore, you no longer select an ACES version in the Project settings but rather always use the latest available version.
- Support for Tetrahedral LUT interpolation for smoother and more gradual results. Tetrahedral is the default interpolation method in v9.2 and in general does require slightly more processing (although on most systems not noticeable). If needed however, you can revert back to linear interpolation though the Advanced Settings (search for ‘interpolation’).
- Added new standard gamuts and eotf options: Black Magic Wide Gamut / BMDFilm gamma, Z-Cam Log, Nikon and Fuji log curves. Also, ACEScg (AP1) is now a separate color space next to ACES (linear AP0).
- The default value for the Clip Levels setting of a shot is now set to true, which means that by default when applying a LUT on a shot any ouot of range values are clipped. Note that only the default value was changed - this does not affect existing setups. Reason for changing the default is that clipping is the more expected behavior when applying a LUT.
Formats
- Update on ProRes RAW handling. The Mac version now uses the OSX VideoToolBox for decoding with support for Afterburner card and Metal for GPU processing. This requires OSX Catalina 10.15 or the installation of Pro Video Formats 2.1.1.
- Update on ARRI footage handling. SCRATCH can now reads and applies the look-information that comes with an ARRI Raw and ARRI ProRes MXF media and when specified in the look, automatically updates the color space of the shot. Also, we added Kelvin and Tint white balance controls with the ARRI RAW reader, which seemed to be preferred over the RGB gain controls.
- In this version we no longer include the Codec Support Package (CSP). By now all of the formats that were supported by CSP have been moved to specialized readers. Note that the only remaining format not yet fully supported outside CSP is Panasonic Op1b MXF: currently the standard reader does not include the audio of this format. We are working on fixing that in an update release. In the meantime, the alternative is to select the FFMpeg reader for this format.
- Added support for XDCAM MXF files (MPEG-2 Long GOP HD)
- We added the option to generate DNx in a QuickTime (.mov) container.
- This version contains various fixes on the Cineform Reader.
- AJA implementation updates. 8K capture support as well as 12-bit RGB packed format for playback and capture. Please note that default SCRATCH v9.2 does not have any SDI capture capabilities. SDI capture is available with Live Looks and Live Assist or under custom licensing.
- Parsing more EXR metadata: SCRATCH did not parse any non-string tagged metadata.
- Fix on the Phantom reader that had an issue with certain 8bit bayer-pattern files.
Project / Metadata / Miscellaneous
- This version has a new Annotation (draw) tool. From the main toolbar you can enable/disable viewing of annotations while from the top menu bar you can open the 'Annotate' toolbox. Annotations can be created per shot or per frame. When selecting to display note-markers on the mini timeline, these will include markers for the annotations. Furthermore, from the Reports option in the Construct module, you can also select an annotation report which contains (proxy) images of all shots in the timeline that contain annotations (text / drawings).
- Added flexibility to licensing: you can now de-activate a license on one system and activate it again on another system. Note that to be able to de-activate a license you first need to mark the license through the MyAssimilate.
- Directly output pdf formatted reports. When setting the report filename you can now choose between html and pdf as output format.
- This version contains a new Video-IO implementation that supports multiple inputs and outputs at the same time. Note that by default SCRATCH only comes with support for multiple outputs. Live Looks and Live Assist also include support for multiple inputs. Supported Video-IO hardware continues to be AJA, BMD and Bluefish444.
- Blackmagic Decklink SDK has been updated to v11.5, AJA SDK has been updated to v15.5
- You can now use the mouse scroll-wheel to adjust position of the mini-timeline.
- Load and match Live Looks grades in SCRATCH. Either from the 'New Timeline' panel after the File Browser or from the Match Live Looks button in the Construct you can easily match and apply grades that you created in Live Looks or Live Assist onto the selected clips in your timeline.
- The Same as Source render now respects the slot disabled-state in a timeline.
- A new Remote Control application with which you can control the basic player functions from an external device (phone / tablet). The Remote Control is a first application for the new http/web server interface of the software. Currently you first need to explicitly enable the embedded web server through the corresponding advanced system setting. When enabled, the Tools menu in the top menu in the Player will show a Remote Control option. This will open a panel with a QR code / ip-address, that you can scan / enter in your external device to start the actual remote control.
UPDATE RELEASE V9.1
Feb 27 '20, 1033
- Updated R3D SDK to version 7.2.1. with some more fixes for upcoming Komodo camera.
- Fixed a potential memory leak when writing audio to DNx MXF files.
- Some Panasonic HEVC QuickTime files were loaded with the wrong height (1088 vs 1080) showing noise at the bottom.
- The Same as Source render function could potentially render the wrong format (tiff instead of exr).
- Fixed an issue that potentially caused image corruption when doing a YUV to RGB conversion on the GPU on OSX (using NVIDIA).
- The Source/UI/SDI switch on Statistics panel was not working correctly.
- Under certain conditions, image sequences could be rendered with an incorrect timecode.
- QuickTime files with a drop frame timecode showed a wrong timecode in SCRATCH.
- ARRI ProRes MXF files failed to properly re-link.
- The Vector Paint undo was not working correctly when used on a layer.
- The Increment / Decrement functions on the calculator did not exactly functioned as advertised in the manual.
Jan 7 '20, 1032
- New RED SDK version 7.2.0 with support for the upcoming Komodo camera.
Nov 29 '19, 1031
- Added metadata to show corresponding ARRI Look file with the current shot.
- Added advanced system setting to adjust the broadcast message interval for the sync player.
Nov 8 '19, build 1030
- Updated support for the AVID Euphonix Panel. The panel was no longer working on OSX after the prior 'Catalina' update build of SCRATCH.
- When creating a note with a shot by opening the note editor from the shot proxy in the version stack, the frame position was incorrect if the shot had an in-point.
- Tooltips would sometimes flicker for non-selected controls.
- By default a 'Duration' metadata field from an ALE should not be imported as it can cause issues when rendering the media out for publishing in other apps.
Oct 29 '19, build 1029
- Since the previous build, the (AAF) conform function on OSX did no longer work. This was related to the notarization procedure for OSX Catalina and has been fixed in this build.
- Note that also as of the previous build the Euphonix McColor panel is no longer working with SCRATCH on OSX. This issue is also related to the Apple notarization procedure for Catalina. We are working with AVID in trying to resolve the issue. If you are working with an Euphonix panel on OSX then please remain / continue on build 1027 or earlier for the time being.
Oct 22 '19, build 1028
- Added support for ARRI ProRes in MXF container.
- Fixed an issue with reading Canon X3 metadata.
- Fixed an issue with CSV report where versions and empty slots where not properly included.
- DNG reader did not update the reference kelvin for a Panasonic dng when copying a shot.
- Adding new metadata in the metadata stack was not working properly in recent builds.
- Performance enhancement in reading switching the selection in a multi part EXR multi.
Oct 8 '19, build 1027
- Fix on reading the timecode from Canon CRM media.
- CSV report output updates. Added record timecode as standard column when the selected report-scope is a timeline. Also, when metadata contained a comma, this would disrupt the layout of the csv file.
- The additional command line parameters for custom command were not always properly saved.
- Adjust the size of the number on the memory trays to less obscure the image.
- Sorting clips int he metadata tab of the media browser could take an unusual long time.
- The default 'group' panel-mapping could have an incorrect value and differ from the one displayed in the mapping dialog.
- When doing a timeline-sort, the current slot is now maintained.
- Fixed a possible issue when entering scene/take values were you could end up with two scene or take metadata items for a single node.
- Updated Codex HDE SDK to version 3.1.6, which fixes an issue with reading ARX files created with Codex Production Suite 4.7.2 that are incorrectly identified as ‘invalid’.
- Fixed a possible issue with R3D CUDA processing with older clips that still use CPU decoding.
- Fixed an issue that could cause produce corrupt images when rendering on the Mac.
- Update on reading multi-part OpenEXR media. Note that we are still working on further improving efficiency on handling multi-part files. Regular OpenEXR media is not affected.
Sep 13 '19, build 1026
- In version 9.1, grades did not always correctly process when using ACES Log (cc/cct). Note that v9.1 processing might still differ from v9.0 if you used a different ACES (Log) setting for individual shots than the project default.
- Gallery items did not always display correctly due to a wrong color space conversion.
- Extended the playlist functionality so you can auto-start playback of a playlist. Add [auto_play="y"] to root scratch-tag of the playlist-xml. Furthermore, you can add [clear="y"] to the construct / timeline tag in the playlist-xml to re-use the same playlist again, without doubling the clips in your timeline.
- Menu highlighting in ColorFX did not work anymore for the traditional 6-Vector menu. Also, when using the new re-mapper, the panel mappings for the original 6-Vectors were still active. This could cause unwanted grade adjustments.
- The load (to new timeline) option applied the wrong framing if the source shot resolution matched that of the timeline.
- The position-parameter for report proxy images was not stored in the user settings.
- The Sony RAW decode can go up to 8k (scaled mode) but the clip (custom) target resolution was limited to 4k.
Sep 6 '19, build 1025
- Clips that did not have colorspace information in the metadata were not always displayed correctly after re-loading a project.
- Creating a LUT from a shot that included a layer with a plug-in was not always correct.
- AJA updates. UHD2 output with the Kona 5 12G was not working correctly. Also, dual stream output did not have a proper image on the 2nd stream. Sometimes the timecode did not output on the correct SDI connector.
- Certain HEVC clips could show decoding artifacts when seeking in / scrubbing through the clip.
- Updated ARRI RAW SDK to latest version (6.2.0.0.)
Aug 29 '19, build 1024
- Fixed a potential crash with R3D decoding using CUDA (with NVIDIA Kepler generation cards on Windows or Pascal generation with OSX).
- Fixed a potential crash when encoding or decoding ProRes 422 on a Mac with Intel UHD 630 graphics.
- Fixed an issue that was introduced in build 1021 where the last character of the name/value metadata pairs of Open EXR media were stripped off.
- Default channel mappings for multi-channel Open EXR were not always correct.
- Reverting a timeline to its original sort order did not always work correct if slots were added.
Aug 20 '19, build 1023
- Audio from XAVC MXF was not read correctly when the last track was a data track.
- Updated Blackmagic RAW SDK to version 1.4 with support for the new BMPCC 6K camera.
- Fixes a potential crash when adding softness to a canvas.
- Updated the AJA SDK to version 15.2.2. with support for 8K output with Kona 5 12G.
- Snapshots from anamorphic footage could have the aspect scaling applied twice.
- When holding the 'h' quick-key the help screen could disappear automatically again after showing.
Aug 8 '19, build 1022
- Fixed and issue where the new Vectors tool could produce black pixels when using an AMD graphics card.
- Fixed a potential crash when working on clip metadata in the media browser.
- Fixed a potential crash when working in projects that contain many ProRes and ProRes RAW files.
Aug 2 ' 19, build 1021
- XAVC updates. When viewing the audio waveform, system memory could fill up. Bad performance when including audio playback.
- OpenEXR updates. SCRATCH now read/writes pixels aspect metadata of OpenEXR format. Also, SCRATCH could crash on (multi-part) OpenEXR files that contained large blocks of metadata. (note that SCRATCH currently only reads the first part of multi-part EXR - extending this is a work-in-progress).
- Fix on potential audio drop-outs with certain QuickTime files that contained audio channels spread over multiple tracks.
July 22 '19, build 1020
- Update on SCRATCH 2 After Effects bridge where the round-trip function was not fully functional on OSX. Be sure to setup the custom commands again or to select Reset with the S2AE Custom Command in the System Settings panel.
- Added a new HLG transfer function. The existing "HLG" EOTF was relabeled "HLG Scene". The new "HLG" transfer function is a so called display-referred transfer curve. See for more information http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/papers/HDR/BBC_HDRTV_FAQ.pdf.
- The CineformEncoder was not properly installed on the Windows version
- You could not drag a canvas when in the Curves or Vectors menu (and not in Pick-mode).
- Fixed a crash with the stitch node that could occur when the template specified a different number of inputs than actually present. Also, SCRATCH cold crash when rendering the stitch output to ProRes.
July 1 '19, build 1019
- New Sony Raw SDK (3.3.0) with support for various new X-OCN format variants: e.g. 4K/6K 2.39:1 and 5.7K 16:9, XT for all VENICE/CineAltaV.
- Included a new version of SCRATCH-2-After Effects bridge that properly loads back file sequence renders into SCRATCH (where before it required a container format like QuickTime). Make sure you re-install the custom commands or select the Reset button with the After Effects Custom Command tab in the System Settings dialog.
- Fixed an issue where an Undo-action could inadvertently change the EOTF setting (in the Media menu) of a clip (if that setting differed from the settings in the node-menu).
- Fixed an issue where a custom splash-screen would not show properly if the source was a 10-bit dpx.
- The Open Color IO (OCIO) plug-in produced a blue frame when it was unable to detect a configuration file. Note that to use this plug-in you need point it to an already installed OCIO configuration. This can be a setup that came with other (third party) software or a configuration that you setup yourself. Potentially you have to explicitly set the path to the config.ocio file through the advanced system settings. There are various setups available online: https://github.com/imageworks/OpenColorIO-Configs.
June 24 '19, build 1018
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.1
General
SCRATCH v9.1 requires an re-activation of your license. If you have a valid v9.0 license, your license is automatically updated to include the new 9.1 version. After installing v9.1 you re-activate your existing license key. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.1. Also note that this version is not backward compatible. You should not downgrade from this version and open a project in a lower version after it has been opened in v9.1. Do create a backup of your projects before upgrading and we advice not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Media Formats
- Increased render speeds through more efficient readback of the image from the GPU. The performance-gains depend on the specific setup / current bottleneck.
- RGB to YUV conversion is now done on the GPU to further improve performance for output to e.g. ProRes, DNx and H264/5.
- Support for multi-channel EXR where you can create a custom mapping to the RGBA channels in SCRATCH.
- Added an extended control-set for ProRes RAW where you are able to select any of the available color spaces and transfer functions in SCRATCH with the debayer.
- Added support for dynamic (per-frame) metadata. Currently only for ARRI Raw (e.g. camera roll and tilt, lens focus distance metadata items and more). As it is not fully clear yet what the impact on performance is, this feature needs to be enabled explicitly through the Advanced System Settings. Dynamic metadata shows up in the metadata stack and is included in EXR render. Note that in previous versions you needed to explicitly enable the option to write extended metadata in EXR. In this version it is enabled by default, but can be switched off using the relevant Advanced System Setting.
- Support for writing Cineform movie and dpx-c formats.
- Support for reading Uncompressed 4:2:2 media with the regular QuickTime reader.
- We added a Single Track/Multi Track audio option for QuickTime/mp4 (ProRes/H264|5) output. The Multi Track option puts each audio channels in a separate tracks in the QuickTime. Also, you can now also set a specific audio channel layout in the ProRes encoder for the QuickTime output; mono, stereo, 5.1, etc. The ProRes and Cineform writers now also include bit-depth and sample-rate selection controls.
- Including the latest version of various camera- and device-vendor specific SDKs.ARRI to version 6.1.1.0. with support for new upcoming camera models. Apple ProRes RAW SDK to version 20190607_12551 with fix for Intel UHD Graphics 630 and better overall performance. Oculus SDK to version 1.37.0. with support for the latest/ upcoming Oculus models.
- The Legacy (32bit) QuickTime reader is now disabled by default. This way we prevent the "non-optimized" warning from OSX when starting SCRATCH the first time when it instantiated a 32bit element. However, you can still enable the reader from the Advanced System Setting.
Workflows
- We added a "New Timeline" option in the File Browser when loading media. After selecting the folder to load, this option opens a dialog where the user can set how to load the media (new timeline, timeline per subfolder, etc), apply specific framing and LUTs and do an automatic audio sync with any audio anywhere in the selected folder. This will speed up the loading and managing of media substantially.
- We added a Same-as-Source render option in the Render tab. There you can select any node from the output tree and select it to render each source clip with its original resolution, frame rate and aspect. This works for almost any output format except for e.g. DNxHD, which in itself has a resolution restriction.
- SCRATCH has a new / enhanced color-space management where the gamut and transfer function are separate entries. SCRATCH now includes a series of camera specific gamuts and gamma spaces like Log-C, V-Log, Alexa Wide Gamut, etc. as native. Besides letting SCRATCH handle all the necessary color-space conversions automatically, you can also use the new Color space plug-in that you can apply on any level in your composite or output tree to do the necessary transforms. On top of this there is also a new OpenColorIO plug-in to do any needed transform. This plug-in automatically hooks into your OCIO settings from other applications you might have or you can set it to a specific configuration file from the Advanced System settings. Using this plug-in ensures that certain conversions are exactly the same as done in other software that uses OCIO (note though that most to all of the transforms in SCRATCH color management are based on standard transfer-curves and gamut-chromatices).
- MXF DNx output now includes the audio timecode (slip) in the metadata, which is properly interpreted by Avid Media Composer. The DNx writer now also adds a TapeID column with the audio file name if the source clip has audio synced/linked to it. This way you do no longer need to supply separate ALE files with your output to editorial to transfer this information.
- SCRATCH now supports AVID Locators: either load them from an EDL or as a separate file (through the Import Conform in the Construct tab). To preserve any Locators when using a Placeholder conform, all notes / locators are preserved in the locator nodes.
- Various metadata updates. Audio timecode was added as standard element in the Metadata stack in the Construct, Edit and ColorFX tabs. We also added a standard Circle Take item which can also be set in the Scene/Take updater panel and is available as #circled hash code for file-masks and burn-in. Circle-take info is also read from audio metadata that is used in a sync as well as any comments from the audio file.
- The Scene/Take updater dialog has two new buttons: Circle take and increment scene number or letter.
- A new Advanced System setting automatically sets a clip’s reel-id to the clip-name when loading media. This speeds up your dailies Avid workflow.
- Conforming updates. An AAF/XML conform can now also use the direct file-reference in the AAF or XML file (rather than matching from an existing timeline or external folder). The EDL conform now auto detects and creates video tracks from multi-track EDLs. It also offers an option to update the names of the matched source shots to the EDL reel/name or marker-text. For the EDL export we fixed an issue were dissolves that started in the A-shot were not properly written to an exported EDL.
- We added an '[Original]' entry with the timeline sort options to easily revert to the original order after sorting on e.g. name or scene/take. The original sort order is maintained over sessions and is in fact the order of the slots – including slot length and transitions.
- We extended the quick keys for slipping video in the Editor and also apply them to audio slipping when in the Audio section of the Editor. The '<' and '>' keys slip the video/audio 5 and 1 frame respectively. The ',' and '.' keys slip the audio/video with 1 and 0.2 frames respectively.
- This update contains new version of the SCRATCH-to-Nuke and SCRATCH-to-AfterEffects bridges, which allow for a smoother roundtrip to and back from that software.Support for multi-clip selections, include clips from SCRATCH staging, option to either load back into the SCRATCH Tray or as version in the timeline, SCRATCH remembers opening a shot in Nuke/AE and will open the same project again when selecting the same shot again. To setup the bridges either use the first time SCRATCH Enhancement procedure or go to the Custom Commands in the Systems Settings panel and manually create a custom command. If you already have the bridges active from a previous version then use the Reset button in the Custom Command menu to auto-update the round-trip scripts.
- 4 new standard output-templates were added for PIX/DAX/MediaSilo/Copra rendering.
Creative Tools
- A new Hue-Saturation and Hue-Luminance Grid tool replaces the more traditional 6-Vectors in the ColorFX grading toolset. The Hue-Sat grid can be operated in different modes: Linear vs Log/Log2 and displayed as a (color) circle or rectangular grid. Note that the 6-Vectors are still applied if you come from an existing project. You can also still display the 6-Vectors controls rather than the new Grid control if you prefer, by adjusting the relevant setting in the User Preference panel in ColorFX.
- An update on the Curves: you can now directly add and remove curve handles from the Curves menu and have an indicator to see what section of the curve is represented by the image that you are hovering over with the cursor.
- In the LUT menu in the ColorFX tab, we added a LUT Cycler option to easily cycle/browse through other LUTs in the same folder as the selected (grading) LUT.
- The motion estimation mode in the Re-timer was updated to increase both the speed and quality.
- Animation Editor updates. The Editor now supports a series of filters to tweak your animation: LowPass, HighPass, Smooth, Reduce (the number of keyframes) and Noise (to generate random values). To manage all animation channels more easily, the editor now has filter options only show active channels or only the channels of the selected layer. Furthermore, you can now directly enter values in the editor by shift-clicking a keyframe. When selecting layer-vertices in the View Port, SCRATCH will now automatically select the corresponding channel in the editor and vice-verse. Note that SCRATCH will now by default only show the x and y of any vertex in the Editor. If you want to see also the in/out handle of each vertex then you need to enable to relevant Advanced System setting.
- We added various keyboard shortcuts for managing animation keyframes while in the ColorFX or Edit tabs:
- Ctrl + click parameter. If Animation Off: reset value to default. If Animation Manual/Auto: create keyframe with default value or if parked on existing keyframe, change to default.
- Ctrl + Shift + click parameter. Create keyframe with current value
- Holding Ctrl + changing parameter also creates a keyframe directly. If Animation Off: Set Animation to "Manual" and create keyframe. If Animation set to Manual/Auto: Keep it Manual/Auto and create keyframe.
- Alt + click parameter = delete animation (all keyframes), but keep current value
- Alt + Ctrl + click parameter = delete all animation keyframes and reset to default value
- Shift + Alt + click parameter = delete keyframe under the cursor for this parameter
- We added new effects plug-ins with the standard installation of SCRATCH: Denoizer, Grain, Diffusion and HighlightBloom. All of these effects are aimed to be simple and fast and usable in an environment where you need a quick grade. They are not aimed to replace more advanced third party tools you might use in a finishing context.
- We added the *.vlt extension for loading (Panasonic) 3D LUTs.
- Increased the accuracy of ACES CTL transformation processing without affecting the performance. Also, the generic XYZ-ACES transform used by the color management was updated to get similar results as applying an IDT transforms of camera specific formats.
- The Clarity parameter in the Numeric menu is now animatable.
Misc
- New first-time-start setup screen to automatically setup matchbox shader plug-ins and after effects / nuke bridges.
- The Flip/Flop Orientation controls have been moved to the Media menu. The Flip/Flop controls in the Editor are now applied to the Source-orientation and no longer update the framing to make things more consistent. Also, any flip/flops in a conform are now also applied to the Source Orientation instead of the framing.
- Relabeling of the "Setup" menu to (more explicit) "Framing" in both the ColorFX and Edit tabs. The shot pipeline settings have been moved to the Config-menu in the ColorFX tab.
- File-size is now interpreted and displayed in the correct units (Mb/Gb) in both the metadata stack and in the various reports that you can generate (which also include the total size of all selected clips). Furthermore, the standard reports have been updated to auto calculate file-size or render proxies when required.
- Updated AJA SDK to version 15.1.0.2. incl. support for io 4K Plus, Kona 5 and support for 4K-2SI (2 Sample Interleave) for AJA SDI output.
- Updated BMD DeckLink SDK to version 11.1. which adds more frame rates and 8K display modes.
- Allow to start dragging clips directly from the search dialog.
- Added #sfolder hash code to get specific sub-folder of a source clip. Updated the #spath hash code; without parameters it displays the full path, #spath[0] returns the relative path from the project media folder and #spath[1…n] returns the n subfolders of the source clip.
- Allow adding custom data to the sync-player broadcast message. Set #code template in the 'Sync Player extended data' sconfig.
- Quick keys updates and tweaks: the J,K,L keys did not work correctly when in the Canvas menu. Also the 'i' quick key is no longer used for the Canvas and now always sets the in-point for a range.
- We added an option to directly install the Matchbox (shader) plug-ins collection from the System Settings menu.
- Added function in the Media Browser - Grade tab to remove all empty layers from the selected shots to easily cleanup your grades. An empty layer is defines as only having a canvas - no grading or fill/matte definition.
- We added a search option for the (ever growing) Advanced System Settings list.
- The "A-Relative" option in the paste-mask used with the Copy-Grade function is now enabled by default. This helps in a scenario where the source material was trimmed (using e.g. same-as-source render) and the in-points changed.
- Option to add additional command line parameters with a custom command which makes it easier to re-use a script with different settings.
- When xml script is pending to be processed with a project, the Refresh button now only processes the xml and not do the full project refresh. This way any roundtrip using the custom commands is much faster and direct.
- To make it possible to do a fully automated scratch installation and activation, we added the option to pass '-lic xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx' as command line parameter. SCRATCH will start, activate the license and automatically close again.
Fixes
- It was not possible to use Unicode characters in the filename specification for the BWF audio export.
- The ARRI Camera ID and Camera Index metadata showed incorrect values.
- CDL values and comments from an EDL were not passed on to placeholder nodes.
- Using decoder scaling with RED / Sony, could render different results when using a linear vs a high order filter.
- Memory management update where systems with a relative small amount of internal memory could become unresponsive when working with (8k) images. Also SCRATCH is using a different version of the CUDA runtime on OSX to enable the new RED GPU decoding on older versions of OSX.
Play Pro Specific
- The render-dialog in Play Pro now also has an explicit same-as-source option to render all selected clips to their native resolution, framerate and aspect.
- The Render can also include a standard burn-in overlay with source shot metadata.
- You can now link and slip external audio to a clip in the Player tab.
UPDATE RELEASES V9.0
June 4 '19, build 1012
- Fixed a potential crash in the Analyzer
- There was a potential issue with recognizing the correct OpenCL device.
May 24 '19, build 1011
- Another fix for ARRI Raw on OSX as the fix from yesterday's build was not working in all circumstances.
May 23 '19, build 1010
- Fixed an issue that could set wrong values for drop-frame and filed/phase flags in an EXR render.
- Fixed an issue with ARRI Raw on OSX that could result in corrupt images when using the ARRI SDK debayer (rather than SCRATCH' internal fast debayer).
Apr 26 '19, build 1009
- New RED SDK v7.1.0 with support for (8k - realtime) full decode and debayer on the GPU(s).
- Fixed an issue with AJA SDI which did not work when SCRATCH was started after certain other software that used the card.
Apr 20 '19, build 1008
- Apple ProRes RAW update. The decoder did not work on older NVIDIA cards. Now all cards from the Kepler architecture onward are supported.
- Animating scaling on an image with an uneven number of lines could lead to stuttering/shaking of the image.
Apr 8 '19, build 1007
- Apple ProRes RAW support.
- Update on the BlackMagic Raw reader with more options to control gamut and gamma.
- Fix for DNG reader to handle certain crop sizes for Hasselbad DNG.
- Added playlist (*.splsx) support for OSX and also make sure the newly loaded playlist timeline is selected on startup.
- Batch updating the timecode of clips in the media browser did not always work correct and did not properly take into account that clips could have different framerates.
- Added support for PTGui stitch templates in json format.
- De-construct Unique option was not always working correct.
- The Tint metadata was not correctly applied when decoding Sony RAW on the CPU.
Mrt 17 '19, build 1005
- The Assembler could crash over missing file-references in an aaf file.
- EXR images could be flipped depending on the scan line order of the file.
- The #group and #construct codes could return the wrong names.
- Small fix op OFX interface where certain plug-ins would not properly work from overlay changes.
- Render fix - certain custom resolution scaling in combination with a linear filter made the alpha channel all opaque.
- Changed color of notes for missing effects from the aaf assemble (green to pink) to not conflict with color coding in most review workflows.
- Added the option to start SCRATCH with a playlist file with extension '.splx'. The file is regular xml but with a special file extension this can be tied to scratch in the operating system. For now this is on Windows only.
- Updates for custom command xml to include slot position and length to.
Feb 22 '19, build 1004
- Fix on HEVC dual pass encoding that could crash the application.
- Fix on animation of vertices that could act odd when imported from an external source and updated in the animation editor.
- Fix on HDR MaxFALL statistics calculation.
- Update on AAF processing of AVID sub-clips where not all metadata from the sub-clips was imported. Also, any CDL info in the AAF is now used and applied on the shot.
- The 360 framing controls were not available in all Toolsets (Play Pro).
Feb 1 '19, build 1003
- Update on bad-pixel detection in 12-bit Phantom camera files.
- Added all the ACES version 1.1 transforms.
- Update of the SonyRaw decoder with enhancements for 6K media from the Venice camera.
- Update of the CanonRaw decoder with some performance improvements.
- Update H264 reader which fixes a crash with some specific clips we encountered.
- Fix on reading Audio wave files where incorrect metadata in the clip could crash the application.
- The #construct and #group codes could sometimes produce wrong values after renaming or using an output template.
- Added a parameter to #spath code: a parameter value of '0' strips the media folder and drive letter from the path (default behavior), a value of '1' shows the full path.
- Added a ‘result’-attribute to the post-render xml to indicate if a render was successful of failed. Note that before when a render failed, any post-render command was not executed. In this build the post render command is fired and the post-render-xml will contain ok/fail in the result-attribute of the render-node.
- Added User Preference for Collectors created in the construct to get resolution of the first input (rather than resolution of the timeline). The framing of the first input is transferred to the collector and all framing on the inputs is removed.
- Dragging clips to create a video-wall with the Wrap function in the Construct sometimes used the timeline selection rather than the shots being dragged.
- New Advanced system setting to replace '-' with '_' for scene metadata read from audio files.
- When deleting a clip on the timeline with the DELETE Key the button state was not update.
- Auto-select all text when clicking the network path-filter of the file browser.
Jan 11 '19, build 1002
- Fix on ARRI Raw files with a specific resolution and aspect were loaded incorrect (2868x2152 4:3).
- Adding an output template with the same name as an existing one could did not always overwrite the existing and could end up having the same name twice in the template list.
- Fix on rendering DNxHR MXF, where sometimes a wrong image aspect was included for sizes that are not 16:9.
- Included encoding information in the post-render xml which can be used by the post-render script.
- Adjusted the control gearing for the Height/Width numeric controls in the Media menu in the player.
Dec 24 '18, build 1001
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Various format fixes. The internal dimensions of an EXR file were not always read correctly. Certain DJI DNG files could not be loaded because of invalid vertical crop value. AVCHD sometimes produced error if the LPCM audio was slightly shorter (milliseconds) than the video.
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Fix on an issue with the Search-dialog that was introduced when adding the extra note-colors in the previous build and caused the search to respond incorrect.
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Added an sconfig-setting to scale nest nodes created in the Construct (Utility menu) to the timeline resolution. By default nest nodes are created with the same resolution as its input. Note that if the source node contains framing when being nested, the nest node's resolution is not adjusted and the framing is copied over to the nest node.
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For support of various VFX workflows, we added the option to select a part of a note using the #note and #snote codes. With a third parameter you can add the color index to select a specific note. The #note and #snote are now also available for file naming.
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Update the timecode of shots in a reverse-assemble with the source-timecode from the EDL. Also always update the reel-id.
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When using the Trim-buffer for copying the grade from another shot in the timeline, animations are not included anymore in the copy.
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When using the Import function, always revert to the 'All Formats' file filter.
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The precision of the audio slip control in the Editor is adjusted so that when the Slip is set to Frames (rather than milliseconds), you can still slip in sub-frames / decimal accuracy.
Nov 30 '18, build 1000(!)
- Various fixes related to Matchbox plug-ins. Ignoring reference files when scanning for plug-ins. In certain cases the parameters of the shaders where not properly scanned.
- New version of the S2Nuke script. Please follow the instructions in this article to setup/update the script files on your system.
- Added extra button to license dialog to register for trial license
- Fixed a bug where deleting a layer and then entering / exiting the animation editor could crash the application.
- The Font selection dialog now checks for keyboard input to quick jump to a specific font.
- Fix on Custom Controls which could crash scratch when creating a new node and then creating a new Timeline.
- The post-render xml now includes all available metadata of the source shots.
- Fix on issue where adding a default-note while the shot already contained notes, could end in the new note getting the wrong text.
- Fix on Quick Keys: Shift+F8 and F2 to open the Editor in the Player were not working anymore.
- SCRATCH v9.0 - build 1000! Even though this is 'just' an update release (rather than a version update) we did want to mark this as a little bit special. So we added a little v9.1 gadget back into this version: A Sync Player function to link and sync multiple SCRATCH players within a network. The function is available from the Collaborate (top)menu in the Player. Those few that we showed the feature already have come up with some interesting and creative applications for it!
Nov 11 '18, build 999
- Added support for reading CODEX .arx compressed ARRIRAW files.
- Black Magic Raw reel-id was not properly read from the metadata.
- New versions of the s2nuke and s2ae (AfterEffects) script. The s2nuke scripts are now Python 2 and 3 compatible. The new s2ae script solves an issue with naming of the renders from AfterEffects and loading them back into SCRATCH. The s2nuke update includes passing of notes, maintaining color-space and better default node layout in Nuke. Please follow the installation guides to update the Nuke and AfterEffects scripts.
- The Structure view did not always show mattes in the tree when it should.
- Fix for displaying certain Matchbox UI controls.
- Opening up the PanZoom tool could under certain conditions hang Scratch.
- Fixes on caching. Cache rendering could be problematic for a second render if the first render did not completely finished. Also, caching certain OFX plugins (e.g. Neat Video) for certain media formats could cause errors. The state of the Cache/Process buttons in Media menu was not always accurate when switching range on/off.
- Fix on (post-render) custom commands where the xml file was not created and passed on to the script anymore.
- Added all source-shot metadata and notes to the xml output of a post-render command.
Oct 23 '18, build 998
- More robust shot-recursion detection for event viewer, which could crash the application when opening a project with missing elements.
- Quick keys for Custom Commands (Ctrl F2-F8) and Default Notes (Shift + F1 - F8) now also available in the Construct.
- Stereo mode in Player-Setting-Monitor was not available in Play Pro.
- Exiting the stabilizer not always re-enabled the selected layer.
- In the Editor - when switching to the Audio menu, SCRATCH also auto switched to the first video track, even when in the player with a (derived) output node.
- The Vimeo login procedure was not working properly anymore.
- Executing an undo during metadata edit could crash the application.
- Updated the ARRIRAW SDK to version 6.0.2.0. and the RED SDK to version 7.0.8. Both contain minor - non SCRATCH essential - tweaks for internal processing.
- The Crop option in the Guides is now off by default.
Oct 12 '18, build 997
- Added support for Blackmagic RAW.
- ProRes QuickTime that contained both 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 frames was not decoding correctly.
- Fit Slot not working correctly inside the Editor.
- Updated Beamr HEVC SDK to version 4.2.1.2.
- Fixed an issue ARRIRAW where pre-fetching could cause a crash
- Canvas softness sometimes went in the wrong direction / got stuck.
- The Cubic Packed -> Equirectangular transform in the VR Transformer plugin could introduce seams
- The Link button in the Canvas menu could disappear when switching a layer back and forth between bicubic and other shapes.
- Fixed an issue that could under certain circumstances crash scratch when loading a project where missing elements (LUTs / inputs) were detected.
- Fix on applying framing on stereo node with the Stereo Link option enabled.
Oct 1 '18, build 996
- Various format updates. Reading correct timecode for Cineform for high framerate. Canon Raw tweaks for using proxy resolutions. Added support for Kinefinity JPEG-compressed DNG's. Also, the DNG reader now uses any 'crop' EXIF tags to compile image.
- Added option to directly output an HLS stream (.m3u8) out of SCRATCH from the Live Stream function in the Player.
- Layer stack was always active when entering the player, even if in the last session it was closed.
- Using mouse wheel in combination with shift key on numeric controls now uses smaller increments to set value.
- Fix on possible issue with EDL conform containing more than 1k events.
- Added #eventlen as option to use in metadata update in the media browser.
- Fix on Canvas/Mask softness that under certain conditions could get stuck.
- SCRATCH could report an error when rendering a plug-in inside the output tree (even if the render would be correct).
- A startup logo larger than 2048x1280 was not displayed correctly on the SDI output.
Sep 10 '18, build 995
- Added an Advanced System setting to NOT reset the path of output nodes that are created from a template.
- Various updates for processing (Final Cut) XML for conform, incl. support for framing and re-timer animation.
- Added an option to include alpha in a ProRes 4444(XQ) render from Play Pro. Also - after rendering from Play Pro the project could start to report 'missing inputs' on startup unless you explicitly cleared the render queue.
- Added the 'ccc' file extension for loading CDL files - although SCRATCH only uses the first CDL in the file. Also, when (batch) loading/matching in the media browser, SCRATCH now adds a metadata item 'CDL Match' with the cdl filename to be able to check if all files were matched properly.
- When inside the player with the main or derived output node, the 'Esc' key now returns to the Render tab rather than the Construct.
- On OSX, the minimize option with Custom Commands did not work properly.
- Partially reverted the increased sensitivity of the softness control from the previous build.
- The subtitles load format filter now always default to All Formats, even if a specific format is already loaded.
- The ZCam File Browser delete function was broken.
- Fixed an issue with (H264) Dual Pass render that was introduced in a recent build.
Aug 17 ' 18, build 994
- The media re-link function did not working correctly for still frames.
- Saving snapshots to the project folder (user setting) did not work properly.
- The Publisher did not correctly use the selected (derived) output node but rather used the main output node.
- Since a few builds, the Qualifier menu did sometimes show up incorrect.
- Adjust sensitivity of numeric timecode controls for plug-ins, like subtitle-slip in the BurnIn.
- HDR Metadata controls were not showing correctly on the Render menu. Also, the HDR analysis report did not process correct in SCRATCH Play Pro.
- Use sub-folder name for grouping Matchbox shaders in the plugin browser.
Aug 14 '18, build 993
- Reading (LTC) timecode from audio file from multi-channel audio files was not always correct.
- Changing the Matchbox shader plug-in path to a non-default path was not possible.
- Adjusted the control gearing on Softness control to make it less sensitive.
Aug 9 '18, build 992
- Added function to read (LTC) timecode from an audio track. The function is available in the Media Browser Base-tab as well as can be part of the Match Audio functions in the Audio-tab.
- Added the option to load Matchbox (shader) plug-ins in SCRATCH. Matchbox plug-ins can be downloaded from: https://logik-matchbook.org/ You can install them in the default or a custom folder which you can set from the System Settings in SCRATCH.
- Added option to publish directly to H265. Note that by default this is always 8 bit as that is the max most web-enabled devices can handle. Please note that for H265, SCRATCH will always re-encode media and not like it does with H264 where SCRATCH checks if the source media can be used without re-encoding.
- Fix on H265 encoder - when encoding multiple files in one run some file could end up having faulty frame tables and could not be played back properly.
- We replaced the "Disable 'deep' color" with the "Enable 'deep' color" Advanced System Setting (on Windows). Recent NVIDIA drivers for Quadro cards could trigger a kernel exception on Windows 10 with the deep color enabled and it appeared that NVIDIA is not able to provide a solution soon. So rather than enabling the setting by default you now have to explicitly enable / try it!
- Added an extra check for systems with both Intel ad NVIDIA graphics where the wrong OpenCL platform could be selected by default which prevented SCRATCH to start properly.
- Update on Sony Raw decoder where Scratch now uses the kelvin/tint transformation method from Sony's SDK rather than its own implementation. Please note that the different implementations lead to different results. Nodes in existing projects will continue to use the old method until any of the node-settings are changed. When changed - the new method will be used which might result in a color-jump.
- Fix on Custom Commands where on OSX any result xml from the script was not properly processed by SCRATCH.
- The Ctrl+Home quick-key for fitting the image in the Viewport did not work while in the Editor.
- Instantiating generator plug-ins from the Plug-in Browser could give wrong results and zero-length nodes. Also, instantiating plug-ins in ColorFX while in the Input menu could also lead to wrong results.
- The player Navigation type could automatically switch when selecting a shot in the version stack.
Aug 1 '18, build 991
- Various updates for hardware decoding H265 which now also works correctly on AMD cards.
- Added support for HEVC MXF files.
- Various tweaks for dissolves / fades in XML conform files from FCP / Premiere.
- SCRATCH could get unresponsive when using the 'Best' quality setting for the HEVC encoder.
- When selecting a generator plug-in in the Browser with 'On Node', SCRATCH now starts a drag instead of replacing the current node.
- The Render/Cache controls in Media menu are now also available in the CDL/Dailies toolset.
- R3D media coming in with IPP2 could have an invalid color space flag set.
- The name-check when saving an output template was not done correct and could overwrite an existing template without asking.
- The XML-export type for custom commands was not saved/loaded correct when set to Timeline.
- The most recent Search parameters were not stored correctly in the user-settings.
July 24 '18, 990
- Hotfix on yesterday's build that introduced an issue with H264 decoding. The current build reverts that update, which intended to solve an issue with hardware decoding on certain AMD cards.
July 23 '18, build 989
- Fix on event-log that could crash SCRATCH when entering a project.
- Extra check on invalid UTF-8 camera metadata that could create issues when rendering to DNx.
- Fix on UI display of the layer stack when using custom ppi settings.
- Update on hardware H265 decoder for NVIDIA.
July 20 '18, build 988
- H265 Hardware decoding on NVIDIA and AMD.
- QuickTime new correctly reads H265 Video/Full Range setting.
- File Browser now allow for multi-select files using control- and shift-keys
- Added startup checks on OpenCL presence and whether the correct SDI driver is used.
- Fixed an issue on the Event log that could crash the application.
- Use Delete key to directly delete selected shots in the Construct.
- No need to reset the RGB channel mask when applying a new mask on an existing layer.
- When creating a new user - the control-gear settings were taken from the previous selected profile and not reset to the defaults.
- Added color balls for CDL grading and a switch to toggle between sliders and color balls.
July 4 '18, build 987
- The Report generator did not create all proxies if scope was set to group or project.
- When starting a note in the metadata stack in the Player, the text position reset to the beginning after typing the first character.
- Softness-vertices keyframes were not always properly cleared on reset.
- When fetching a shot Input from the Construct the menu bar was not properly restored.
- Remember the last change on the canvas Link(-vertices) setting similar like the 2-sided softness option.
- Changed track selector labels from 'T#' to 'V#'.
- Set minimum OS version for the Mac installer to 10.9.
June 26 '18, build 986
- DNx MXF file from RED camera could cause a crash and the audio was not get read properly.
- Update of the Sony Raw reader to support new variants of the XOCN Venice camera output.
- Ctrl + A/D to (de)select all keyframes in the Animation editor did notwork while the Layer stack was active.
June 22 '18, build 985
- Fixed issue with metadata used in a filemask of derived output nodes, which could have unpredictable results and end up in files rendered to one and the same file rather than separate files.
- Fixed an issue with Cube LUTs which in certain circumstances was cached incorrect resulting in an all-white image when refreshing the project.
- Fixed an issue with batch export of CDL variant .cc files from the Media Browser.
- Custom Commands updates. Executing Python (.py) script on OSX did not work on the previous build. Further, various update on the SCRATCH-Nuke script. The script now checks if Nuke is running and if not will start it. The script now maintains the file format of the input for the render. The default render folder is now "s2n" in the (scratch project) media folder and is by default limited to the frame range of the input. Adjusted the default file mask and remove any version numbers in the source shot name for the render output. The script now tries to apply the same colorspace in Nuke as the source shot in SCRATCH.
- Updated Chines translations.
- Fix: the Burn-In subtitle-slip was reset when entering player with Burn-In from the Render tab.
- Fix: layer re-naming was not always working with Panel
- Various tweaks and fixes on last builds Quick Key update. Also, an update on Full-screen mode: the toolbar button and the Tab quick keys now respond the same. Layer and ode stack are also hidden in full screen mode and playback does no longer start automatically. Aligning SCRATCH and SCRATCH Play Pro regarding start/stop playback. Now both Enter and spacebar can be used, while space bar continues to be used for panning as well.
- Removed the need to explicitly increase the graphics buffers sizes used by SCRATCH in the Advanced settings (e.g. for 8k r3d media). SCRATCH now adjusts the sizes dynamically.
June 14 '18, build 984
UI and Quick Key updates
- Added an "Off" option to the Swipe Sensitivity User Setting. This replaces the separate No Swipe settings in the Construct / Player.
- To quickly exit the Trays, Player Settings or Animate and return to Edit or ColorFX you can now just click the (already selected) tab once more.
- Full screen mode no longer leaves the left/right swipe panels visible as well as does no longer automatically start playback. Exiting full screen mode restores the original view.
- Quite a few Quick Key re-mappings to align them with more general accepted mappings and including various new mappings. Please have a look at the full Quick Key mappings by pressing Quick Key 'h' inside SCRATCH.
- Among the new hotkeys are e.g.:
- hotkey to create new layer (Insert in ColorFX)).
- hotkey to increase/decrease playback speed (Ctrl Up/Down arrow)).
- hotkey to switch between right/left/master in stereo tool (Shift + R/L/M).
- hotkey for GoTo-Timecode (Shift + G).
Scripting & Custom Commands
- Added a new SCRATCH To Nuke Custom Command. Please read the help page from the link in the Custom Command panel when you add the new Command.
- Update on the SCRATCH 2 AfterEffects Custom Command which was not functional on OSX. Please note that you also need to update the s2ae_ui.jsx script that you added to the AfterEffects installation folder.
- The renders from Nuke or AfterEffects now use a single project Tray to load in. The renders are now also automatically loaded when you are in the Construct (previously this was only done when in the Player). The Tray button will show highlighted when a new render is loaded.
- Various fixes on generic Custom Commands for OSX: running Python scripts directly, properly select an .app bundle to run the application as Custom Command.
- The XML export for selected shots now takes the slot-length into account to have proper in-out points (since the selection-xml does not contain slot information you first needed to do a fit in/out to get the handles correct in the xml export).
VR Updates
- 360 panning was not always working on plug-ins or on (derived) output nodes, even if they were flagged as equirectangular.
- Yaw, pitch, roll controls in the Setup menu now also work for equirectangular 180 (stereo).
- Added stabilizing for equirectangular 180 media.
- Added a new "Eq Camera" plug-in to change the (spherical) view position of an equirectangular media.
Formats & Metadata
- Added two standard output templates with the installer that show in the Templates dropdown in the Render tab. The templates show with an '*' to distinguish them from user created templates.
- Updated Canon Raw SDK to version 2.2 which contains a few minor fixes on the previous version.
- Using metadata #md items in the file-mask of an output node, could result in long delays when SCRATCH would check if file in the render would be unique.
- Fix on incorrect timecodes for QuickTime files with an edit-list in the timecode track.
- Relink media was not always working properly for the first shot on a Timeline.
- After File-size was (re-)calculated, the results were not always showing directly in the metadata tab of the Media Browser.
- De-seleting metadata columns in the Report generator was not working correctly.
Misc
- The default match source for AAF/XML is now Fom Folder instead of Project. For new users this is a more familiar method.
- The filmstrip notes were not showing proper characters with Hebrew font.
- Include all notes as comments in an EDL export (rather than just the first).
- When deleting a plugin from the structure view, the menu was not updated.
May 31 '18, build 983
- Adjusted QuickTime metadata for output with a single mono audio channel to be compatible with older H264 readers, like Pix.
- Applying the trim-buffer added layers, rather than overwriting the full grade and existing layers.
May 30 '18, build 982
- Initial (pre)release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. Also note that as this is a pre-release; not all documentation and user guides has been updated yet. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V9.0
General
SCRATCH v9.0 requires an upgrade of your license. If you have a valid v8.6 license, your license is automatically updated to include the new 9.0 version. After installing v9.0 (or reverting to the 8.6 build) your have to re-activate your existing license key. Contact licensing@assimilateinc.com if you have any question on licensing for version 9.0.
This version contains a number of changes from the current 8.6 release in how certain formats are processed. As such, it is not backward compatible. Before upgrading, you should maintain a backup and are advised not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
UI Updates
To reduce the learning curve for new SCRATCH users, we updated the interface in several ways.
- Introducing tab navigation at the bottom of the screen to more intuitively find your way across the various modules in SCRATCH.
- Introducing toolset selection. A toolset exposes a specific set of functions and parts of the interface. Toolsets can be dynamically switched through the toolset button at the bottom of the screen next to the tab navigation. Current available Toolsets: Player/Review, Dailies/CDL, Finish/Full.
- Relabeling certain SCRATCH specific terminology like Matrix (now ColorFX) and Construct (while the module name remains Construct, your project is built up of Timelines).
- Moved the Editor settings to the generic User Preferences dialog box (gear icon in the lower right corner), which combines all the settings for the different modules.
- Re-arranged the construct scroll bar and mini timeline above the menu bar
- Right click menu now contains more context related options rather than navigation between the various modules. The slot Dis-/Enable and -(re)name functions are now part of the right click menu in the Construct. Holding the Alt key down while selecting the Dis-/Enable Slot option, will dis-/enable all slots in the Construct. With a Custom Command you can now indicate whether that should be included in the Right click menu in the Player.
- Various First-time usage elements: Guided Tour when starting SCRATCH for the first time (the animation can also be started from the Logon screen), highlight Import Clip button when no media is loaded, popup dialog to update the resolution and/or framerate of the project when loading media of a different resolution/fps.
- Highlight the Close Construct button when using the Fetch function.
- Added explicit link-button for scaling controls to (un-)link X and Y scale. Note that dragging across the controls to (un)link them is still a valid method.
- You can quickly adjust the Timeline framerate and resolution by drag/dropping a node from the construct on the resolution label right of the the tab-navigation buttons (rather than having to open the Render tab and dropping the shot on the main output node).
Formats
We updated a number of file readers to provide increased performance and features. Existing nodes with these formats will still be processed the same as always. New imported clips will use the updated readers unless specified to use legacy readers.
- Affected formats: Canon Raw, Phantom Raw, AVCHD, Cineform, Codex Raw and Panasonic Raw.
- New H265 encoding (as well as improved decoding performance).
- New ARRI fast debayer with higher quality.
- Overall performance boost through GPU decoding for H264 media and compressed YUV formats.
- Added support in the QuickTime reader to handle multiple audio channels in separate tracks. Note though that this only works for tracks with identical codec and sample rate. Also, whenever ambisonic audio is detected, only the first audio track will be used.
VR
- Support for 180 footage, including reading mesh data for the 180 projection and including that mesh data when publishing.
- Native 2D to Equirectangular warp in the fill/mat menu, eliminating the need to insert a plug-in.
- Headset support on OSX
- Support for live audio capture and possible conversion to ambisonic, using the Sennheiser Ambeo transformer.
- Support for the new K1 camera from ZCam; live capture and media management. The live capture can also be wrapped in a stereo node for a stereo workflow.
- To preserve image quality, the VR Transformer plugin now auto adjusts its resolution depending on the type of conversion selected (cubic, equirectangular, etc.).
Media Management
- Improved memory management to better facility large projects (10.000+ nodes). Also improved initial loading speed of certain codecs.
- Added new note colors and option to create default notes from a quick key. You can create default notes from the System Settings dialog box.
- Updated the Report generator to more easily create a custom metadata column selection. A new option to select which proxy frame to use for the report. A progress bar and cancel option for generating the report. Automatic (re)calculating media size when selecting the size columns for a report.
- A new Scene/Take updater panel to auto update take numbers while you browse your imported clips.
- The Match Audio function now includes any sub folders within the selected location in its search. The setting to import scene/take data from the audio file to the shot is now available from the Media Browser itself and is a user setting (rather than an advanced system setting).
- Added the MOS (mit ohne sound) clip metadata property.
- Generate default metadata for each new loaded clip, using available #hash codes. You can create default metadata items in the Project Settings.
- A new AfterEffects Custom Command to send of shots to Adobe AfterEffects and automatically load rendered results back into the project (tray) in SCRATCH. Activating the Custom Commands requires a few additional steps in AfterEfects. These steps are provided from a link in the Custom Command tab in the System Settings dialog.
- The Event/Error log now includes the location of shots that reported missing / missing LUT files.
- Added support to read and write .cc files (a derivative cdl format used by other third party software).
- Added standard "Compression" and "Bit Depth" metadata items for compressed media formats such as DNx, QuickTime, H26x (note that in case of ProRes the bit depth cannot always be determined and as such is not displayed).
- By default any display color space transform and LUT are now included when exporting a snapshot or proxy images (for reports).
- Batch update timecodes from the Media Browser.
- When applying an output template, the framerate of all nodes in the template are now reset to the main parent node. Also, any fit width/height is re-applied when adding an output template. This makes output templates better applicable for different sized / framerate projects. (Note that this does not apply to DNx nodes as the encoder used in that node is tied to a specific framerate and resolution).
- SCRATCH now reads the pixel aspect from the metadata of QuickTime files, if present.
Misc
- Added a "C" option in the Editor with the transition controls to enable/disable clipping of the A/B images in a transition.
- Animation editor now shows values of keyframes when hovering over or dragging them.
- Fixes in the Structure View to drag/drop plug-ins into your composite.
- Plug-ins browser. Explicitly select how to apply a selected plug-in: on a (new) layer or on the current node. Double click defaults to applying the plug-in on a (new) layer. Alt+double click will start a new drag/drop action for the selected plug-in. Also, when applying a plugin on a layer that requires no inputs SCRATCH now excplicitly sets the aspect and fps to that of the base node (size was already set).
- The Player now always switches to Output View when you have multiple video tracks and enter the Editor. This behavior can be switched off in the user preference. Also, when switching to audio view in the Editor while on a sub-track, the Player now always auto-switches to the base video track.
- Control Surface updates. Added Various new panel mappings (e.g. for Snapshots) and included a new default Elements panel mapping. Fix on the framing controls in the Editor that did not update when adjusting the framing through a panel. Automatically use the Tangent CP200 Full mapping when 2 or more panels are connected
- Added three new default framerates: 50, 96 and 120 fps.
- Show tooltips even when a control is disabled.
- Exiting the Media Browser in a large project could take a relatively long time.
- Added a popup message to ask to delete existing media when starting a new render of a node that would otherwise fail to overwrite the existing media and generate an error.
- Fix for incorrect sizing of derived output nodes with non-square aspect project setting.
- Space-drag not working in staging with clip attached to cursor.
- A new Collector node now uses the aspect of the main output node.
- Burn-in controls were not updating on the Render tab.
- Various fixes in Tray: dropping a shot into a in the Player did not always work. Starting a drag action from the Tray could sometimes pick the wrong shot. Editing the Tray label did not work correct.
- Applying the trim buffer could create node references rather than copies.
- Scroll the Construct to the correct position when returning to the Construct from Playing an output node.
- Using the Add or Delete version through a panel could result to unexpected results when the Player Stack was not showing.
- Noise parameter was not properly reset on a general reset.
- Incorrect Clip selection with Shift-click in Media Browser.
- The "No Bottom Swipe" user setting now includes the top Player menu bar to be non-swipeable.
- Adjusted control sensitivity for Canvas X/Y Scale controls in ColorFX.
- The EXR compression types ZIPS and ZIP where mixed up using one method while the other was selected.
- Project poster on the logon screen could show too big for shots with aspect not equal to 1.
- The Clear Audio button in the Media Browser did not clear the audio slip.
- Added an Advanced System Setting to enable loading Panasonic AVC Intra with our own codec (instead of FFMPEG/CSP) which is faster but does not support audio.
- ARRI Raw Red-gain behaved incorrectly with Fast debayer.
- The Match Grade function in the Curves menu was broken.
- The hash code ‘#md[key]’ for clips where the metadata-key-item did not exist, generated a wrong value.
- The Watch folder on the Mac was not working correctly.
- Various updates of external SDK versions: RED SDK version 7.0.7, AJA SDK 14.0.1, BMD DeckLink SDK 10.10.
UPDATE RELEASES V8.6
April 26 '18, build 970
- The 'audio match and sync' function in SCRATCH to calculate the audio slip could be a few frames off because of its sensitivity on a clip's (non-integer) framerate. For certain media the fps was not recorded with a sufficient number of decimals (23.976 vs 23.9760239760).
- The audio bitrate setting for h264 encoding was not working properly.
March 9 '18, build 969
- Limiting size of metadata column names to 32 characters for DNx export as other software has issues with reading longer names.
- Updated the format of CDL metadata in an EDL/ALE as other software was unable to parse the data.
- Updated ARRIRAW SDK to version 5.4.3.5. containing various bug fixes for processing images of certain sizes, LogC_Film color-space and ALEXA LF footage.
Feb 9 '18, build 968
- Masks were not always working correct on certain AMD GPUs on Windows.
- Updated the ARRI RAW SDK to version 5.4.3.3 with support for Alexa LF.
- Updated the RED SDK to version 7.0.6. that contains various bug fixes from the prior version.
- Fix on the timecode attribute in EXR renders which was not read correctly by other software.
Feb 1 '18, build 967
- Update Sony Raw handling to support the new Sony Venice CineAlta camera.
- Fix on rendering DNxHR 444 which contained wrong format metadata that could prevent it from loading in other software.
- Fix on the track-ripple mode in the Editor. The ripple mode only affected shots after the main timeline shot that was adjusted but should also affect shots that are on the same position as the timeline shot.
- In some cases the wrong EDID was read to determine physical size of a display (e.g. with a VR headset) - causing a wrong DPI setting for the UI.
- When applying a plug-in on a version shot the shot selection could change inadvertently.
- Fix on AAF parsing where the in-point of a composition node with a vari-speed inside it could be set to the wrong value.
Dec 11 '17, build 966
- SCRATCH now uses CUDA for ARRI Raw SDK debayers on Windows when possible because of the better performance compared to OpenCL.
- An issue was introduced two builds ago where all dissolves of an EDL were conformed to color fades (rather than just the first dissolve of a timeline).
Nov 23 '17, build 965
- New RED SDK version 7.0.5. Adds DCI-P3 and ProPhoto color spaces and improved 8k support. Note that IPP2 is not yet supported. Rocket-X driver 2.1.34.0 and firmware 1.4.22.18 or later. Rocket driver 2.1.23.0 and firmware 1.1.18.0 or later.
- ARRI monochrome files were showing incorrectly since the last SDK update.
- Custom Command based on system-events where not displayed correct in the system settings dialog and could en up referencing the wrong system-event.
- Scratch was unable and could hang on loading certain 12-bit DPX file.
- Publishing media to SCRATCH Web could introduce audio synchronization issues when the (fractional)framerate of the timeline was entered manually rather than selecting from the dropdown list.
- SCRATCH now by default sets the internal color space flag of a created QuickTime file to 'rec709' - as opposed to setting it to 'unknown' if there was no suitable translation from the SCRATCH color space to the available QuickTime standard format (such as e.g. for sRGB). The 'unknown' setting caused some other software to apply a unspecified color matrix conversion.
- Various AAF processing updates. The Assembler dialog did not always list the proper event numbers. Framing (animations) from AAF files created from Adobe Premiere where not properly included as well as certain source timecodes. In some cases an explicit outpoint was set for vari-speed shots which could produce a freeze frame.
Nov 3 '17, build 964
- DNx render with audio included the wrong audio channel index number and could include the wrong audio channel name name in the filename and the DNx metadata.
- The #audiofile[c] metadata code was not using the index-parameter correctly. Also added a new #chname[c] metadata code to retrieve the audio channel name.
- Added support for certain 10-bit monochrome DPX files which specify the wrong packing method.
- The Re-timer showed the first frame twice when instantiated from the Edit menu.
Oct 20 '17, build 962
- The previous build introduced an issue where the controls of an output node could be positioned incorrectly.
Oct 16 '17, build 961
- The DNx render node replaced spaces in the metadata column header with an underscore when adding the metadata to the MXF output file.
- The extended metadata column names In an ALE export could conflict with the standard ALE columns and introduce duplicate columns. SCRATCH now adds a numeric post-fix to the conflicting (extended) column name.
- The 'From folder' option in the Conform function did not work correctly with the 'All formats' file filter. Also, Placeholder nodes were not always included in a Conform when the 'Incl. Duplicates' option was enabled.
- Clearing a metadata value in the Media Browser did not always also explicitly remove the metadata item from the shot.
- EDL conform no longer creates zero length slots and any dissolve in the first slot is created as a color fade.
- Re-linking audio did not include any sample rate override that was set originally and as such the audio timecode could change.
- Added native support for reading DFT Scanity 10-bit monochrome DPX files.
- In certain cases the Sony decoder would not work because not all required runtime files were present on a system. The current installer includes additional runtime files.
Oct 8 '17, build 960
- Performance improvement for reading compressed EXR files.
- Under certain conditions SCRATCH could consume too much/all GPU memory.
- Segmented R3D file with lower case extension (r3d) were loaded as separate files.
- Using a plug-in on the source nodes of a 360 stitch or changing the channel format (RGB/A) could mess up the actual stitch. Also, clearing the template used in the stitch node could potentially crash the application.
- Nest nodes. Nesting a shot with vari-speed was not always working correctly. Deleting a nest node from the composite tree did not always produce the correct results.
- Format tags of a STL subtile file were not properly processed and displayed as plain text.
- The default file filter with the Assembler From-folder option was set to 'All Files' instead of 'All Formats', causing SCRATCH to also evaluate non-media files.
- DNx renders could contain an audio timecode that included any slip that was set. This could cause issue in an AVID workflow.
Sep 10 '17, build 959
- Stereo node did not always prefetch both eyes which caused a playback performance drop.
- EXR renders did not include the line offset table correctly, which could cause a playback performance drop for high resolution files.
Aug 30 '17, build 958
- New Codec Support Pack update (5.0.339). Please note that update contains fixes and changes that for some media formats might affect the resulting decoded images and as such are not fully compatible with the previous version. The update contains:
- new menu structure for raw formats (GPU/CPU and Fast/Medium/Quality dropdowns)
- new Quality debayer method (pixel-grouped debayer)
- RGB gains replaced with Kelvin and Tint controls
- added support for Canon C700 Raw 10 and 12 bit
- new HEVC reader
- added support for more monochrome DPX formats (incl. label change in the formats dropdown)
- Panasonic AVCi 422 and 444 are now defaulting to full range source interpretation
- performance improvement for Panasonic AVCi 444
- performance improvement for Cineform 444
- File-mask in the Player Media menu was not properly updated in the player-media menu.
- SCRATCH Play always showed yaw/pitch/roll framing controls instead of the X/Y offset controls.
- After selecting a path from the recent-list or bookmarks in the file browser, the proxy image was no longer updated.
- If the sound roll property in the Media Browser is set then the DNx Writer will generate a metadata tag called "Soundroll" which is picked up by e.g. Avid Media composer.
- Update on live streaming to Facebook that failed after Facebook changed the size of their stream-keys (but also reverted the change again). Also , the stream function now uses new default bit rates.
Aug 18 '17, build 957
- Added a 'Position' option in the Paste Grade function: this matches shots in the current selection and copy buffer based on the slot-index position (and version index if needed).
- Change the default size for 3D LUTs to 33 (this is the size ARRI cameras need). Note that if you already set a value in the Player-Settings-General menu, this will not automatically alter.
- Make sure the user and system settings are saved before the system-close custom command trigger fires.
Aug 4 '17, build 956
- QuickTime reader was always outputting 16-bit audio - independent of the bit depths of the source.
- Adding audio to derived output nodes could cause a crash.
- Wrong metadata was included with 1080i DNxHD MXF that caused Media Composer to not read the files correctly.
- When the main output node contained grading, SCRATCH continued to pre-load source frames even if the main output node was cached. This caused performance issues.
- Fixed an issue with spanned clips when loading the main node as still frames.
July 21 '17, build 955
- Convergence controls were not always available with an active stereo node.
- Speed up of loading large file sequences.
- Default Kelvin value for Panasonic DNG media was incorrect.
- Fixes on Z-Cam WonderStitch interface.
July 13 '17, build 954
- Updated various supported headset interfaces: Oculus v1.15.0. / OpenVR v1.0.8. / StarVR v0.059.
- Fixed issue with rendering audio to MXF where the audio tracks could contain noise if the camera source contained silence.
- H264 output was not including audio when HDR metadata was enabled.
- A Cube LUT with only a 1D LUT could cause other (3D cube) LUTs to not display correctly.
- Adding audio to a shot / (derived) output which already inherited audio from an input could result in wrong slip value. Furthermore, a drag action of the audio (wave form) to adjust the slip used the wrong drag acceleration. Adjusting the slip of a derived output node by dragging was not always applied to the correct node.
- The 360 OpenCL stitch could have an issue on certain graphics cards (e.g. AMD on a Bootcamp systems).
- The Z-Cam WonderStitch interface is updated to work with the latest version.
- Updated QuickTime / mp4 color space tagging. As QuickTime only has a limited set of possible color space tags, SCRATCH would in certain cases tag a clip based on its resolution. Now, an explicit ‘undefined’ tag is set. In addition SCRATCH adds its own color space metadata references so that when loaded back into SCRATCH the clip is tagged exactly the same as it was rendered.
June 26 '17, build 953
- On OSX all gallery items were selected when opening the gallery trays the first time after entering a project.
- You could not drag/drop new shots directly into the version stack.
- Fixed an issue with decoding certain Panasonic GH5 media by updating the H264 decoder.
- In certain cases SCRATCH was unable to link the audio tracks with an DNx-mxf video track.
- Update on the stitcher. You can now read OZO camera metadata files directly. Also added a new seam-finder method (Radial) which works better in situations where there are a high number of cameras with a lot of overlap.
- New ARRIRAW SDK to version 5.4.0.7.
- Improved decoding speeds of DNG and Kinefinity.
- Automatic canvas convergence through the Stereo Eye Separation option in the Camera menu worked in the wrong direction.
- Certain data columns in the system settings dialog where not sizable and showed too small on systems with high resolution displays.
- Shift+F12 short key was not working properly.
June 8 '17, build 951
- Fix for SDI live view that did not always pick up on the live signal when started the first time. Also improved the format detection for BMD live view signal.
- Fix of an issue with the auto animate of vertices that was introduced in the previous build.
June 6 '17, build 950
- Animation values where not updated properly after deleting second to last keyframe.
- After entering the ZCam Live view, SCRATCH would no longer render framing on existing timelines when not exiting SCRATCH fully first.
- Reading / writing extended metadata into EXR could crash SCRATCH if the metadata data length exceeded a certain size.
- Adding keyframes while in dual view with the same source shot did not work properly.
- Media menu in the Matrix was not highlighted when source remapping was applied.
- Conform Match function did not always pick up new matches after loading additional media.
- Since the previous build, certain control text label were not properly clipped if the text was too long for the control.
May 29 '17, build 949
- Fix on interpretation the timecode of certain aaf files. Also, having the Incl. Duplicates option in the Assembler off resulted in an empty conform.
- SCRATCH is a bit more conservative in claiming memory at startup.
- Z CAM integration updates: Live view was not working after last camera firmware update: camera now requires restart on changing the video system (NTSC, PAL). Also an update on the Z Cam file browser where downloaded files were not always loaded into the construct automatically.
- The 360 Stitch Setup could potentially crash the application.
- Fix on OpenFX that prevented new Boris FX plugins to be instantiated on a layer.
- Fix on interpreting and processing metadata of Panasonic GH5 media.
- XML output for custom commands now includes output resolution and render path.
- Reintroduced - interpret XAVC log-curve files (S-log/S-log2/S-log3/S-log3.cine/etc) as full range by default (XAVC MXF only).
May 19 '17, build 947
- Previous build could have a problem installing on older OSX versions.
- Updated Chinese translation included.
- Update on handling render problems: SCATCH did not always show the event log but only wrote errors to the log. For file sequences if an image fails to render no file is generated. for container formats a frame with the missing frame color is rendered.
- Invalidating multiple items in the process queue at once was not working properly anymore.
- In- / out points where not always maintained properly when adding a plug-in on a node or when nesting a node and (cache) rendering it.
- For certain plug-ins (RE:Vision) SCRATCH will no longer automatically fall back to CPU processing when GPU processing fails - to avoid inconsistent render results.
- Various updates on Publishing function. Added an option to explicitly reset/clear your access token to your Vimeo / YouTube or Facebook account. SCRATCH was not always processing the in/out points of clips properly when using timeline audio. SCRATCH is now using a the new Vimeo API. For both Vimeo and YouTube the authentication challenge/response procedure is now fully automated and does no longer require copying of codes.
- For live streaming out of the ZCam , SCRATCH potentially could use a wrong framerate, resulting in out of sync audio.
- Panasonic IntraLT XAVC was not always scaled properly.
- Added an "All formats" file filters buy default for all file groups (this filter was already available with e.g. media types but not yet for LUT / grade files).
- Applying a grade from an item in the timeline tray to multiple shots required re-select the tray item after each apply action.
- Under certain circumstances, loading media into a clean construct could alter the color space of the main output node.
- Assembler did not apply effects on versions when you included duplicate matches in the result.
- Could not pick the tracker box when entering tracker / stabilizer – but required an extra click to select.
- Qualifier did not always function correct when adding a fill to the layer.
May 12 '17, build 946
- Drag&drop from version stack to memories results in incorrect thumbnail.
- The Construct Layerstack could show up in Player after a Fetch action.
- Structure View overlay menu could show while view not active.
- Stabilizer rotate for 2 points tracker now on by default.
- Stereo dissolves were not displayed properly on the second monitor.
- Multiple instances of H264 encoder with same file name but different extension did not work.
- All files produced by X264 and larger than 4096x2304 where not always playing back correctly due to a wrong decoder level in the files.
- Stitch updates: support for radius and crop functions in external templates. Added crop controls to the Stitch detail window. Improved performance on AMD GPU.
- A project output tree template was not applied on the first construct when creating a new group.
- Added copy/paste quick keys (ctrl c/v) to the calculator.
- MaxCLL and MaxFALL tooltips were swapped
- Various OFX tweaks for improved plug-in support.
- Certain CR2 files from Canon 5D Mark II only showed black.
- Z Cam 360 Camera integration; Live preview / file management / WonderStitch integration. This functionality requires a special license.
- Live Streaming function now uses hardware h264 encoding (NVIDIA + Windows only). Also, added a Clear button to explicitly remove credentials from interface and user settings.
Apr 14 '17, build 944
- SCRATCH could hang on startup on OSX with certain non-English language / keyboard combinations.
- Various fixes and tweaks for RE:Vision OFX plug-in support.
- Fix on Report Generator where clearing the custom logo was not stored properly.
Apr 6 '17, build 940
- Using (ACES) CTL scripts in combination with a 3D LUT could end up in a wrong application of the LUT or even a crash when loading the project.
- UI fixes. Pressing character-keys did not properly scroll the project list on the start screen. The tab quick-key to get a clean Player UI did not function correctly anymore. Added quick-key shift+F12 to (cache) render nest and plug-in nodes.
- Fix on ARRI RAW where monochrome images were show in red with the fast debayer.
- Fixes on OFX plug-in processing. Switch between GPU and CPU processing was not functioning correctly. Plug-ins that require multiple frames for analyzing a shot could end up claiming more memory than needed.
- Creating a collector node in the construct could change the order of the remaining version shots.
- Proxy reference frame position after a scene detection could be wrong.
Mar 23 '17, build 939
- When SCRATCH was started as player by opening a media file directly or when entering the player from SCRATCH Play – it could crash.
- Fix for rendering interactive-overlays which certain (OFX) plug-ins use.
Mar 17 '17, build 938
- Initial release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key. All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read the full Release notes to see what is new in this version or view this Feature Highlights Video.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V8.6
General
For a quick overview of the new features in SCRATCH and SCRATCH VR v8.6 please see this video Feature Highlights Video.
This update contains a number of changes in how certain formats are processed. As such, they are not fully backward compatible. Before upgrading, you should maintain a backup and are advised not to upgrade in the middle of a project.
Format Support Updates and Enhancements
- New DNx MXF Encoder for high speed encoding of OpAtom and Op1A, including DNxHR.
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New more efficient DNx MXF Decoder, reading OpAtom, OP1a and Op1B variants.
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Increased performance of QuickTime and XAVC MXF readers.
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New DNG Raw reader with improved performance and high quality debayer. Reads wide range of DNG variants, including brand-new Panasonic Varicam LT DNG.
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New support for wide range of still camera raw formats like Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Hasselblad, Pentax, Leica and more.
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Update on Kinefinity support with new high quality debayer.
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The MXF DNx Encoder includes audio channel name information into the (OpAtom) audio filename so the info remains available in an AVID roundtrip.
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Option to create 10 bit H264 .mp4 or .mov output. Important to generate HDR output; the files contain all HDR statistics (such as color space and transfer function info and mastering luminance levels). Furthermore, the H264 maximum output resolution is now 8192x6144. The higher resolutions are especially important in the VR environment.
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ACES: this version contains all the latest standard transforms as published by the Academy. This version also introduces ACEScct; this is a derivative of ACEScc (also referred to as ACES log) but has a different fall off in the shadows of an image.
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Added an FFmpeg writer node to be able to output various (less common) formats (like e.g. Flash Video or Windows Television (.WTV) ). Note that FFmpeg covers may codec and container formats. Not all combinations of settings are possible and have been tested.
UI Updates & re-design
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The new Logon screen includes project poster images for easier navigation through your projects. A Poster image is written automatically on exit of a project or you can override the image from the Tools menu in the CONstruct.
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The Matrix layout has been updated and re-labeled for more intuitive access. Furthermore, all non-default values in the Matrix will now highlight, including the control-set selection panel.
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Swipe sensitivity is now a user setting and SCRATCH will now display Swipe placeholders in both the CONstruct and the Player if a panel has been swiped away.
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The Structure view has been incorporated into the Player Stack on the right. You can now easily switch between the source stack indented list or the structure view.
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Added tooltips to better explain all the available functionality. Advanced users can turn this function off in the user settings. Note that this is a work in progress and currently only the generic functions in the Player have been labeled.
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The functionality of the Process module has been consolidated to the top menu bar in the Player to have quick access to the render and cache functionality of SCRATCH from within the Player.
HDR Update
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The PQ and HLG transfer functions are now an integral part of SCRATCH's color management. There is no need to manually search and apply LUTs. With a single click you can define the transfer function for any shot, output or display.
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The scopes will automatically switch to HDR mode if needed and show the levels in a nit-scale. Furthermore, you can now choose whether the scopes should reflect the levels of your source media, your UI monitor or your reference monitor, which might include an additional color space transformation or custom display LUT.
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On the project level you can define your HDR Mastering Metadata: color space, color primaries and white levels, luminance levels, etc... This metadata is automatically included in the Video HDMI interface (AJA, BMD, BlueFish) for the display. The Luminance levels set in the meta data are also displayed in the scopes, where it will warn you if the current levels exceed the maximum levels entered.
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Next to the static metadata SCRATCH now also has the function to calculate dynamic luminance metadata like MaxCLL and MaxFALL. This metadata can be saved in a sidecar report next to your output or is included in the H264 media that you render.
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The REC2020 color space matrices have been added for the SDI output settings for the proper YUV conversion.
- Added the P3 D65 colorspace as an alternative HDR mastering.
VR 360
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Added 360 stitch functionality. You can now load all your source media from your 360 cameras into SCRATCH and combine it to a single equirectangular image. You can use an external template or 'pano'-file for combining the sources or use SCRATCH's own functions to determine the stitch setup. Within SCRATCH you have the full set of grading and compositing tools available to optimize your stitch and you can review it while you work in 360 mode in a headset or on a reference monitor / theater projection. You can render out the stitched equirectangular shot or continue working on the stitch node in SCRATCH. The main benefit is that at any time during post and mastering your 360 project, you are only clicks away from your source footage.
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Support for templates: AutoPano / PTGui projects, Hugin and PTStitch scripts.
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Ambisonic Audio. SCRATCH can load and playback ambisonic audio files (AmbiX/FuMa B-format) to complete your 360 immersive experience. SCRATCH will automatically recognize ambisonic audio that is included in an h264 file or you can load a separate *.amb audio file and link it to a shot / timeline. Playback of ambisonic audio is automatically linked to the motion of your headset or the direction of the video you set with the PanZoom tool. From the audio panel you can adjust the base vector / direction of the ambisonic audio when it is not in line with your video. When rendering out 360 media to H264, SCRATCH will include and properly tag the linked ambisonic audio so that other players (e.g. YouTube or Facebook) will recognize it.
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Next to using ambisonic audio, you can also load multiple mono or stereo audio files and adjust their position inside your 360 environment. Again - this is all done through the audio panel - in the ambisonic section.
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Added overlay handles to the existing 2D-Equirectangular plug-in to more easily position 2D elements in a 360 scene.
- Stereo Link and Convergence are now also available for Equirectangular: convergence only applies to Yaw.
Misc
- New Report tool, available from the Tools menu in the Construct. The Report generator creates an (html) report from the input parameters and the selected shot-range. You can customize the reports with your own logo and for certain reports include your own metadata column selection.
- New Live Stream option. This new function is accessible - together with the Publish and Remote options - from the new Collaborate menu in the top menu bar in the Player.
- Back by popular demand: the Link-softness option.
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Nest and plug-in nodes by default now render to Project Cache folder.
- SCRATCH no longer sets an explicit out-point when applying a plug-in. In the Matrix Fill/matte menu you see the media length of the underlying node. When copying the layer / plug-in to another parent, the out-point automatically adjusts. This way you do not get any freeze frame displays when the new parent shot is longer than the original.
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Added a border-option to video wall plug-in.
- Added an Open Folder button to Process Queue dialog to open the file location of the selected queue item.
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Added option in the Stabilizer to either apply the data to the Framing parameters (as it used to do) or alternatively create a layer with the stabilize motion applied. This latter solution has the advantage that you can easily group the stabilizing layer and add a second autonomous motion (e.g. camera pan) on the already stabilized image. Also, the stabilize function did not properly handle over-under 360
stereo media, and the yaw, pitch and roll parameters where not always
properly translated into a stereo node.
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Added the option to select an output-template with the Project setting which is then applied every time you create a new CONstruct. This will save you time rebuilding your standard output -tree. Also added a confirmation message before deleting output templates in the Output menu in the Construct.
- The actual value of an on/off button was not properly visible when the button was in a disabled state.
- XML scripting update: now all project formats and defaults properties can be included in a project-create xml.
- Added a Transformer Node to the output list; this is the same node type as the Image File node but labeling it this way makes it more explicit / intuitive how to add re-scaling in your output tree.
- Various updates for AAF conform that contain vari-speed adjustments in combination with dissolves.
UPDATE RELEASES v8.5
Dec 16 '16, build 920
- SCRATCH (Play) could crash on exit when it was started with a file reference.
- Reverse assemble did not skip always all zero length events in an EDL.
Dec 8 '16, build 919
- Invalid metadata in ARRIRAW AlexaSXT_1.0:36225 (firmware) media could result in an error message.
- AAF and XML assembler did not properly process utf8 characters.
- Range-state is now maintained when navigating through the proxy timeline.
- The Source button was not always in sync with the selected layer from the source stack.
- Switching slots while editing the slot label could prevent access to the editing text slate.
- Slip control in Editor could not turn negative.
Nov 28 '16, build 918
- New Codec Support Pack - 5.0.312:
- certain DNG files had an incorrect aspect.
- Panasonic 4k AVCi 444 images were shifted to the left by one pixel.
- Magazines from the Canon C300 that contained .sif files could crash SCRATCH upon import.
- XAVC Reader gave an error on certain Panasonic 12 bit 4:4:4 files and potentially could crash SCRATCH on files containing a resolution of 4096x1080.
- The Reset option for a vertices animation on the masks did not work.
- The out-point of a re-timer node that was applied from a conform was wrong, resulting in a still frame.
- Proxy timeline was not updating when switching tracks.
- The slip control in the editor was had incorrect range values which could make it impossible to set the correct slip.
Nov 18 '16, build 917
- Fixes an issue that was introduced in build 915 where a dissolve could under certain conditions render wrong.
Nov 15 '16, build 916
- New Codec Support Pack - 5.0.311:
- Added support for Panasonic VaricamLT DNG.
- Added support for Canon XF-AVC (C700).
- Added support for URSA (mini) DNG.
- Added support for certain types of Cineform DPX.
- Fix for the exposure parameter going negative producing a burned out image with raw files.
- Fix for DNG files that had a misinterpreted exposure value (negative), resulting in exposure parameter jumping up to 9 on OSX.
- Updating metadata values in the media browser using the 'Set' function would wrongly strip file-system invalid characters.
- The dropdown option controls in the Output menu could under certain conditions display wrong and be unable to adjust the value.
- In certain cases when re-linking media with a different resolution could, the original width and height would be maintained.
- The User-settings file could grow exponentially when switching users profiles often.
- When importing more than 16 XAVC files at once, audio was not always playing back properly.
Nov 2 '16, build 915
- Updated RED SDK to version 6.2.2. Requires Rocket-X driver 2.1.34.0 and firmware 1.4.22.18 or later, Rocket driver 2.1.23.0 and firmware 1.1.18.0 or later.
- Updated ARRIRAW SDK to version 5.3.0.12.
- Updated Sony Raw SDK to support for the new Sony XOCN ST and LT compressed Raw files (F55/F5).
- If the main output node of a construct was set to do an ACES color space conversion, values could get clipped. This could also happen in certain cases with a transition in a timeline which also included a color space transform.
- The QuickTime Reader was reading the full time codes in a file when opening the file, which is very time consuming when working large files.
- Control surface mappings for PanZoom did not work if PanZoom panel was not visible.
- The VR360->2D converter node was not included with the recent Windows installer.
- When flattening a track the alpha channel of the resulting layer -fill was not enabled by default.
- To enter / exit the note editor in the meta data stack in the Player you can now use shortcut 'N' and 'Esc' without the need to use the mouse to set the active cursor.
Oct 11 '16, build 913
- Fix on position Dual Head for Windows(10) when the primary display has a (font) scaling applied.
- Fix on processing Stereo node which was not pre-fetching media.
Sep 26 '16, build 912
- Fix for a potential crash on OSX Sierra in the Qualifier when you picked a color.
- Nesting multiple layers at once did not always give the correct result.
- Proxy images did not include all the proper transforms when working in ACES Log and as such always showed in ACES Linear.
- Using certain file-naming hash-codes could introduce unwanted sub-folders (e.g. using #colorspace with value 'Lin\sRGB')
- Saving / loading xml did not always preserve all timeline transition data correct.
- The scope that was set with an xslt-custom command was not stored correctly.
Sep 16 '16, build 911
- The timecode of certain ARRI Alexa QuickTime files were not shown correctly.
- In certain cases the wrong shots were used when conforming A-B sequences from an AAF file.
- A Stabilize using a 2 point tracker and including rotate and fit, could lead to incorrect upscale.
- SCRATCH could crash at startup when encountering a bad font.
Aug 26 '16, build 910
- Fix on reading 4k, 10bit dpx images with alpha channel.
- Tweak on potential Defocus/Clarity edge artifacts.
- Displaying the proxy timeline could sometimes cause that you could not drag the overlays of an animated canvas.
- The de-construct function did not properly process stereo- or other plug-in nodes.
- The de-stereo function did not maintain the handles of the stereo node onto its inputs.
Aug 11 '16, build 909
- New RED SDK with support for Helium 8k Sensor, a new Log3G10 gamma space and REDWideGamutRGB color space. Requires Rocket-X driver 2.1.34.0 and firmware 1.4.22.18 or later.
- Various fixes on parsing aaf- and xml-conform files created with Adobe's Premiere.
Aug 1 '16, build 908
- Fix on the H264 decoder which prevented it to run at its full potential for 8bit media.
- Fix for reading 12-bit dpx files depending on the byte order used.
- Updated Chinese translation file.
- Fix on the Invalidate-function which resulted in a situation where you could not change the output path of the node anymore.
- AAF - Dip_2 (fade to color) effect could result in wrong timings.
- Fix in the Vector Paint for selecting a source for the Clone mode.
- A new Codec Support Pack (CSP), containing various fixes and new format support.
- Support for Panasonic IntraLT and Intra2K-LT, Panasonic DNG, multichannel audio (in e.g. XAVC files), RMF recorded with AJA Ki Pro recorder, Canon C100 AVCHD.
- Added new debayer modes.
- Fix for reading DNxHD OP1a from new Avid MC.
- Panasonic V-Raw had an incorrect default white-point.
- Cineform HD 444 clips showed a vertical artifact line on far right of the image.
- Ikonoskop DNG had a wrong default black-point.
- The tone curve for Phantom Cine was not applied with OpenCL / CPU processing.
Jul 8 '16, build 907
- The composite of a stereo node was not always correctly displayed in the source stack or structure view.
- A qualifier matte could shift position when a post-blur or mask was added.
- The Named Layer - paste option was sometimes invoked while using the Memories or Galleries, resulting in no grade being copied.
- Updated Chinese translations.
- VR metadata was not passed properly in a Remote session.
- Added the #eventlen metadata hash code for burn-in and file mask, returning the length of a slot in frames.
Jul 4 '16, build 906
- Maintain split view position independent from single view.
- Multi-sampling did not work for masks.
- Added a ALE import option to automatically set a LUT reference as source or grading LUT. If the LUT reference does not contain a path then the import function uses the folder where the ALE file is located to find the LUT.
- Slightly adjusted default interface font size which on lower resolutions could cut-off certain labels.
- Added custom mappings for the Ripple.
- The De-CONstruct function did not properly include out-dissolve frames.
- The matte display was squeezed on SDI-output with non-square aspect footage.
- Audio could play out of sync when using the filmstrip to scrub through the timeline.
- Changing the bit-depth of a RED shot while using a Rocket-X with an OFX plug-in on a layer could lead to a crash.
- H264 reader could under certain conditions produce black frames.
- The vertices of the luma-curve could show jump when editing the middle vertex.
- Updated the AJA SDK for Mac to 12.4.1 - SCRATCH now needs driver 12.4.1. Updated BMD Deck Link SDK to version 10.6.6.
- Added OpenCL support for OFX plug-ins.
- Full-release version: the user guide has been updated for v8.5 and the pdf version is available for download.
Jun 20 '16, build 904
- Update on support for HTC Vive, which now including Play control from inside the headset.
- The audio waveform was not shown for timeline audio (issue introduced in previous build).
- Fix on parsing 3dl LUTs; if the LUT file did not end with linefeed then last entry of LUT was skipped. Also, when resetting a (display) LUT and then loading it again could produce a distorted image until the project was refreshed.
- Undo did not work properly for Manage Stereo sync function and for updates in Metadata stack.
- Picking vertices for softness at high zoom rate was not working properly.
Jun 13 '16, build 903
- Basic support for the HTC Vive - VR headset. Note that the motion tracking from the headset is not yet applied back onto the main and reference screen and that the player overlay controls are not yet available inside the headset.
- Fix for ARRI Raw MXF format on OSX, which could crash the application when the media contained audio.
- Fix for PNG writer where content could end up flipped.
- Fix for H264 that under certain rare conditions could produce black frames.
- Opacity Animation combined with Softness of a layer, could sometimes lead to not rendering the grade of the layer.
Jun 10 '16, build 902
- SCRATCH now supports direct playback of the Cubic Packed format where the 6 squares of the 360 view are stored in 2 rows of 3 columns (or 4x3 for stereo). The VR transformer plug-in supports converting between equirectangular and Cubic Packed (stereo).
- Fix for viewing stereo node with the Oculus where the right eye image was also shown on the left.
- Option to interpret ProRes QuickTime movie as full range rather than video range and as such maintain super-whites and super-blacks.
Jun 8 '16, build 901
- Pre-Release version: The pre-release stage means that the build is fully feature complete and past the beta-testing stage but we are still working on updating the user guide and any additional documentation. Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key.
All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to
include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid
support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read
the full Release notes to see what is new in this version.
VERSION 8.5 [Jun 2016]
General
SCRATCH v8.5 requires you to re-activate your license. If you have a valid v8.4 license then the license has been upgraded automatically to also include v8.5.
Note that even though the color pipeline in SCRATCH has not undergone major changes from v8.4 to v8.5 you should always maintain a backup and validate your project when upgrading as subtle changes might occur from version to version.
SCRATCH VR Suite
With the release of SCRATCH v8.5, we're also introducing the SCRATCH VR Suite. This Suite bundles SCRATCH, SCRATCH Web plus a series of tools and features for an end-to-end workflow for Virtual Reality 360 media
projects - covering dailies, editorial, grading, compositing and
finishing.
Please have a look at the two tutorial videos that cover the various new VR tools and functions: SCRATCH VR Tutorial Videos. Alternatively, click here to open a white paper for a full description of the various tools and the workflow that the SCRATCH VR Suite offers. Please note that the SCRATCH VR Suite requires a special license and will not be included in the standard SCRATCH version. When the VR license is activated, the starting screen will show SCRATCH VR.
Stereo Workflow
SCRATCH v8.5 comes with an enhanced stereo 3D workflow.
- More flexibility and efficiency in setting up your stereo project where you wrap your stereo media in stereo nodes; whether the media consists of separate image sequences or a single image stream that already contains a stereo pattern.
- The new Manage Stereo tool in the Player gives you full control over what part of your stereo shot you view and work on: left- or right-eye view while working on the stereo master-grade or the grade of the individual eyes. The tool also allows for quick synchronization of a grade done on the left eye to the right eye without breaking the convergence. As such the Manage Stereo tool will increases your speed of working on Stereoscopic media substantially.
- A new Stereo Generator output node allows you to render out any stereo pattern or have multiple patterns in a single output tree. This allows you to quickly combine all your deliverables in a single output setup.
Please read this overview article for the details on the new stereo 3D workflow options in SCRATCH.
Formats
SCRATCH v8.5 offers support for new media formats as well as improved efficiency of processing of existing formats.
- A new and more efficient native XAVC reader. Note that this is currently implemented next to the existing CSP reader. The new reader is labeled "XAVC (.mxf)" against the CSP reader "XAVC / DNxHD (.mxf)". The new reader is the default. The CSP XAVC reader will eventually disappear as an active codec.
- Support for new ARRI Alexa Mini camera and the new MXF Raw format.
- Added support for reading 12-bit DPX: SCRATCH will convert/interpret it as 16 bit.
- Added support for rendering PNG file format - in 8 or 16 bit.
- SCRATCH now reads all metadata in an EXR. A new SConfig was added to also include / write all (extended) metadata in an EXR render.
- The QuickTime Reader now respects any flip/flop set in the metadata of the QuickTime file.
- Fixed an issue with loading very short MXF files.
- New SONY Raw decoder with various minor fixes related to specific graphics cards and drivers.
Media Management
We added some functions to make dealing with large projects with thousands of shots more manageable.
- Added Bookmark functionality to the SCRATCH File Browser to make specific paths quicker accessible.
- You can now verify the file references of shots from the Media Browser to explicitly check if files are online. This same functionality is also available from the Process Queue to validate all the underlying media of an output node. Alternatively, by setting an sconfig you can force SCRATCH to do an automatic validation on any item that is processed from the Process Queue. This way you can prevent processing a long job and only finding out afterwards that some media was not available during the render.
- You can now also start a processing job to calculate an MD5 hash code and the file size of the selected files in the Media Browser. The MD5 and file size are stored as metadata with the individual shot. This function used to be only available as part of a CONstruct consolidate.
- ACES. The complete set of ACES transforms as provides by the Academy is now included with SCRATCH - available through a new ACES bookmark in the file browser. We also included the inverse transforms which are now used by SCRATCH in its color space management: you can now transform any shot into ACES by nesting it, flagging the shot ACES and ensuring that the transform Apply option is enabled. This completes the setup for working in a full ACES environment.
- The Reset option with the luma curve for R3D media now resets to the curve to a straight linear line rather than reverting to the metadata.
UI Updates
SCRATCH v8.5 has undergone some User Interface adjustments to make functionality more accessible or make functions more intuitive.
- Extended the CONstruct right click menu to directly open the Editor and Matrix.
- Re-arrange / re-label controls on the Process Queue dialog to avoid confusion. Added tab-control in output menu to better separate nodes and template management.
- Added a Timeline button on the CONstruct menu bar to better express the 3-state options of Timeline, Staging and Output.
- updated the order of the items in the Player popup menu to show most use items at the top.
Miscellaneous
- A new Command Line scripting option for more flexibility integrating SCRATCH with other software and tools. You can now start SCRATCH with an xml script reference, rather than using a watch-folder. Start SCRATCH as ..\assimilator.exe -cmd "c:\myscript.xml". Once the script is executed, SCRATCH will close down again.
- Added a dialog for the Paste-Grade option in the CONstruct that offers you more control on how to match clips (time code, reel, name) and what to copy (grade / framing / notes).
- Added two user settings to toggle swiping in the CONstruct and Player on/off. Settings are available from the User Settings dialog in the Player / CONstruct (gear icon).
- HDR support: you can now apply a PQ-Transfer function to your main and / or secondary output. Note that for now this is only available for output displays, not yet for rendering files. You control the associated NIT level with the output from an SConfig setting.
- To increase grading efficiency - you can now Alt-click any shot on the filmstrip mini-timeline in the Player to copy the grade of that shot to the current shot in the viewport.
- The track selectors in the Matrix now indicate whether a track has media on the current position in the timeline or not.
- A new Copy Named Layer option in the Paste mask. When you now use the copy option and a Layer is selected, SCRATCH preserves the name of the layer. If you then use the paste option with this option enabled, SCRATCH will check the current shot to see if there is a layer with the same name and then paste the color settings into that layer.
- The 'Keep Layer Name Selected' setting now also applies to Primaries. If you explicitly select the Primaries on a shot, then that selection will be maintained when navigating to another shot.
- Added CTRL+D to deselect all options in the Paste Dialog. Note that CTRL+A was already implemented to select all options, as well as Alt+Click to select only the option clicked.
- You can now publish media directly to Facebook.
- The Repository is now only available with a specific license.
- The audio wave form was not properly displayed for the audio that was wrapped in a collector node.
UPDATE RELEASES v8.4
May 4 '16, build 901
- Important fix for rendering ProRes or H264 where SCRATCH could
potentially crash when including extended meta data in the render
target.
- Chinese character render could fail for certain glyphs.
- Cmd+S not always working on OSX.
Mar 21 '16, build 900
- Fix for OFX plug-ins that automatically set key-frames. Also -
if a plug-in generated a user message, it was not always properly
displayed.
- The Still-frame option would in certain cases load the full sequence.
- Read the meta data of a QuickTime file correctly to set the color space.
- The Over-mode was not displayed correctly on the SDI output when the wipe was set to 0.
- Scrubbing the proxy element of an AMT DNxHD output node was not possible.
- When creating a new mask the softness of the canvas was sometimes reset.
Mar 4 '16, build 899
-
Publish. Added two new default resolutions to the publisher
(1920x960 and 1024x512) - primarily to be used for VR 360 publications
with a 2:1 aspect.
- QuickTime reader updates. Scene and take in ARRI QuickTime files
were not properly recognized and ended up as general meta-data items
rather than the shot generic scene and take properties. Audio tracks
from Alexa Mini ProRes files were not always recognized due to flawed
channel layout in the file. Browsing in files with just intra-frames
could cause issues.
- Setting (dual sided) softness on a layer could sometimes cause
the canvas to reset to the shape of the layer that was adjusted before.
- You could not drag a construct while panning the project tree.
- The #date code is now also available within a filename mask (before only in the burn-in).
- Pasting animation data did not automatically enable the animation channel.
- The Multiple Shots option in the file browser is now a user setting - defaulting to off the first time.
- Added correct version number to OS X installer package.
Feb 26 '16, build 898
- There was a refresh issue with 360 footage when changing projection mode.
- Empty lines in subtitles in right-to-left mode were skipped.
- Since the previous build you could not select single shot in file browser when invoked from the Player.
- Various tweaks to the QuickTime reader - scrubbing a timeline with h264 media could in certain circumstances lead to a crash.
- Enabled support for XAVC-S files and reading proper timecode.
Feb 16 '16, build 897
- Layers where sometimes copied twice when drag/dropping them on the filmstrip proxy shots.
- The #construct parameter in the Burn-In did not always reflect
the correct value when rendering out a derived output node after the
burn-in.
- Various tweaks with the new QuickTime reader where files with a
non-standard resolution where not loaded properly and the reader should
ignore QuickTime reference files (which can be only be loaded with the
legacy reader).
- Publisher update: in recent builds the publish function could
crash if a burn-in template was selected. Also the channel selector is
now properly maintained. The process Queue items for uploading the
publication now show the total time left.
- H264 encoder - added support for resolutions up to 4096 x 4096 (where before the total square resolution was limited to 4k).
- Fixed an issue in the tracker when importing Mocha tracking
data. Also, the proxy image in the tracker menu did not always display
the correct frame.
- In certain cases the Construct consolidate function could report
it was finished while still processing MD5 check-sum calculations in
the background.
Feb 8 '16, build 895
-
Shape outline was not showing when Invert option was enabled. Also,
the Canvas menu was not always properly updated when closing a free-form
shape.
-
JPEG2000 DCI encoding: limit the number of wavelet transform levels to 5 for compatibility with Sony Cinema system.
-
New QuickTime reader: could lose media link with source when loading
high number of movies. Also improved scrubbing h264 responsiveness.
-
Added panel mapping for Luma keyer Presets (LumKey-Preset).
-
The re-link LUT option did not always work for LUTs loaded in layer which in turn was inside a group.
-
Publisher dialog did not always maintain the selected Channel correctly.
-
The Multiple Shots option in the File Browser is now switched on by default when loading media the first time.
Jan 29 '16, build 893
- The new QuickTime reader did not correctly read the timecode of ARRI Amira files.
- The new QuickTime reader could hand or crash SCRATCH when loading many H264 files at ones.
- When removing an Audio reference while the waveform was loading could crash SCRATCH.
- Updated CP200 default mappings.
Jan 15 ' 16, build 891
-
New 360 projection mode for the main viewer and dual view. While in
this mode you can use the PanZoom tool to direct the projection. Note
that while the viewer is in the 360 mode - none of the layer or plug-in
overlays, vertices and handles are shown.
- Various fixes and optimizations on the new QuickTime reader as
well as the mp4 render that in the prior build did not files that were
compatible with all (web browser) players. Also, SCRATCH now recognizes
the scaling (full/video) from the meta data of a DNxHD QuickTime file.
- Fix and optimizations to the YUV to RGB conversion used in
SCRATCH. In the prior version the chroma sampling of the last pixel of
an image could be wrong. The optimizations mainly benefits XAVC
decoding.
Dec 24 '15, build 889
- Fix for left and right eye being swapped with 360 stereo view on the Oculus Rift.
- Improved rendering of 360 view.
- Improved H.264 playback performance.
- Fix for timecode not being read from some QuickTime files.
Dec 17 '15, build 888
New QuickTime reader
- The new QuickTime reader component handles ProRes, DNxHD and
H264 encoded mov and mp4 files. This new implementation is more
efficient in processing video and audio than the existing QuickTime in
SCRATCH, which still uses the legacy Apple QuickTime library. Note that
to use the new reader you will need to (re-)load media. The older
QuickTime reader is still available and labeled "Legacy QuickTime" and
can still be used to load media encoded with different codecs than
ProRes, DNxHD or H264.
- The new reader has a Full/Video range switch to set how SCRATCH
should interpret the media in the file. This switch is only available
for H264 and DNxHD encoded media. ProRes is always assumed to be Video
range.
- On OSX there is now also a separate ProRes QuickTime Writer
component (the same as on Windows). Furthermore, the ProRes writer (as
well as the Vanguard H264 writer) now include all meta data in the mov
(and mp4) files.
VR Updates
- Support for latest Oculus SDK (version 0.8.0.0). This SDK does
not provide support for OSX, so as of this build the Oculus is only
supported on Windows. The setup for the Oculus has become much easier:
there is no longer the need to create a separate display. SCRATCH will
recognize if an Oculus is installed and activate automatically. The
Oculus can even be used next to a second screen.
- In SCRATCH you can now tag media as 360 media - in the meta data
stack 2 new properties have been added: projection view and stereo
mode. Currently SCRATCH only supports the so called 'equirectangular'
projection view - which seems to be the dominant variant in the VR
world. SCRATCH will automatically set the projection view from the meta
data of a 360 (mp4/jpg) file, if properly included. Alternatively you
can set and update the shot property by hand in the meta-data stack or
in batch for a range of shots in the Media Browser.
- Based on a shot's Projection Type property SCRATCH will
automatically switch the second monitor (or Oculus) into 360 mode. If
you want to override this behavior you can set the projection mode for
all shots manually in the Player - Settings - Monitor menu.
- When rendering out 360 media to mp4 and jpg, SCRATCH will
include the projection type meta data. This means e.g. that when you
create media for SCRATCH Web or YouTube by using the Publish function,
SCRATCH will tag the files so that the website / web-browser will pick
up on it and switch into 360 mode.
PanZoom
- We added a new screen utility for panning and zooming. The
utility is available from the top menu bar in the Player. In addition
this utility has a 360-tab with the Yaw, Pitch and Roll controls to
manage the 360 Projection View.In normal mode the PanZoom utility shows
the visible area of the current image. In 360 mode the utility shows the
projection centre and the outline of the so called projection frustum
on the (equirectangular) image.
Publish & SCRATCH Web
- SCRATCH Web now has 360 playback capabilities. When you publish
360 media to SCRATCH Web, the player will automatically switch to 360
mode and you have option to pan the view in all directions: either by
dragging the image in a direction or using the additional 360 controls.
This also accounts for any slides that you published.
- Note that this functionality is currently only available if you
use a Chrome or Firefox web browser. If you use that browser from your
mobile phone - the player will turn into a magic viewer, meaning that
you can direct your phone to adjust the view rather than using the
controls. Do note that often 360 media is relative high resolution which
takes quite a bit of resources to process and as such requires
appropriate (mobile) hardware.
- We also added a 'Native Resolution' option to the Publish
function. This option will take the resolution of the main output node
of the current CONstruct - rather than one of the pre-defined
resolutions. In addition you can now select/deselect individual audio
channels to include in the publication.
- This build also contains some fixes on the Publish function.
SCRATCH would sometimes re-render media while the source file was
already in the correct format. A publication that contained timeline
audio - rather than audio with each individual shot - did not upload
correct.
Other
- We added tracker options to center the resulting transformation and to fill the frame (scale) with a stabilization.
- This build contains a new version of CSP with various tweaks and fixes:
- Fix for AVCHD timecode via CPI-file not coming in correctly
- Fix for Cineform AVI not recognizing aspect
- Fix for mp4: Performance greatly improved
- Fix for XAVC having performance issues during playback
- Fix for Canon XF-AVC decoding artifacts
- Fix for Cinema DNG causing a crash when loading more than 70 DNG-sequences
- New MXF Import-labels "Sony / Canon / Panasonic (.mxf)" and "XAVC / DNxHD (.mxf)"
- Changes in the Sony Raw color space handling to match with the
Sony Raw Viewer. Also the application of the Exposure index was
adjusted. These changes can have an effect on existing setups with Sony
raw media. Please review before upgrading current projects.
- There was an issue with asynchronous IO on OS X that could with
certain external storage lead to errors ('Resource temporarily
unavailable').
- We added an option for BMD DeckLink to select which input
connection to use with Live View. In addition SCRATCH now supports HDMI
input for AJA / BM devices. This version uses a new AJA SDK (version
12.3.7) and as such needs driver 12.3.8. The BMD DeckLink SDK is at
version 10.5 and also needs the corresponding driver.
- Setting an audio slip through the audio mixer could not be undone with the undo function.
- The Reset and Save/Load options did not respond correct with a layer selected and in the Shot menu.
- The Custom Commands did not take shot selection into account.
- We added the option to write to a raw *.264 file with the H264
writer. These raw streams can be used for DVD and BlueRay authoring.
- A CDL did not include all elements if the elements were at their default value.
- Creating transition animation from FCP - XML could crash SCRATCH.
- We added a column sort to Placeholder Assemble dialog.
- Text meta-data in an AAF was not properly handled / cut off when included in an assemble.
- When clicking the column header in the media browser will now
first activate the column rather than do a sort. This way you can select
a column to be updated with the FX-controls. Subsequent clicks on the
column header will trigger a sort as usual. This applies only to columns
that can be edited with the FX-controls.
Nov 6 '15, build 884
- Initial Release: Note that this release requires a re-activation of your license key.
All licenses and subscription keys have been automatically updated to
include this version. If your permanent license does not have a valid
support contract you will not be able to use this version. Please read
the full Release notes to see what is new in this version or watch the highlights in this video.
VERSION 8.4 [Nov 2015]
General
- Note that v8.4 contains new functionality and updates in the color processing pipeline. As such, a v8.4 project is not fully backward compatible.
- Please watch this video that highlights some of the new features in this release.
Multilingual
- SCRATCH 8.4 also comes in a Chinese version. In the System
Settings menu there is a switch to set the interface to English or
Chinese.
- Bi-Directional text. SCRATCH 8.4 now fully supports display and entry of right to left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.
Color and Composite
- SCRATCH 8.4 supports Aces Log. Next to setting the specific ACES
version to be used with a project in the Project Settings menu, you can
also enable the ACES Log option. When this option is switched on, all
ACES shots in the project are automatically converted to ACES Log. If
needed, this project setting can even be overridden on a per shot basis
from the Matrix - Setup menu. Once in ACES Log, SCRATCH color space
management will automatically convert back to whatever output- or
display color space you have set. ACES Log is primarily about creating a
more "natural feel " to any of the color controls - rather than an
actual output format. By squeezing the image color values into a smaller
(log) range, the (linear) controls have a more direct effect on the
image then when applied to the very wide (linear) color range of a
regular ACES image.
- Added 2-sided softness for Layers. In the canvas menu you can
now dial in softness that goes both outward and inward of a shape to
get the smoothest possible transition. Note that in SCRATCH this works
for any (free)form and shape - though depending on the actual position
of the vertices it is possible to get into a situation where it is
mathematically impossible to calculate the softness. In that case you
can use the various Blur options SCRATCH offers. The Canvas menu allows
you to add some additional blur to your shape together with the
softness. Keep in mind though that this is a much more GPU intensive
process. To add even more Blur you should go through the Texture menu.
- Extended
the range of the 'Enhanced Levels' option. As such it now can be used
for adding noise to an image or layer to e.g. blend in composite
elements. The function now resides in the Matrix - Numeric menu.
Project, Conform and Media
- Support for the new Kinefinity camera formats - various file
formats, including raw. Note that the current CSP version included no
longer offers support for the (first generation) of krw files.
- SCRATCH now creates placeholders nodes (including animation
effects) with a conform if the media is not (yet) present. Placeholders
can be easily replaced on a later moment using the Placeholder conform. A
placeholder is represented with its own proxy / image and can also be
created manually from the CONstruct Media menu, in the Utility section.
Or from the Editor in the Action menu.
- The Editor has a new Replace mode where you can Fetch + drag and
drop a shot into a slot that maintains the slot size and only replaces
the shot inside the slot. Note that when you drop a shot onto a
Placeholder node, all framing (animation) and grades on the Placeholder
node are copied onto the new shot that is replacing the Placeholder.
- Added additional functionality to load SVG. In prior version
you could only load and process SVG in SCRATCH with specific (NVIDIA)
graphics cards. Now you can use SVG with any card.
- Increased performance of mp4 (H264) playback, especially for high resolutions like 4K.
Publishing
- A new Off-line publishing function with which you can publish
your media to a local folder which you can easily upload to SCRATCH web
at a later moment. The offline publication includes an index.html so
that you can already review the publication in your web-browser on the
local system. The offline publication folder is self containing and as
such you can also copy the whole folder to another machine for (local)
review or uploading.
- SCRATCH Web has been updated to support client Sub-domains and
Quick-links. The main domain of SCRATCH Web is now www.sweb.media. With a
SCRATCH Web account you can then create your own sub-domain in the form
of: https//mycompany.sweb.media. In addition you can create so
called quick-links for your publications that you can easily distribute
to your clients. With a quick-link you do not have to register each
client as a user but rather can send them the direct link to the
publication. A quick-link can be date-restricted and/or optionally have a
password associated.
Misc
- Added "Right Mode" to the Settings - Monitor menu. When you
enable this option SCRATCH will display the right image of the dual view
setup on the second monitor / display. This allows for more flexibility
e.g. client sessions: show the main output (full context) on the big
screen while you work on a local shot within the multi-layered timeline
or composite.
- We also created a basic video wall plug-in that allows you to
take multiple shots and display them all in a single image for easy
comparison. You can initiate the plug-in in different ways. First, from
the Dual View source list to show all current versions in one view in
the dual view. Second, from the Misc menu in the Tray module in the
Player: either create a video wall from the shots in the current
selected tray (max 16) or create a video wall of multiple versions of
the current shot with the various grades in the active Gallery. And
finally, you can also setup a video wall from the selected nodes in the
CONstruct, using the Video Wall option in the Utility section of the
Media menu.
- OS X deep color implementation: when enabling the "OpenGL: Enable 'deep' color"
advanced setting, SCRATCH will use the new 10 bit output option of the
latest OSX build (El Capitan). Since this is still fairly new
functionality on OSX, this settings is off by default but might change
in a future update.
- Added default framing option to the file browser for loading media: No Scaling, Fit Width, Fit Height.
- New SConfig variables: SCF_EXR_READ_COLORSPACE - to ignore any
meta data color space flag, SCF_KEEP_CONSTRUCT_OUTPUTS - this prevents
SCRATCH from clearing the output when loading (from file) or copying a
construct.
- Added the Burn-In as standard option in the Add-Output option list in the Construct Output menu.
- JPEG2000 (DCI) now respect the given bitrate at all times, even if the framerate is not set
to one of the DCI-strict compliant rates (24 or 48 fps).
- XML
Scripting. We introduced an SConfig variable to write an xml with the
default project paths inside the project folder. SCRATCH by default
maintains all project paths (media-, render-, cache-) with each project
in a system settings file (outside the actual project folder). By having
an xml file with the default (last used) paths, it becomes easier to
archive and restore individual projects or use project in a multi-user /
shared scenario.
- XML
Scripting. We also added a series of so called system-events that can
be used to execute external script or applications: when SCRATCH is
started/ended, when a project is opened/closed. These system events can
be managed in the Preferences dialog the same way Custom Commands are.
- Added
SConfig settings to set the default Show and Process resolutions for
R3D and Sony Raw footage. We also added Source Resolution as meta data
items for these formats to see the actual resolution - rather than the resolution set for debayer / decoding.
- The Edit Flatten function now includes framing (animation).
- Various fixes to Vector Paint module.
- As of this version the older legacy AJA Kona cards are no longer supported.
- By
default proxy images that are generated for an html export or publish
do not include any display LUT any more (as they did in previous
versions). There is an SConfig variable that you can enable if you do
want the (primary) display LUT to be applied.
- New up-to-date CP200 mapping files
UPDATE RELEASES v8.3
Oct 23 '15, build 874
- Fix for OSX version El Capitan where the Dual Head did no longer work.
- Fix for #eventno code for file name masks that did no longer have its default a 3 digit padding.
Oct 9 '15, build 873
- Fix for proxy-images in the Version Stack that were not always
in sync with the main image in the View Port. This issue was introduced
in the previous release.
Oct 7 '15, build 872
- Fix in the installer for OS X to be compatible with latest OS X version El Capitan.
- Fix where a layer canvas position could be frozen on a shot if
the canvas contains an animation and the underlying shot had a
vari-speed applied.
Oct 2 '15, build 871
- Previous release introduced an issue with the re-timer where output nodes did not render underlying re-timer nods correctly.
- Fixed an issue with importing FCP7-XML that was generated from Premiere.
- Adjusted the processing of FFMpeg (mp4) shots to gain performance for 4k resolution.
Aug 28 '15, build 870
- Publish render could wrongly apply grades in cases the publication contained a LUT and audio.
- Manual project save on exit only saved the current construct.
Also implemented Ctrl+S Quick Key in Construct. Furthermore, the
Auto-save message in the Player was maintained too long, giving the
appearance the save took longer while simply clicking would clear the
message.
- NVIDIA SDI embedded audio was not functional.
- The Tray did not always maintain its position and did not show the current selected item after adding new items.
- Slip value for subtitles in the burn-in was not maintained after selecting new subtitle file.
- XML insert command could potentially translate into an update of an existing shot.
- Some BMD devices do not support format detection, for those
devices use the default Video Output format from the BM control panel as
the capture format.
Aug 10 '15, build 869
- The Manual Save option would not always save the full project but just the changes of the current construct.
- Tray scroll position would jump when adding new items or when switching to a different version in the version stack.
- XML scripting - Insert-command could potentially update an existing node rather than insert a new node.
July 22 '15, build 868
- New version of the Codec Support Pack (CSP) included - containing:
- Added support for Canon XF-AVC / H264 (MXF), Codex Raw (CDX), Panasonic 4K AVCi 4:4:4 (MXF)
- XAVC: Various fixes for color-decoding, memory-consumption and frame-jumps. Also playback performance has been improved.
- Phantom Flex 4K Cine: Tonecurve is now respected for clips recorded on older firmwares
- MP4 import filter has been relabeled to 'MP4 GoPro / Sony / Panasonic (.mp4)'
- Panasonic GH4 MP4 - playback performance improved, various VRAW updates.
- AVCHD MTS: Playback performance improved
- Metadata: Scene and Take info from clips are now added to
the existing columns in SCRATCH, instead of creating new (duplicate)
ones
- Full/Legal range switch has been relabeled and now sets the range interpretation for the source image
- Conform updates:
- Fade to Color did not get to 100% solid color. Existing alpha channel of image in dissolve was not properly processed.
- Timecodes from AAF created in Premiere were not always interpreted correct.
- Fix AAF Speed Ramps conform did not work on OSX
- Added support for conforming wipes, fades and dissolve animation for Final Cut Pro X.
- Color updates:
- In certain cases the gamma adjustments with the build in Lin2Log conversion was done twice.
- Fix for using animations with OFX plug-ins.
- Qualifier. Sometimes wrong default ranges were used when adding a new key.
- Render update:
- Output render could be garbled in certain cases when moving from 10 bit to 16 bit.
- Fixed setting an incorrect framerate on a Quicktime render (23.975 instead of 23.976).
- Other:
- Keep Layer (Name) Selected - option did not work properly when selecting a version.
- Maintain metadata selection in Meta data stack when navigating the timeline.
- Updated ARRIRAW SDK to version 5.1.0b3 - with support for new Alexa 65 camera.
June 18 '15, build 867
- Various updates for conforming. Dissolves now are now assembled
around the cut-point rather than aligning it to the right using the
After parameter in SCRATCH (both AAF and FC XML). Furthermore, SCRATCH
did not take the offset starting offset into account with Final Cut X
conforms. Final Cut 7 XML can contain multiple sequences and potentially
sequences with no actual content - SCRATCH now skips those and takes
the first complete sequence it encounters.
- Re-timer did not always refreshes instantly when adjusting the frame position.
- SCRATCH could crash when rendering media with audio to H.264
with non-integer framerates. This also affected the Publish function.
- The Custom Commands XSLT option was not functioning correctly.
- XML did not include output path and file-spec for all types of
output nodes. Also, when loading through XML, any preset files where
processed after the XML (but should be before).
- The cursor for text slates could get stuck - preventing further
editing of items such as Slot names in the Player and the file mask in
the File name specification dialog.
- SCRATCH could crash over AIFF files greater than 2GB. Also added the extension *.aiff next to the *.aif.
- Various Repository updates. Previous build introduced an issue that could corrupt a project in the repository.
- In the Media Browser we added the option to batch export .cube
LUTs. also, the Reset button with the Name-column was not working
correctly.
- Using a 1D Display LUT sometimes resulted in a black screen.
- The segments of a bicubic-layer could sometimes be offset after making a copy or version of a shot.
- You can now pan the film-strip timeline in the Player with the space-bar just like the trays / galleries.
- Subscriptions did not always auto-renew.
May 21 '15, build 865
- Subtitles are now automatically recognized as URT-16 format.
- Update on the Vanguard H264 encoder: when using full float
rendering color channels could be swapped. Also implemented some
performance tweaks.
- Certain older graphics boards that are not able to do RED GPU debayers did not revert to CPU debayer properly.
- Construct consolidate could skip frames with DNG formats.
- Publisher had an issue with uploading to YouTube after changed in the protocol with YouTube.
- SCRATCH now reads / writes a color space tag in EXR files.
- Added an advanced setting to set the interval for the auto-save
option in the player. Please note that next to the interval time SCRATCH
also take into account the number of changes before initiating an auto
save.
- Fix for processing FCP XML (coming from Premiere) where Track events can be nested inside a Composite event / node.
- When starting SCRATCH as a Player (double click a file), SCRATCH
would revert to the default user when starting the software normally
again. Now SCRATCH will also use the last set user settings when opening
in Play mode.
- Various fixes for syncing your project with the repository.
May 13 '15, build 864 (official release)
- Fix: dissolves from an Assemble were translated to an Optical dissolve, rather than the 'normal' variant.
- Note navigation did not include note markers that were outside the in- / out-range of the shot.
- The Publisher now maintains the last used settings.
- Added sorting on reel-id in the CONstruct.
- Various tweaks on Final Cut XML assemble where the parameters of vari-speeds and framing where not read correct.
- Fixed an issue with the Wacom tablet where lifting the pen would be interpreted as a swipe action.
- All meta data #codes are now available with the FX - update functions in the Media Browser.
- Added support for AVID Film dissolve in AAF Assemble.
- FFmpeg did not return the correct timecode for.mp4 and .mov files.
- Added option to include preset- (pls) or grade- (ccr) file in shot-element in for xml scripting.
Apri 30 '15, build 862 (pre-release)
- Fix on pre-fetch function which could slow down read/write file
sequence formats (dpx, tiff, jpeg, etc) located on certain network
storage. Local storage was not impacted.
- On Windows systems with more than 64 logical processors not all cores were detected.
- Inserting shot in editor would set wrong default clip length.
- Added the #audiofile[c] metadata code.
- Previous build had an issue where SCRATCH could crash when opening file by double clicking it.
- Fix on loading FCPX XML that could crash SCRATCH.
- Transition undo functionality was not properly functioning.
Apr 21 '15, build 861 (pre-release)
- Updated EXR implementation to 2.2.0 with support for DWAA/DWAB
compression. Also, all ACES chromatics are now included in the EXR
header.
- Added Note marker navigation: display annotations on the mini
timeline and use the special transporter controls to jump from note to
note through your timeline (similar to key frames). The meta data stack
in the Player now always shows the note editor rather than the shot
proxy.
- Included a new publish option: Bunch of Clips. a regular
timeline publish will limit all shots (including versions) to the
slot-length. The Bunch of Clips option will only limit the bottom
(timeline) version to the slot length and will render all other clips
from in- to out-point.
- In ALE editor default setting for all columns is now 'import'.
We've added a button to toggle this settings to 'exclude' or back for
all columns at the same time. The Scene meta data item is no longer by
default used for the matching process.
- Restored original Additive and Optical Dissolve options.
- AJA updates: high framerate in Dual link or 3G-B was not working properly.
- ARRI SDK update with support for Alexa 65.
Mrt 30 '15, build 858 (pre-release)
- Initial Pre-Release v8.3. Please note that this version requires a re-activation of your license key.
If you have a valid support contract or subscription your key will have
been prepared for this version. If you run into issues, please contact licensing@assimilateinc.com.
- Please read the release notes carefully for any compatibility issues that might affect v8.2 and earlier projects.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V8.3
Single Licensing Model
As of v8.3 SCRATCH comes in one flavor: SCRATCH. SCRATCH Lab is no
longer a separate licensed variant. However, you still can maintain the
simplified toolset / interface if you so desire. In the User Settings
menu you will find a new Toolset option: Full, Primaries, CDL. This
setting determines how the Matrix toolset is presented and whether
SCRATCH will expose secondary / layer functionality. Please note that
you can switch between the various settings without affecting a project.
However, if you switch to Primaries or CDL and apply changes to a shot
that also has secondary grading, you might inadvertently affect that.
Unicode
Unicode support and support for Windows / OSX
language special text input methods (IME). SCRATCH will automatically
pick up on your OS input settings as well as the use of modifier keys to
enter special characters. Further, the Burn-in / text plug-in supports
unicode text input and UTF-8 formatted sub-title files. Please make sure
that you always set a suitable font when entering language specific
characters as not all font support the full range of characters.
Right-to-left language display (Hebrew / Arabic) is not (yet) supported.
XML Scripting update
We added an option to start a
render from xml script: open a project, render and exit the project.
This allows for more advanced automation and integration of SCRATCH in
your pipeline.
Meta data update
Additional Project-level meta
data: the project tree now has a second tab to hold project properties.
These properties in turn can be used in the XSLT reporting options of
SCRATCH and is also available through the #pmd[] code in the burn-in. In
the System Preferences you can maintain the default set of project
properties that are included with any (new) project.
Editor updates
The Editor has an additional menu to
explicitly set and maintain a reference clip with your timeline. By
drag / drop you can set the reference clip and by clicking the clip in
the menu - or by selecting the new Reference option in the dual view of
the Viewport - the reference clip is shown. The Editor Reference menu
also holds functionality to easily scale the reference clip to
correspond to your timeline format and as such making comparing the two
easier. (Note that before - the a timeline reference was implicitly held
by the last selected tray shot).
Furthermore, we extended support for AAF conform (including speed ramp /
animations, framing (animation) and picture-in-picture effects),
additional standard transition effects (wipes and fade) and a new Track
Ripple editor mode to maintain sync between tracks when adjusting the
main timeline. Note that the update for transitions resulted in dropping
the Additive dissolve variant. The Optical variant (gamma adjusted) is
available with all transitions by enabling the "O" option button. These changes might cause compatibility issues with prior versions.
Publish updates
With the functionality of SCRATCH
Web gradually extending, we enhanced the publishing upload capacity. In
combination with the regional storage option for SCRATCH Web Channels
this now allows for very fast and efficient uploads that leverage your
available bandwidth to the max.
Various Panel (Mapping) updates
First, the mapping
management dialog has been extended to include a sort and filter option
to more easily find a specific function. Also, you can now adjust the
order of your main mapping groups. Second, there are a number of
additional mappings available and tweaks on existing mappings.
- Additional mappings for Viewport panning, zoom in/out, animation
controls (set key / trim key / etc.), toggling B&W matte and
scrolling the timeline proxy tray.
- Mappings for switching to a specific Matrix menu ('MX-' mappings) now also work from the Editor.
- Tapping the Alt-key twice in succession will lock the Alt-key (until tapped again).
The standard Elements mappings have been adjusted for the various new mapping options.
Other changes
- A new "Construct" display option for the Viewport menu bar to show the name of the current construct you are in.
- The notes interface changed slightly to allow for a single-click color selection - rather than having a drop-down.
- In the media browser, you can now Reset the timecode for the full selection of shots (rather than having to do this one by one).
- By default floating point values in 3D LUT are now clipped,
unless explicitly disabled from the Advanced setting / SConfig (this was
already available in a v8.2 update release, but important to list
again).
UPDATE RELEASES V8.2
March 25 '15, build 859
- LUT - Create Curve function was broken.
- When creating a texture the in-point was always set to 0 but should by default be set to the parent in-point.
- Default file permission for project database did not always allow it to be accessed from other user account.
- Update on publish function that did now always show the correct channel name
- ARRI colorspace was reset to its default after an undo.
March 15 '15, build 857
- Fixed an issue with SCRATCH unable to read new variation of DNxHD 444 introduced in latest version of Media composer.
- By default SCRATCH now clips exported 3D LUT floating point
values. To prevent clipping on LUT export an SCongif / Advanced System
setting is introduced.
- Fixed an issue that could crash SCRATCH when loading 32bit EXR files.
March 7 '15, build 856
- Publisher updates - versions where not limited to slot length. Also, timeline audio is included with individual shots.
- Profile synchronization and Repository failed on using the wrong server references.
- New Sony SDK that fixes some issues that the debayer could have on latest NVIDIA GTX cards.
- Fix for corruption issue with certain R3D monochrome footage.
- Certain EXR could show upside down.
Feb 26 '15, build 855
- Performance improvement for BMD SDI output in combination with NVIDIA GeForce.
- HDMI output of Kona 4 was not working.
- fix for scaling publications to SCRATCH Web.
Feb 20 '15, build 853
- Additional fix for Kona 3 Dual Link mode.
- Grade on/off toggle now also toggles any (dual head) monitor
plug-in that was set. Also, the monitor plug-in selection is now
mappable (Display Plug-in).
- Update on SCRATCH Publish function - which now implicitly always
uses the project render-cache folder (rather than having its own
setting).
Feb 18 '15, build 852
- Fix for Sony F65/F55/F5/FS700 Raw. The ISO, Kelvin and
Resolution controls could jump to incorrect values when copying or
conforming shots. If you ran into this issue you can now do an explicit
Reset of all affected shots at once from the Config tab in the Media
Browser. Also, the Media Browser Config tab wrongly showed the user
selected resolution instead of the actual Source Resolution for Sony
footage.
- Added a CONstruct setting whether to update the slot length when
pasting or dropping a shot in the timeline layer of a CONstruct. By
default this setting is Off (which reflects the older pre-v8.2
behavior).
- ARRI footage could be shown upside down as the meta data from the file concerning flip/flops was not read properly.
- The Dual-link output was not working for Kona 3.
- AJA audio output was broken on the prior build.
Feb 9 '15, build 850
- Various updates regarding SCRATCH Web and Publish, including the
option to publish a single shot or range directly from the Player. You
now also have to option to manage multiple Channels and publish to a
specific SCRATCH Web Channel.
- Fix for AJA which could cause the that the wrong color space
converter was used. Also, BM Decklink SDI settings could end in a
dead-lock where a selected invalid format could cause the settings
dialog to no longer be available.
- SCRATCH now reads ProRes XQ on Windows - were in prior builds it could only render this format.
- 1D LUT were not always processed properly since the previous
release where we updated the shaper LUT section of a cube LUT. This also
affected the ACES 1.0 to REC709 transformation.
- New CSP with new support for Kinefinity Raw and fixes for, among others, dng that would fill up log files.
- Fix for using layers on Anamorphic footage.
- Fix for issue that could show wrong frames when using ARRI Fast Debayer in a dual view setting with an AMD graphic card.
- Various tweaks for rendering Equirectangular footage for Oculus better.
- Construct Consolidate now remembers last path used.
- Display fixes: background of statistics (waveform) and curve could extend outside of its drawing area.
- Stabilizer was not working in SCRATCH Lab.
- Custom Commands could be mixed up - executing the wrong script.
Jan 22 '15, build 846
- Implemented ACES 1.0 and versioning option. You now set the
desired ACES version in the project settings. All relevant ACES
transformations are included in the SCRATCH installation and mapped
using the aces_ctl_mappings.xml file in the seatings\aces folder.
Optionally you can adjust this to use alternative transformations.
- New CSP with various updates. Added Panasonic VariCam Raw
support. Ensuring compatibility between CPU and GPU decode variants for
various formats. Fix for issues with loading DNG shots. Update on
Phantom 4k. Improved debayer which might affect the following formats:
Aaton Penelope, Digital Bolex, Kifinity (full raw), Magic Lantern MLV,
IndieCAM, SIV (SI2K camera raw stream).
- Live View now also supports AJA SDI devices. We also changed the
signal routing on AJA SDI cards: on the Kona 3G Quad, IO 4K and Kona 4
it now uses output 3 and 4 (for non 4K formats).
- We added Relink options for Audio, LUTs and Shot in the Media
Browser File tab. The Relink Audio and LUTs work the same as Relink
Media - search for files with the same name in a new location. These
functions are applied to all shots in the current selection. The Relink
Shot only applies to the current shot and you point to the exact media
file to be used.
- Added 'Parallel Copy' option in Construct Consolidation dialog,
allowing for more efficient copying files to multiple locations at once
(read once, write many).
- New AVID DNxHD SDK, including support for DNxHR MXF. Also, the
timecode for certain AVID MXF rendered files were not always interpreted
correct.
- Update on the Re-timer which did not always maintain the
framerate of its input properly and as such the retiming of input
frames.
- Added support for encoding Apple ProRes 4444 XQ on Windows.
- Fix on processing cube LUTs that contain a shaper LUT. The default 1D LUT size has been increased from 1024 to 4096.
- Explicitly set slot length when replacing shots with a a collector.
- Automatically enable Clip Levels option when adding a LUT on a layer (and clear this flag when resetting LUT).
- ARRI - increased the number of metadata properties read from the file header.
- RED - new SDK containing new RedColor4 and DragonColor2 color
space options. Please use Rocket-X Driver 2.1.19.0 and Firmware 1.3.19.7
or later, Rocket Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3 or later.
- Various fixes on the display of keyframes on Layers and the camera menu.
- Fix on the Vanguard H.264 encoder to ensure sync audio playback of rendered files in the QuickTime Player.
- Publisher: if the source shot is already H264, SCRATCH will
assess using this rather than re-encoding it. The file new to have the
correct formatting though before a copy is used.
Dec 16 '14, build 842
- Initial Release v8.2. Please note that this version requires a re-activation of your license key.
RELEASE OVERVIEW V8.2
General
SCRATCH v8.2 requires you to reactivate your license key. If you have
valid support contract or subscription your license key has already
been updated for v8.2. If the re-activation does not work, please
contact licensing@assimilateinc.com.
In addition, version 8.2 will also prompt you to upgrade your project
database when you select to open your project. Please note that you
still will be able to access your project database in a prior v8 version
even after upgrading. However, it is always recommended to create a
backup of all your projects before using a new version.
Meta data handling
- We added a new tab in the Media Browser for managing meta data.
In it, you can select, update, add or remove meta data in a spreadsheet
editor style. You can update meta data for a single shot or multiple
shots at once, as well as update data by entering plain text or use
formulas containing other meta data items.
- We also included additional search and match functionality: you
can now automatically link LUT, CDL or SCRATCH grades to a shot based on
meta data values and filenames. The Grade tab in the Media Browser
contains additional columns for Source Input- and Grading LUT.
Furthermore, for audio - next to the already existing timecode match
function - you can now auto-link audio files to shots purely based on
meta data and filename.
- To facilitate the search and match functionality we added
options in the #reelid() and #name() mask codes to specify start and
length. This way you can easily build your own formulas and logic to
manage large numbers of shots without having to manually enter data.
- New Export LUT, CDL, grade option in the Grade tab of the Media
Browser in combination with a filename mask option. This way you can
easily export look / grade of multiple shots at ones with a filename
that can be used to easily link it back to the shot later in the
processing pipeline.
- To increase the usability of the Media Browser columns are now
resizable and - rather than having to explicitly Apply any changes - the
Undo function is extended to all updates during your session in the
Media Browser. Also, as of version 8.2 all shot metadata is stored in
the project database - this highly improves the speed of opening and
working with the Media Browser when you are in a project that contains
thousands of shots.
CONstruct Consolidate
- With the CONstruct Consolidate function you can manage the
physical media files underneath the shots in your project and is similar
to the already existing Project Consolidate function. However, the
CONstruct Consolidate has a number of new features that increase its
usability. First, the CONstruct Consolidate is a background process -
this means that once started you can exit the construct, exit the
project or even exit SCRATCH altogether while the process will continue
to run. The progress of the consolidate can be monitored from the
Process Queue - which can be opened from within any project
- The CONstruct Consolidate allows you to specify multiple
locations to copy your media to. This might come to use especially in a
dailies environment where you want to create multiple backups of your
media at once. In addition the CONstruct Consolidate can include a
checksum where the checksum result is included in the meta data of the
shot from where it can be used in (XSLT) reporting.
SCRATCH Web, Publishing and new H264 encoder
- Up till now SCRATCH Web - even though released with v8.0,
remained a sort of beta status as one of its fundamentals - proper H264 -
encoding was missing on OSX. Since the release not only a lot of work
has been put in to improve the user experience on SCRATCH Web - with
v8.2 a new H264 encoder is introduced for both OSX as Windows. Have a
try and create your own SCRATCH Web Channel. Or have a look at all the
available tutorial videos on SCRATCH Web.
Live View
- The new Live View function takes in the SDI signal from a camera
and allows you to work and grade directly on the camera feed. It also
reads in the camera meta data if available which is then displayed in
the meta data stack in the Player. The Live View function is available
from the Utilities menu section in the CONstruct.
- We also added the option to set a naming mask for Gallery items -
where the name of a Gallery item can be based on the meta data of the
current shot (or e.g. Live View). As such the grade set can be easily
linked to the recorded shot further downstream in the pipeline. The
naming mask is set from the Player setting dialog.
- Please note that for now only the SDI input functionality of the
Black Magic SDI cards / Devices is supported. Furthermore, currently
we only read the meta data of the ARRI Alexa camera and Sony F65, F55,
F5 cameras.
Oculus Rift / 360 Media support
- 360 media - though not new - is given a big impulse by the
Oculus Rift. SCRATCH v8.2 includes full support for the Oculus Rift as a
second monitor, including the tracking functions. SCRATCH supports
both Spherical, Cube and Cylindrical based projections - as single and
in stereo mode.
- The Tracking functions allows you to monitor the view position of the Oculus on the main interface monitor.
- The Oculus also provides a very good way for 'regular' 3D reference display.
Re-timer plug-in
- We have added the option to easily create speed-ramps with the
default Re-Timer plug-in. In addition, you can now easily instantiate
the plug-in directly from within the Editor by using the Ramp
button. This will instantiate the re-timer plug-in and switch to the
Shot menu in the Matrix. Also note that the Re-timer now takes its
in-point as pivot for calculating the remapping to a source frame (it
used to take frame 0). This might affect existing projects that use the re-timer plug-in!
New Monthly Subscription Model
- As of SCRATCH V8.2 a new monthly subscription licensing model
will be available, including automatic (CC) payment processing and
license updating.
Other Updates and Fixes
- As of v8.2 SCRATCH supports the AJA KONA 4 card. Please make
sure that you updated the AJA Kona drivers to the latest available
version when running SCRATCH V8.2.
- New version of the Codec Support Pack (CSP) with:
- New supported formats: Panasonic Raw, Magic Lantern (.raw and .mlv), BMD Pocket camera (on OSX).
- Updates on XAVC and XAVC-S to increase performance for 4k resolution.
- Added a tone curve to the Phantom Flex decoding.
- SCRATCH will signal the user on any renders in progress before exiting a project.
- To preserve performance - the Timeline Proxy strip is no longer updated on playback. Only the current shot is reflected.
- Added support for shaper (1D) LUT in Cube LUT that combines both
a 1D and a 3D LUT. SCRATCH will automatically read a shaper LUT inside a
cube LUT. To include a standard Log to Lin shaper LUT on a cube output,
you need to enable a new (SConfig) advanced setting.
- Fix on an issue with the Curves that could cause a grade 'jump'
when invoking the Curves on an image with out of range values. Note that
this fix might have some impact on existing setup with out of range
color values.
- Scale cursor and icons on higher resolutions displays (e.g.
Retina). In addition - the statistics panel can now be resized to half
and double the default size. The resize options are available from the
Settings section in the panel itself.
- We have added various advanced (SConfig) settings:
- Continue Process On Error: by default SCRATCH will now stop a
render when an error is detected. This setting allows you to force
SCRATCH to continue rendering the remaining part.
- Always remap to Linear/sRGB rather than to Log Film when
selecting certain gamma spaces with the debayer of ARRI, RED or Sony
media. As an example - when enabling this setting SCRATCH will flag a
shot Linear/sRGB when selecting RedLogFilm - rather than flagging the
shot Log.
- New setting to prevent setting a default media path for new
projects and as such forcing the user to do this manually before
entering the project.
- Option to never start up background processor (as used by the new CONstruct consolidate).
- Option to prevent any scaling of cursor and UI icons when working on a higher resolution display.
- Include a standard 1D shaper LUT before the 3D LUT in the .Cube LUT format.
- For Stereo - the convergence function was not always properly
working and we adjusted the Reverse option: rather than having this
function with the shot - we added a Swap button with the Stereo options
in the Config menu which physically swaps the left and right inputs of
the current stereo node.
- The Fast-start option with a Quick Time export is by default only enabled for the H264 codec.
- The Search dialog now also searches through all extended shot metadata.
- We changed the color space labels from Ultra HD to REC2020.
- The Intro screen now contains the ASSIMILATE News section with
news and links on SCRATCH updates. The Overlay with system information
only pops up after an explicit click.
- Updating notes while in a Remote session was not propagated to all participants
- Adjusting the shot length / ripple the timeline when adjusting the vari-speed.
- Final Cut X 1.4 support for conforming.
- Using fit-scaling option in the Editor did not work properly - where the track selectors would obscure the shots.
- Various updates and fixes on the SCRATCH Repository tool. A
trial repository is available for anyone with a valid support contract.
- Copy / Paste shots in the CONstruct now includes setting the
length of the slot if the shot is pasted / dropped on the timeline
layer.
- Include the latest RED SDK with RR support for monochrome
footage. In the current build SCRATCH will not use an Intel graphics
card for r3d debayer as the RED SDK used is not compatible.
- Rocket-X Driver 2.1.19.0 and Firmware 1.3.19.7 or later.
- Rocket Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3 or later.
- XML scripting update: Added support for multiple audio files and
included overall audio slip. Also note that the Create Project option
now only creates the project folder - any project properties are only
set after you enter the project the first time, using the init-xml.
- XSLT transforms update. When exporting HTML, SCRATCH will now
search for an xslt file based on the type of export: project, group or
construct. When exporting a construct SCRATCH will look for a
construct.xslt file in the SCRATCH settings folder. If it can not find
that it will revert to the default xslexport.xsl file. We included a
sample dailies report construct.xslt to show you the capabilities of
using this export for generating reports.
UPDATE RELEASES V8.1
Build 824 (17 Oct '14)
- Issue with Sony Raw rendering blue frames when storage did not respond quick enough.
- Limit meta data name in AMT export to 31 characters (instead of 32) as Media Composer chokes over longer property names.
- Fix for 10-bit DPX using wrong endianess. This also might have caused certain solarized artifacts when using plug-ins.
- Publishing update. The Cinemacraft H264 on the Windows version
causes problems on certain systems in that it is taking up too much
resources - leaving the system unresponsive after starting a publish.
For those instances you can use an Advanced System Setting to force the
Publish function to render QuickTime H264.
Build 823 (10 Oct '14)
- Sony SDK update that fixes the issue with Sony debayer on NVIDIA card on Windows using the latest graphics drivers.
- Fixes render issue with animated opacity.
- Snapshots upside down when a was display-LUT active or with the grade rendered twice when taking snapshot of the output node.
- Load media depth settings not working properly.
- Better fit display 2 to display 1 in wipe mode.
- More explicit message when opening a project in read-only mode.
Build 822 (3 Oct '14)
- New ARRI SDK containing a new debayer mode (ADA5) and among others fixes an issue with monochrome media.
- New RED SDK with Enhanced Blacks (D.E.B.) control and new sensor
OLPF metadata items. Rocket-X requires Driver 2.1.10.0 and Firmware
1.3.4.11 or later. Rocket requires Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3
or later.
- Sony update: fixing issue that could change the resolution of a
Sony clip after copying. Also, the Sony ISO control now defaults to
Exposure Index value rather than the ISO sensitivity value from the
camera meta data.
- The Publisher now uses a dynamic bit rate related to resolution and frame rate to improve file size.
- Working view Color Space (Apply) conversion could have an effect on Dual Head/SDI output.
- Various fixes on Repository that prevented committing changes or could crash SCRATCH on login.
- Added support for the "SOURCE FILE" comment line in an EDL to set the clip name.
- AJA: RGB to YUV conversion not properly set up for channel 3 and 4 with 4k output. Setup routing for 4k HDMI output.
- Fixes for DNxHD 444 and included new AMT SDK version.
- Changed the default Endianess for DPX so that 16 bit DPX
rendered with SCRATCH will load in e.g. Clipster. Introduced an SConfig
variable to change the Endianess if needed / required for compatibility
with other software.
- Output nodes now properly default to the project settings again - rather than always to EXR.
- Stereo: pattern sometimes rendered flopped. Also, rendering
dissolves often failed. Please note though that in a dual head setting
Dissolves are still not rendered properly if the dual head has a
different stereo pattern that the primary display.
Build 821 (29 Aug '14)
- Fix on Sony Raw implementation that caused performance issues since build 815.
- Includes a new version of CSP with fixes on various formats -
among others the BM Pocket camera, AVC-i100 and Cinema DNG. Added
support for the Panasonic Varicam 4k mxf and raw, Sony XAVC-S and mp4.
- Fix on QuickTime H264 encoding: Quality and Bitrate and GOP size
controls were not functioning properly. Quality control only applies
with bitrate value of 0. Also, The Publish function on OS X now uses new
defaults for rendering better quality h264. On the Windows size the
Publish function now uses variable rate frame size - decreasing the
total size of the rendered movies.
- Added an Option to the EDL Editor to force update the names of the conformed shots with the names from the EDL.
Build 820 (25 Aug '14)
- When making a copy or conforming newly loaded shots, the
resolution of the copied shot could be changed to the project default
resolution.
- Entering / exiting the Curve Editor from the Curve menu could crash the application.
- (EDL) conform shot annotations were not properly added.
Build 818 (8 Aug '14)
- Added a normalization step in the color space conversion to XYZ.
This normalization step is a later addition to the DCI specs and was
until now missing in SCRATCH. This addition might slightly affect your
setup when working / outputting to XYZ. To prevent this you can activate
the Advanced setting 'DCDM: Disable XYZ normalization' in the Media
section.
- Output nodes of v8.0 projects loaded into v8.1 are potentially
resized - taking on the size of the first shot on the timeline rather
than the project default height and width. To repair this you either
need to explicitly reset the size of all primary output nodes of
activate the 'Output size' variable in the Advanced Setting, Misc
section. Note that this variable will not permanently resize nodes to
the project default but only when activated or until you explicitly
changed the size of the main output nodes. This variable should NOT be
enabled when working with project started in v8.1, a v7 project loaded
directly into v8.1 or after you manually updated all main output nodes.
- Ctrl + Click the Reset button in the Curves menu or the Vector
menu now resets all the curves / vectors at once. Also - the v8.1
upgrade included that the curves include Luminance weights - were as
v8.0 did not. If you stated a project in v8.0 and applied a grade - the
v8.1 curves would continue to behave as v8.0. Only after resetting the
curves (or the full grade) will they behave according to v8.1 specs and
include the Luminance weight into the effect.
- Added DNxHD 100, 1080p/59.94 and 1080p/50 options to AMT MXF
export. The new AMT library used now also includes all shot meta data in
the rendered MXF - potentially allowing for smoother round trip to
Media Composer.
- Various fixes related to OFX plug-ins.
- The Slip control in the Editor while in Source mode was not properly working.
- Publisher upload process in the Process Queue did not always show proper progress percentage.
- QuickTime with 8 AAC mono audio channels was only showing 1 channel.
Build 817 (30 July '14)
- Fix for an issue rendering out shots to mxf that have more than 16 channels of audio linked to it.
- Fix for an issue with the Curve Editor that when opened from the
Curve menu did not show the proper curve or could potentially crash the
application.
Build 816 (28 July '14)
- Option to include meta data burn-in in SCRATCH web publication.
- Various fixes regarding AAF timecode parsing, ATI/AMD graphics
card, display stereo patters upside down, post render commands and xml
scripting.
Build 815 (15 July '14)
RELEASE OVERVIEW V8.1
Please note that some of the updates are
not fully compatible with prior versions and might affect existing v8.0
projects. Always back-up your projects before upgrading!
Color Updates
- Vectors and Curves now include luminance weights. With v8.0 the
Vectors and Curves modules where upgraded - making them more accurate
but apparently also making them more difficult to manage as luminance
was not factored into their response. This update is not a return to the
v7 behavior. The controls are still more accurate and respond different
than v7 - but factoring in luminance takes off the hard edge.
- New Temperature, Tint and ISO-Gain controls in the Numeric
Matrix menu. Note that these controls are 'additive' in that they do not
reflect the possible (absolute) value which might be included in the
meta data of the underlying media.
- A new 'Aperature' section in the Numeric Matrix menu that
contains the (existing) Defocus control (with an extended range) and as a
new Clarity control.
- New Color spaces: P3 (DCI) and AdobeRGB. Up till now we labeled
the XYZ color space as 'P3/XYZ' which was primarily meant to send out to
projectors. This label did not properly reflect that P3 (DCI) is a
color space in its own next to XYZ. The Adobe RGB color space was added
to better support still-photography workflows.
- Added the option to write Cube-LUT format.
- A new Advanced setting to disable SCRATCH's Color Management:
when enabled the value of the Apply option for output-nodes and monitor
settings will all be off by default for new projects and CONstructs.
Media Browser update
- The RED tab has been replaced with more generic Shot Config tab
that will show all the shot controls of the selected shot and allows you
to update values for multiple selected shots at once (if they are of
the same type).
Other
- Snapshot function now includes flip/flops and rotation (in steps
of 80 degrees). To include the full timeline framing context you can
select the Output View in the View Port or explicitly select the (main)
output node from the Output stack before taking the snapshot.
- Histogram display in curves menu is now a user settings as in some cases performance issues might want you to turn this off.
- Show timecodes for project tray proxies
- Various fixes - among others:
- working with plug-ins on layers,
- gallery maintaining state,
- Quicktime output controls did not always reflect the correct values,
- adding meta data through the meta data stack would crash the application on OSX,
- on OSX the publishing upload task did not show up properly
in the Process Queue causing users to prematurely quit the publishing
job,
- and more.
UPDATE RELEASES V8.0
Build 812 (2 July '14)
- Various updates on Publish and SCRATCH Web.
- Various fixes on refresh issues with plug-ins and working with free-form canvas.
- Update on Repository login screen - automatically generating list of available repositories.
- Workaround for faulty AJA driver that could cause audio playback at half speed.
- Enabled additional Sony F65 debayer resolutions (e.g. 8K). Note
that these options have not so much to do with the resolution of the
underlying source media but rather are (enhanced) debayer quality
modes.
Build 811 (15 June '14)
- Various update on publish, including new report option in SCRATCH Web.
- Fixes an issue with using a plug-in on a layer - generating a
scrambled image or showing a freezed frame because the slip value was
not set properly.
- Audio scrubbing was not functioning correct.
- Fixed a matte shift when using 2:1 image aspect.
- Tray selection was not maintained properly when adding items.
- Outputs created from a template would sometimes show faulty in / out points.
- JPeg2000 DCI outputs sometimes used incorrect bitrates. Note
that you set the proper bit rate from the Format settings tab with the
output. You can change the default values of new JPEG2000 outputs from
the Advanced System settings.
- Re-instated option to ctr+drop shot on another shot to copy range and framing from one shot to the next.
Build 810 (28 May '14)
- Added ACES option for RED media.
- Added 2K DCI (2048x1080p) output modes for BMD DeckLink SDI.
- Support for Final Cut Pro X conform.
- Various Publish updates / fixes.
- Magenta Sticky notes appeared Blue.
- Update on XML scripting to set the Source Mode of shots.
- New Advanced Settings (SConfig) that will cause the Apply
Monitor LUT option to only affect shots flagged as Log (to mimic the
auto-apply option from earlier versions).
Build 808 (16 May '14)
- Various updates and fixes with the publishing functions.
- Added RED color spaces to the Media Browser update menu.
- Fixes various issues with Remote: connecting side was not
pre-fetching media properly, shot aspect was not properly used on
connecting side.
- The XML script copy routines added the file extension twice.
- Panel mappings for tray navigation were not stored properly.
Build 807 (8 May '14)
- Various updates and release of the SCRATCH Publishing function.
Build 806 (1 May '14)
- The Windows Installer would not always update the Windows
registry appropriately if the user installing did not have the proper
credentials. This could cause a problem with a first time installation
of SCRATCH on a system.
Build 805 (30 April '14)
- New version of the Codec Support Pack (CSP): including a fix on XAVC. Note that using this new version might lead to a color shift
in XAVC footage you loaded and graded in a previous v8 build / with
another CSP version. Further, this version of CSP fixes issue with
certain flavors of AVC and P2 contains support for the BM pocket camera.
- RED - updated SDK and added DragonColor color space and
RedGamma4 gamma curve. The current version requires RED Rocket requires
Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3 or later. RED Rocket-X requires
Driver 2.1.10.0 and Firmware 1.3.4.11 or later. This update also solves
an issue where the Kelvin setting on certain shots were not properly
processed by the previous SDK.
- Player updates:
- Start drag from the Timeline overlay tray.
- Compare mode did not automatically show the selected shots.
- Source stack now also responds to Page up/down keys for selection.
- OSX: Command key was sticking after Command+H and then switching back to Scratch.
- H264 encoder various fixes: QuickTime Player failed to playback
certain PAL/NTSC rendered resolutions, could not render files greater
than 4GB, sometimes failed to create the fast start option.
- Fixed an issue with rendering MXF on OSX.
- Increased accuracy on CTL script conversion to 3D LUT. Also
created SConfig - advanced setting - to set the size of the 3D LUT that
is created for processing CTL script.
- SCRATCH Remote did not always pass the framing to all connected clients.
- License dialog update to prevent mistakes on activating a license key or activating the free player version.
- Postrender XML output did not always contain complete frame table with all file names.
Build 802 (3 April '14)
- Sony - latest SDK and fix on Kelvin slider which was reversed.
All non-default Kelvin settings are adjusted automatically when loading a
project with this build. However, when reverting to an earlier build
those values do not revert.
- Panel mappings: additional mappings for Dual View, Over Mode,
AB Mode, Output Cache. New default mappings for the element panels.
- Color Slider were not properly updated when using panel.
- QuickTime - fixes for files that internally had different movie and media lengths.
- Load and Save options for (plug-in) presets are available again from the Shot menu.
- The Clear Notes function now only applies to the selected color.
Holding down Ctrl when clicking the button will clear all notes from
all selected shots.
- Gamma correction with the (lin/log) source remapping now works
independent form the gamma conversion for the monitor or output node
transforms.
- Conform match clips now also works on stereo nodes.
- Fix custom commands for plug-ins.
- BM DeckLink SDI used wrong levels.
- You can now use SDI and dual head simultaneously (except in combination with NVIDIA SDI - hardware restriction)
Build 800 (18 March '14)
RELEASE OVERVIEW V8.0
General Notes and Warnings
- This version requires a license update and re-activation
of your license key. If you have a valid support contract your can just
re-activate your current license key. Note that reverting to a prior
version will again require a reactivation of the license key.
- This version is not fully compatible with version 7. When opening a v7 project
SCRATCH will ask to upgrade the project database. SCRATCH will make a
copy of the v7 database and convert that to v8. That means that you can revert back to v7: the project will be in the
same state as before the upgrade. Newly created projects in v8 are not
available in v7 - when installing v7 it will show an empty project. Also
note that some of the grading tools for v8 have been updated - this
means that any project created in v8 might not look exactly the same: e.g. the
ACES implementation changed which might result in a small color
shift when upgrading from v7 to v8.
- Panel mappings have changed and extended - existing mappings might not be fully functional with v8.
Collaboration and Workflow tools
- SCRATCH V8 contains a series of new collaboration and workflow tools
to extend the scope of SCRATCH beyond the desktop. Please view this animation read this section
of the manual for more information. Note that the collaboration tools
are for now still in Beta phase and are expected to release several
weeks after the v8 release. You need special
permissions with you Assimilate account to be able to use some of
the new tools. Login to the MyAssimilate site or contact Assimilate
support
to check availability.
- Project Repository: On-line project database to share projects
in a secure way with other SCRATCH users and maintaining a change log.
- Publish: publish and share media directly from SCRATCH to the
web - be it a single clip to YouTube or Vimeo or a complete CONstruct to
MyAssimilate where you can invite others to review and collect feedback
directly into SCRATCH.
- Remote CONNect: Link multiple SCRATCH systems from anywhere in the world for a creative session.
- Galleries: Maintain and synchronize looks, composites and
SCRATCH settings with your on-line Assimilate account so they are
available with any SCRATCH system at any time. You can easily link a
SCRATCH user profile to an Assimilate online account - fully automate
the synchronization and storage of your gallery items.
Color
- New Galleries Trays that are maintained outside the project
database in your user folder and can be used with any project. The
new Trays interface enhances efficiency of managing and applying
filters, grades and composites. Please read this for more information.
- New Memory grades screen tool. Please read this for more information.
- Update of Vectors menu that now allows you to pick any vector. Please read this for more information.
- Increased the number of available options in the Curves menu,
including a new alpha curve. Also, the precisions and smoothness of the
curves were enhanced. Please read this for more information.
- New CDL grading mode - limiting the color menu to CDL parameters only. Please read this for more information.
- ACES update - using the latest version with flexibility to revert to any prior version. Please read this for more information.
- LUT Update. Please read this for more information.
- Support for the CineSpace 3D LUT format, including the 1D
normalization transform.
- LUT management: notification of missing LUT.
- Automated LUT search path: media-, project-, user-folder.
- Added new Ultra HD Color space.
- New Color Match option with the Curves, allowing you to remap colors
by just picking source and target from two images in a dual view setup. Please read this for more information.
Composite
- Solo mode in the Layer (formerly known as Scaffolds) list. Please read this for more information.
- Independent blur settings for Matte and Fill and new Pre- and
Post-blur controls in the Qualifiers. Please read this for more information.
- Masks are now deformable with
bicubics.
- Burn-in plug-in update, including text outlines and text styles - bold,
italics, underline and color. Please read this for more information.
- Removed recursive display in Source stack / Structure view.
Media
- Official APPLE ProRes Encoding on Windows. Please read this for more information.
- New Cinecraft H.264 encoder to create
mp4 media [currently only in Windows and limited to HD resolution]. Please read this for more information.
- Enhanced Relink media in Media Browser - no
longer requires a full path to match. Please read this for more information.
- File browser enhancements - toggle loading multiple shots or
still frames from inside the browser, create load type selections, use
UNC paths. Please read this for more information.
- Media format updates:
- OpenEXR version 2.0 support including full floating point.
Automatic loading of EXR stero images as top/down. EXR compression
options are directly available with the output nodes.
- SCRATCH now installs with the LGPL version of
FFMPEG which offers additional format support.
- Latest Sony SDK with support for the new sLog3 color & gamma
space. Each Sony node now also has its own ISO, Tint and Kelvin
controls.
- Includes latest ARRI SDK for support of latest camera firmware and monochrome images.
- Latest RED SDK with support for multi-GPU debayer. Note that
the new RED Rocket-X requires Driver 2.1.5.0 and Firmware 1.3.0.4 or
later. Contact RED for downloading.
- The Codec Support Pack (CSP) and the AVID AMT SDK for rendering MXF are now included with the SCRATCH installation.
Edit
- Link multiple audio files to a single node or
timeline. Please read this for more information.
- The audio auto-link function in the Media Browser will
link multiple matches to the same node if so desired. Please read this for more information.
- Reversed the track display in the editor and allow video track editing in audio mode.
- Update shot notes directly in the editor by using the Ctrl+N quick key.
- Store the dual view slip value set with a Project Tray shot so
slip is re-used when the shot is used as reference in dual view.
Project / workflow management
- Multiple notes per shot. Please read this for more information.
- Enhanced output management from the Output menu in the
CONstruct. Please read this for more information.
- Post Render Commands to start an external script after a render finished. Please read this for more information.
- XML Scripting update: include output nodes and plug-ins (e.g. stereo nodes).
- Extended the number of available #-tag options in the Media Browser: for slot position, name and
construct in the Media Browser to update shot-names or reel-id.
- sfile[1] preserves the sequence numbers in the original file name so you can re-create the exact same source file name on
your render.
- Sort your CONstruct based on scene and take meta data properties. Please read this for more information.
- Event log reporting missing LUTs and uncompleted renders. Please read this for more information.
Other
- General face-lift of the interface
- Support for the Blackmagic DeckLink SDI output card.
- New Meta Data Stack in the CONstruct.
- New user settings menus dialog - available through the gear icon menu button. Please read this for more information.
- SCRATCH no longer automatically resumes any unfinished render but will show a notification.
- Various new panel mappings e.g. with the new Gallery Trays.
- Set a custom number of project backup files in the advanced settings dialog.
- Layer selections are no longer maintained and stored with a
grade. The actual Layer selection in the Player for a shot is only
maintained during your project session. A new setting 'Keep Layer Name
Selected' has been added - next to the already existing 'Keep Layer
Selected' - to better control how SCRATCH defaults and maintains Layer
selecti
V7.0 UPDATE RELEASES
- Build 766 (6 Dec '13)
- Fixes an issue with applying LUTs, which under certain circumstances when rendering a long timeline, could product invalid results.
- Build 765 (15 Nov '13)
- Update on file locking scheme on OSX
- Fix for LUT export option with Custom Commands
- Build 764 (30 Oct '13)
- Fix for loading F55/F5 2k display streams
- Masks on anamorphic sources where not always displaying and rendering correct
- Build 762 (16 Oct '13)
- Updates for improving reading F65 media from central SAN storage.
- Additional updates for project sharing on OS X.
- Fix for issue with saving Output templates.
- Build 760 (26 Sep '13)
- Note: This build requires you to reactivate your license keys. If you have a valid support contract you can just use your existing key. If you are having problems reactivating your key please contact licensing@assimilateinc.com.
- New RED SDK - including RED Dragon support. For Red Rocket support please update to driver/firmware to 1.4.36/1.1.17.3, available from the RED website,
- Fix for database file locking on OSX to support project sharing,
- Fix on AJA where overlay were shown upside down,
- Fix on Sony reading XML meta data.
- Build 759 (3 Sep '13)
- Fix for Sony Raw - not always recognized the correct format.
- Build 758 (28 Aug '13)
- Support for Sony FS700 camera
- Fix for issue with cube LUTs
- Build 755 (30 July '13)
- Optimization and fix for the ACES implementation: clipping could occur in the RRT transform on extreme values.
- Under certain conditions an error in a (QuickTime) output node could lead to the removal of all prior rendered files of that node.
- Adjusted AJA Kona implementation in that the image orientation is now the same as most other applications so that there is no need to restart the system when switching between applications or to rewire cables in a 4k setup.
- Update on Playout - using the Kona 422 output on the Mac could freeze the application when trying to connect to the VCR.
- Build 754 (16 July '13)
- Included a Fast Start / Web-optimized option for QuickTime output.
- Refresh issue with plug-ins where under certain conditions the grade of a shot was not always properly updated.
- Solved an issue on OSX where a limit on the number of opened files was not properly overwritten and could cause failure to open certain files.
- Update on XML scripting background process - a log messages was only written after all commands were fully processed rather than after each finished command.
- Build 753 (5 July '13)
- Image on dual head was not always properly refreshed when using a plug-in for the second screen.
- XML auto-export always included generating proxies and xslt transform.
- Update on JPeg2000 for DCI compatibility.
- Solved an issue on OSX were under certain circumstances the wrong texture was rendered.
- Build 752 (4 June '13)
- Added support for 4k output from the AJA Kona 3G.
- Reading external xml meta data files with Sony footage and processing ASC-CDL parameters if set.
- Dual stream SDI output was showing anaglyph image.
- Fixed issue with reading R3D RMD files that were edited in redcinex.
- Timecode was not read correct from certain MXF files.
- Issue with Qualifier on 10bit source footage when used in combination with masks.
- Fix issue with reading CTL file that could clip the image.
- Assemble: direction of dissolves where not always properly read from aaf files. On export EDL - any clip name version postfixes are stripped.
- 3:2 Pull-down node did not show proper length.
- Build 751 (1 May '13)
- Fixing issue with 3D LUTs / curves that could cause a color shift.
- Fix for AJA SDI - sync output channels when dual stream (stereo) is enabled.
- Dropping a scaffold in the Tray could potentially crash the application.
- Build 749 (13 Mar '13)
- Fix for wrong offset with 3D grading LUT.
- Fix for re-link issue with ARRI footage.
- Fix for AJA analog mode detection on window.
- Build 748 (8 Mar '13)
- Fixes an issue with 3d LUTs that was introduced in the previous build.
- JPEG2000 would always include alpha channel, even if RGB was selected.
- Color space setting was not always maintained when creating a version.
- Update for OFX plug-ins that need more than 5 control tabs.
- Build 747 (5 Mar '13)
- Fixes an issue with the Watch folder on OS X
- Build 746 (25 Feb '13)
- Fixes an issue with the Cube LUT format.
- Shot Input color space settings were not properly pasted with Paste Frw function.
- Support for analog output from the Kona 3G card.
- Build 745 (19 Feb '13)
- Update on Color Space management. Please read this article explaining how SCRATCH deals with color spaces and ACES in particular, as well as giving workflow suggestions.
- HDMI output for the AJA T-TAP was not properly working.
- In certain cases a shot's metadata items were duplicated when using undo functions which could cause the project database to grow rapidly.
- Display LUT on SDI was in certain cases not properly applied.
- In some cases SCRATCH auto-selected the wrong CUDA/OpenCL device.
- Build 743 (25 Jan '13)
- new ARRI Fast debayer option. SCRATCH's own debayer method (as opposed to using the ARRI SDK), build for speed while preserving color accuracy. The Fast debayer option is set as default option when loading new media.
- upgraded the JPEG2000 implementation to render DCI compliant output. In the Advanced settings dialog you can set the JPEG2000 Encoding format (DCI Compliant, Lossless or Lossy) and bit rate. Note that for DCI compliance there are two profiles: CINEMA 2k and CINEMA 4k. CINEMA 2k requires a framerate of either 24 or 48 fps, while CINEMA 4k only accepts 24 fps. The standard resolution for CINEMA 2k is 2048 x 1080. To maintain DCI compliance either the x- or y-dimension should follow this standard resolution with the other dimension either being equal or smaller than the default. For CINEMA 4k the default resolution is 4096 x 2160. The bit rate is maximum (and default) 250 Mbs. In the Advanced settings you can set a lower value if required.
- New Sony SDK with new F5 and F55 support and for the F65 format, newly added 6k and 8k support.
- New RED SDK with support for monochrome media, DRX control on the Red Rocket and additional metadata items (such as scene and take). Red Rocket requires driver 1.4.32.0 and firmware 1.1.16.11.
- Load multi-view EXR images as under/over images.
- Update on the benchmark / profile function of SCRATCH for measuring IO performance.
- Other fixes:
- Output temples with QuickTime nodes sometimes used wrong resolution.
- The colorspace/LUT for dual head was not always properly applied.
- Dropping shot in dual view sometimes set the wrong slip.
- Iridas cube LUT not correctly loaded on the Mac
- NVidia SDI RGB full/Range labels in the SDI configuration panel were switched.
- Editor - splitting a shot would not split the versions in the slot.
- Fixing issue with assemble of negative vari-speed events.
- Fixing a number of issue with Stereo setup and stereo output on SDI.
- Build 741 (18 Dec '12)
- Dual-view/Over mode updates and quick key reassignment: d = toggle dual-view, s = toggle split view, s + shift = toggle trim view, a = toggle over mode. The 'Over mode' on the SDI is now enabled by default.
- Stereo setup was not available in SCRATCH Lab.
- Copy / paste (forward) of FX Ctrl values did not always work.
- Framing controls in the Editor did not update properly when animated
- Solved load delays and performance issues when using certain LUTs.
- Vari-speed offset from older project was not properly processed and offset could in some cases not be adjusted.
- Fixes on FC XML for media with different frame rate than the timeline and for processing zero length EDL BL-events.
- Locked timeline could still be updated in the editor.
- Compare mode was not working
- Link-views in the View Port is now enabled by default.
- Color blend mode on node was not persisted properly and alpha is set to 0 by default.
- The 'S' key to show / hide on shot-notes did not work properly in the Tray in the Player.
- Deleting a scaffold did not update the control state properly.
- The source-time in the editor for the shot's in- and out-point now shows the actual source-timecode.
- Scroll the construct and tray with the mouse-wheel.
- Build 739 (29 Nov '12)
- The Curves functionality was broken in the previous build
- Fixed an issue with slipping the media of a version and removed a limit on the length of a resolve.
- SCRATCH could potentially crash after a clean install when using an AJA card because settings were not properly initialized.
- Stereo update. Scaffolds where not properly rendered on top of a stereo node and framing was not always applied properly. To render out left and right eye separately without having to change the output node settings, you now can add an additional node at the top level next to the main output node. This node does however not include any tracks in a multi-layer timeline setup.
- The HSV Qualifier did no produce proper results.
- Build 738 (23 Nov '12)
- AJA update: support for RGB 444 over a single 3Gb link as well as 1080p @ 50, 59.95 and 60 fps through dual link, 3G level A and 3G level B. When using a Kona cards, make sure you check your SDI settings after installing this update release.
- Default monitor color space transformation setting is now auto-apply.
- SCRATCH now exports graded proxies when using the auto-export or Custom Command export options.
- Unable to set keyframes for Scaffold vertices.
- Fixed an issue preventing SCRATCH to run properly on OS X 10.6.
- Build 737 (16 Nov '12)
VERSION 7.0 [November 2012]
General Notes and Warnings
- This version requires a license update and re-activation of your license key. Reverting to a prior version will again require a reactivation of the license key.
- This version is not fully compatible with prior versions: projects created and graded in prior versions might come out different in this version and vice verse. Always check your project carefully after opening it in a different version. We do NOT recommend upgrading in the middle of a project.
- Please spend some time getting used to changes in the UI and new hot key layout before taking this version into production. Also, the new color space and monitor setting require special attention.
- As with every new version, make sure you made proper back-ups of all your SCRATCH project data.
Player Navigation
Updated Player navigation and drag and drop model to allow forworkingseamlessly from a multi-layer timeline down to a single,multi-levelcomposite, while viewing the output in full context at alltimes.
- New View Port Toolbar to efficiently manage the View Port image for review and comparison (open link).
- Dual View Slip Selector to to independently the play left- and right view and visually set a slip value (open link).
- Updated Over-Mode with more flexible wipe function (open link).
- The Timeline Repeat Mode button also allows you to control the set the Playback Speed to 2x, 4x, 8x, 10x, 20x, 50x (open link).
- The new Source-Mode allows you to view the current shot including its handles while in the Player with the full timeline (open link and open this link).
- View versions in the context of the final output (open link).
- The enhanced Drag / drop model allows you to drop shots in the Layer stack or Structure view to replace elements while automatically re-wiring inputs when dropping plug-ins. You can also drop any shot in the right pane in dual view to compare shots drop. Scaffolds also automatically re-wires inputs in case plug-ins are used - allowing you to efficiently copy a Scaffold from one shot to a whole range of other shots (open link). Dragging a mask to the scaffold list will promote the mask to a scaffold (open link). The reverse is will happen when dragging a scaffold to the mask list.
- Added Previous - Next navigation buttons to the View Port Control bar for navigating a history list of selected shots on the timeline and inside composites (open link).
Edit / Conform
The SCRATCH Editor has undergone a facelift (open link)
- Enhanced drag / drop options for interactive editing (open link).
- A new Editor-Overlay in the View Port showing the previous and next shot in the timeline (open link).
- When switching to the new Source-Mode, the Editor allows you to directly adjust the timings of all your composites inputs (open link).
- The new Flatten function allows you to consolidate all sub-tracks into Scaffolds on the main track (open link).
- Create a Collector node from shots spread over different tracks (open link).
Color and Composite Toolbox
- Better Color Space management with auto-transformations and support for the ACES color space. SCRATCH perform automatic transformations from one color space to the next (open link) and you can set a color space per output device / monitor (open link). You can manage the with each color spce related gamma at the project level (open link).
- View your scene and manage and animate camera positions in the new 3D Camera menu (open link) together with the new View Port Perspective interface (open link).
- New Directional-blur and Multi-Sampling for textures (open link) as well as Motion Blur with MipMap Filtering (open link) for smoother animations. With the new added controls the Texture menu has been changed with separate control sets for Front and Matte. Use the "+ Matte Transform" button to link both settings again (open link).
- Regarding Textures (open link):
- the Front section now has an Alpha (A) channel mask option to explicit enable embedded alpha, making an additional Matte assignment redundant
- shot assignment originating from the base shot's Staging area are referenced rather than first making a copy.
- the IN / OUT used references the actual in/out of the shot.
- in addition to Scaling you can also set the texture Rotation
- Additional Tracker functions; Selecting alternative source, setting offset for shape tracker and allow use of external tracker data from Mocha (open link).
- Easy Nesting of Scaffolds (open link).
- Per shot options for Opacity, usage of Source Alpha and RGBA Transfer modes, available from the Editor (open link) and the Input Transform menu in the Matrix (open link).
- Next to the existing RGB remapping options a new Alpha remapping (A=A,0,1) option was added to the Matrix Levels menu page (open link).
- Paste options. The Paste Forward function now stops at the mark out when a Range is set. In the Paste Dialog - selecting an option with Quick Key: Alt + click will disable all other selected options (open link).
- Additional Color features and changes:
- You can now use a 3D LUT anywhere in the pipeline without restriction on your grade / curve usages.
- Support for 1D RAW LUTs with .txt extension, like S-curve_for_CineStyle.txt from Technicolor.
- Added black/white offset changes to non-clipped 1D LUTs/Curves.
- Separate pivots are maintained for LIN and LOG settings (open link).
- Input Lin to Log and Log to Lin conversions now extend the full range and don't clip between 0-1.
Menu Updates
- Settings menu is now available from the pop-up menu in the Player (open link). Some of the Matrix configuration controls were also moved to this menu.
- The Settings menu has a separate Monitor sub-menu for setting display LUTs (open link).
- The Stabilize function was moved to the Source- Matrix page.
- The Show Matte option and color pod were moved to the Qualifier - Matrix page.
- A large number of key-board Quick Keys were updated. The Help panel in SCRATCH now contains tabs to browse through all quick keys (open link).
Project, System & Other
- Updates for Stereo setup (open link): Output any Stereo pattern directly to a monitor without having to add a plug-in (open link).
- New Advanced-Setting dialog to control Panels setup (open link), VCR configuration (open link), custom Formats and Aspect ratios (open link), manage Custom Controls (open link) and advanced System Settings (SConfig) (open link)
- Support for HDMI output for AJA Kona cards and AJA T-Tap.
- New AMT library and ability to output MXF DNxHD 444 (open link).
- Separate Users and Projects folders for more flexible setup in multi-seat situations (open link).
- Custom Commands enhancements: export XML including proxies / LUTs, support for blocking calls and option to process results of a script rather than using the watch folder (open link) .
- Update on XML scripting - allow creating new projects (open link).
- Option to save a RMD-file for a r3d shot.
V6.1 UPDATE RELEASES
- Build 729 (8 Nov '12)
- Fixed an issue with adding shot references to the tray and an issue with the Media Browser.
- Build 728 (5 Oct '12)
- This build contains an update on the Sony F65 format implementation. In the previous build playback of F65 media had under certain conditions a performance issue, especially on OSX.
- Build 727 (8 Aug '12)
- This build requires a reactivation of your current v6.1 license key. No new key is required just use the Activate button with the existing key. Note that the system needs to be online when activating.
- New ARRI SDK with support for new debayering algorithms and support for color space ACES. The new version also includes a new notation "ARRI Debayer Algorithm" (ADA) for all debayer algorithms:
- ADA-1 HW original camera hardware debayer algorithm,
- ADA-2 SW advanced ARC/SDK software debayer algorithm (previously called AMC-1),
- ADA-3 HW SUP 7.0 camera hardware debayer,
- ADA-3 SW: SUP 7.0 advanced SDK software debayer algorithm.
- New Sony SDK which includes support for F64 HFR (high frame rate) and increased overall performance. Using a new SConfig-variable (SONYMXF_F65_DISABLE_OPENCL) allows to force CPU debayer rather than GPU debayer which in some cases provides better performance.
- Both ARRI and Sony F65 have specific requirements and issues regarding OS- and graphics driver versions. Please read this article for more information.
- High order filters were not always properly rendered pixel-aligned, causing jitter on animations
- Update on caching of audio meta data to be able to open the player faster.
- Update on SCRATCH Plug-in API (SPA).
- Build 723 (26 June '12)
- Update on Burn-in plug-in. In some cases text was displayed distorted. Also the alpha channel in included with text display was not adaptive.
- In some cases a LUT on a derived output node was applied twice.
- The No-Clipping option is now properly maintained for the selected Scaffold.
- Long file names were not always refreshed properly in the info bar in the Player.
- Another update for Neat plug-in to properly work in combination with using SDI.
- Added Quick Key - 'W' for toggling project tree panel in the CONstruct.
- Added option to escape wildcard character in the search dialog: use 'x/yz*' to search for literal text 'x*yz*'.
- Build 722 (13 June '12)
- OFX plug-in interface update - among others, fixing an issue with Neat Video which was not properly working in combination with SDI.
- Embedded alpha in source Fill-texture can now be enabled and no longer has to be copied to the Matte-texture. Also, alpha is passed properly to (OFX) plug-ins.
- Scaffold blur and alpha were not properly copy / pasted.
- Bug fix on reading AIFF files that could cause channel swapping.
- Update on AAF assembler. The From-Folder option could in some cases crash the application. Also, the timecode of a shot was in some cases not parsed properly when reading an AAF file coming from AVID MC.
- Update on ALE export which now including all audio channel references rather than just the first two channels.
- Media long file names containing only numeric characters were not always parsed correct.
- Fixing an issue with updating the ReelID of shots in the Media Browser that could crash the application.
- Build 721 (9 May '12)
- Solved issue with selecting a reference shot while in dual view.
- Solved issue with range settings when entering the Player with a single shot.
- Adjusted default file mask for new Broadcast Wave Writer.
- Build 720 (2 May '12)
- Update on Sony F65 support; new implementation including additional Source Transform option and new defaults, audio support, auto processing of CDL data and support for F65 Lt media. Please see the Sony paragraph for a more complete description of the new setup.
- New Metadata stack in the Player. Next to the Version, Layer and Staging stack a new panel is added for displaying and editing the metadata of the current shot in the Player. Please see the Metadata Stack paragraph for more information.
- We replaced the Shot Name - input mask in the Media Browser with a more generic setup to update the name, reel-id, scene or take properties of a shot using a mask. Please see the Media Browser paragraph for more information on the Input Mask.
- We added the option to copy/paste FX Ctrls values from one shot to the other. The Paste Dialog now includes the option to also paste FX Ctrl settings to a single or range of shots (using Paste FWD function). Please see the Paste Dialog paragraph for more information on this feature.
- Drag & drop update; added the option to drag nodes from the tray in the player and drop shots onto the current shot in the View Port to copy a grade. For more information please see pasting grades paragraph and the Trays paragraph on dragging shots from a tray.
- New Broadcast Wave Writer plug-in that allows you to write separate audio files. Please have a at the BCW paragraph more information.
- Update on audio-sync function; when using Ctrl+Click to find the next audio peak - SCRATCH will slip video in-point rather than audio slip. Please see the Audio Slip paragraph for more information.
- Added framing animation and opacity data in an XML import / export. Please see the Appendix for more information on XML scripting and import/export. Also, see the paragraph on Import and Export of Animation data for more information on the data formatting in the XML. Furthermore, note that the timeout for checking for updates in the init-xml folder of a project was changed from 30 to every 5 seconds.
- Fix on processing ASC CDL data from an ALE - in previous versions not all decimals were processed. Also, on export CDL data the master value is included with the rgb components for pre-gain, offset and gamma.
- Properly include empty slots that with length as BL events in an EDL export.
- Fix on timeline timing when using a re-timer / pull-down; the re-timing would not properly ripple through in the display of the timeline and in the render when writing to a folder per slot.
- Build 717 (28 Mar '12)
- Sony F65 - implemented the new Sony SLog2 gamma curve. As of this build F65 footage by default are set to the R.BT709/sRGB Color Space and using the SLog2 input remapping in the Source Transform of the Matrix. About the current Sony F65 implementation - we get a lot of questions about comparing the image in SCRATCH to that in the Sony Viewer. The SLog2 implementation is identical to that in the Sony Viewer. SCRATCH has a different Rec709 gamma curve implementation (in the Source Transform) than the Sony viewer. Using the SCRATCH grading functions you are able to create a similar image as the Viewer if desired. Alternatively - on request, we have a LUT available that mimics the Sony viewer one-on-one; however that clips the image leaving very little dynamic range for further grading and is not a recommended workflow.
- In some cases after Loading footage and doing a conform to a new construct the shots on the initial CONstruct where not saved.
- Build 716 (9 Mar '12)
- New RED SDK with new RED colors paces.
- Sony F65 and SR support: when enabling the SONYMXF_ENABLE_AUDIO SConfig variable SCRATCH will also process the audio in the mxf file. Note that this is still beta functionality and you might experience issues when in the Edit module and shuttling through the timeline while audio is enabled. These issues should not occur in normal playback / renders.
- Support for .cube 3D LUTs
- More precise message when using file mask that does not produce unique file names.
- Build 714 (1 Mar '12)
- Support for Sony F65 and SR - formats. Please see the Sony paragraph in the User Guide for more information. Also note that currently audio is not supported for these formats.
- New ARRI SDK, allowing for GPU debayer. As far as the GPU debayer this is still a beta version and to use it rather than regular CPU decoding you need to explicitly set the 'ARRI_USE_GPU' variable in the SConfig file. For Windows a Quadro 5000 or 6000 card is recommended and for the Mac a Quadro 4000 - though the performance gains are less than on a Windows system. Please see the ARRI paragraph in the User Guide for more information. Also, please refer to the driver chard for recommended drivers to use.
- Added Color Space and Debayer Mode options to ARRI Process menu controls and any in the media included LUT / ARRI Look data is now properly processed.
- Updated AJA Mac SDK to version 3.2 - this now requires driver 10.1.
- Added default mapping files for the new Tangent Element panels. Please see elsewhere in this article for more info and links on the use of this panel.
- A Log to Lin + Gamma conversion in source transform did not maintain the proper black level; this fix might affect existing setups when doing a Log to Lin transform and a Gamma adjustment in the source transform.
- The Log to Lin Display LUT does no longer include an automatic device-gamma adjustment.
- The #sframe hash code for the file naming scheme did not always return the proper value.
- Fixed an issue with Tracker when using file formats with different than expected endianess.
- The backspace on selected text was not working properly.
- The Scene and Take properties of a shot could end up twice in an ALE or XML export.
- Build 709 (7 Feb '12)
- This build includes a new RED SDK that solves a bug giving black frames when using HDRX in certain resolutions. However - there is still an issue that for certain resolution the Red rockets aligns the image incorrect resulting in a 1 pixel black line appearing on the right of the image. This issue is known with RED and is expected to be resolved with the next firmware upgrade.
- Fix for a performance issue when a r3d shot was used as a texture.
- Fix for a performance issue with copying image data to the graphics card while in dual view or a stereo setup.
- This build ignores so called dead keys on certain international keyboards as they were crashing the application (OS X) .
- The remote module was not working properly.
- Added a new 'Alt' group text for panel mappings.
- Statistics where sometimes calculated after the display LUT was applied.
- Build 707 (19 Jan '12)
- Solves an issue with the Statistics Waveform with FX Quadro 5800 cards.
- SCRATCH will now automatically calculate a slip value when loading and linking a (Broadcast Wave) audio file to a shot from the Edit menu in the Player. A sample-rate override (48048 rather than 48k) is automatically applied for calculating the slip in case of a shot with a 23.976 framerate. This same override is also applied by default in the Media Browser - independent of the override ht user can set manually.
- Toggling the visibility of a note (using the 'S' key) of a selected shot will will also toggle all other selected notes. This way you can quickly show/ hide notes on the entire timeline.
- Updating the Color Pivot defaults was not working properly.
- Build 706 (13 Jan '12)
- The default extrapolation mode for animations was reverted back from Linear to Constant.
- Final Cut XML was not always properly decoding a clip's timecode.
VERSION 6.1 [December 2011]
- Note: this version requires a new license. New license are only issued by sending you a license-key to activate or re-activate your existing license key. Please see Licensing the Software in the User Guide about license key activation. Switching (back) between this version and v6.0 requires a re-activation on each switch.
- Warning: in this version important changes in handling r3d media are implemented which make it not backward compatible with previous versions. Please read and consider the notes below carefully.
- Note: not all new features are available in SCRATCH Lab. Both in the User Guide and in these release notes - - is used if a feature is only available in SCRATCH®.
SDI
- Support for the AJA Kona SDI boards (output only) both on OS X and Windows. Please see System Settings - SDI in the User Guide for more details. Note that for the AJA Kona cards to work you need the latest drivers which are available at the AJA website at www.aja.com/support. The latest Beta build requires Kona driver 10.0.1. Also, we are working on support of for the Bluefish Epoch card - but testing has not finished with the release of this version.
PROJECT, MEDIA AND CONFORM
- RED r3d media - Please see the RED paragraph in the User Guide.
- You can now set the target resolution per node and if using a Red Rocket - scaling is done on the card which greatly improves decoding performance. By default SCRATCH will set the target resolution of an r3d clip to the project resolution.
- Note that this new setup is NOT compatible with previous versions; once you load an existing project into this version you will lost the original settings. Vice verse - a project created in this version will not maintain its settings when loaded in an older version.
- New RED-SDK with new options for processing HDRx. The Red Rocket requires driver 1.4.19.0 and firmware 1.1.16.5 both available on the RED website.
- Update on AAF/XML assemble- Please see the Conforming paragraph in the User Guide.
- New Reverse-Assemble for AAF/XML.
- Option to include multiple matches in an assemble.
- Inputs of non-supported effects are included in the assemble. You can include additional inputs either in the Version stack or in the Staging area of the main input shot.
- The Match from Folder - option also matches the name-property of the event with the file-name. In addition you can set the media type to search for - which increases the efficiency and performance of the match routine.
- New option to import Meta Data from the AAF file into a matched clip.
- Meta Data handling to facilitate specific workflows - Please see the Media Browser in the User Guide.
- New Scene and Take properties per shot; editable in the Media Browser and included in ALE and XML import / export.
- Allow for automatic overwriting of Shot Scene and Take properties when loading / linking a Broadcast Wave (BCW) audio file.
- New option in the Media Browser to update the name of all selected clips using a naming-mask with available #codes.
- The #reelid[n] code was extended with a parameter in order to return only the first n-number of characters of the shot's reel-id.
- When exporting AVID MXF all extended meta data items are included in the rendered MXF/AAF.
- The In / Out Points now displays absolute frame positions and an (additional) media length column. The +In / +Out controls now add or subtract the actual number of frames rather than previously re-calculate the values to increase / decrease the handles of a shot.
- Plug-in updates.
- Stereo node update - Please see the Stereo node in the User Guide. Added a Frame Sequential mode; this will output alternate left / right frames rather than a single stereo pattern frame.
- Burn-in update - Please see the Burn-in node in the User Guide. A new Flash Frame - option; when enabled only the first and last 'n' number of frames of each shot will have the burn-in text. Rendering Guides can be optionally linked to the display of flash frames.
- New Re-Timer plug-in - Please see the Re-Timer node in the User Guide. The Rolling Mix - mode of this node does an interpolation of frames on a slow motion and will do a merge of frames on a speed up.
- CONstruct Tools - Please see the Media menu in the User Guide.
- Reshuffle of functions with the Commands Menu to create space for new tools.
- Generate TC function to generate a new time-code for all shots on the timeline in the CONstruct, given a start time-code and an interval.
- The Stereo Setup function will create Stereo Nodes for all left Left/Right pairs on the CONstruct.
- Match TC function that adjusts the in-point of all second versions (right eyes) so that the timecode matches the timeline version (left eye).
- De-Construct function that transforms the current (conformed) CONstruct to a stripped version by removing duplicate clips, adding handles and fixed gaps in order to render or play-out the CONstruct more efficiently.
- Added #codes: #seq_frame which translates to 'left' / ' right' and can be used with Stereo nodes. #keycode which translates to the keycode of the source image. Please see the Output paragraph in the User Guide.
COLOR GRADING AND COMPOSITING
- New Enhanced Levels noise function in the Matrix Source tab than implements an overall error compensation scheme for all grades. Please see the Source Transform paragraph in the User Guide. Note that setting this to a high value might - depending on your grade lead to a too 'obvious' noise pattern.
- Automatically rescale the Scaffold canvas/transform when applied on a different target.
- Update on OFX plug-in interface for faster processing of image effects by sharing data between host and plug-in on the GFX.
- Tracker is now available for masks as well. Please see Masks paragraph in the User Guide.
- The No Clipping option is now active by default and its state ripples through when creating Scaffolds. Please see the Source Transform paragraph in the User Guide.
- Added option to load and render Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files. You can load an SVG file in the Matrix where it will show as a scaffold. Please see the Texture paragraph in the User Guide.
- Note that this functionality is only available on NVIDIA Fermi cards on Windows.
SYSTEM - SCRIPTING, SPA
- Update on Custom Commands settings that now offer the option to an xml file with data of all selected shots(and optionally a LUT per selected shot. Please see Custom Commands in the User Guide.
- Added Staging Area items to XML export/import. Please see XML Scripting in the User Guide. Note that only items that were explicitly added to Staging are included - not all items used in a composite.
- Update of SCRATCH PLUG-IN API (SPA) for developing SCRATCH plug-ins.
Other Features and Fixes
- Added support for the Tangent TUBE API with supports for the new Element panels. Please see Controls Surfaces in the User Guide. Note that default mappings for the Element panels are not yet available on the first release of this version. For the panels to work you need firmware version 1.15 and Tangent HUB software version 0.1.3, revision 2.
- Added a Select All function in the Search dialog to select all clips found on the current CONstruct. Please see the Search panel in the User Guide.
- Added work around for NVIDIA dual screen bug when using HDMI as second screen; Enabling the SConfig variable NV_DUALHEAD_BUG invoke the work-around.
- New version of the AVID AMT library available for rendering AVID compatible DNxHD MXF from SCRATCH. Please download the library from here.
VERSION 6.0 [July 2011]
- Warning: Projects loaded in 6.0 might not appear the same when loaded back in v5.2. The setup of the Hue-Hue curve in the Matrix has been updated and is not always backward compatible.
- When opening a v5.x project this version you must Upgrade the Project Database. After upgrading you still can load the database in a v5.x version of SCRATCH but settings and grades might differ or be lost.
LICENSING & INTRO SCREEN
- SCRATCH has a new License scheme with two products; SCRATCH® - the full version and SCRATCH Lab™. Please see the Products Features Difference Matrix paragraph in the User Guide for the difference between the products.
- The ways you handle license files has changed in the version. Rather than copying a license file to the settings folder you load the license in the License Dialog of the Start-up Screen of SCRATCH. Please see the Licensing the Software paragraph in the User Guide.
MAC OS X VERSION
- Both SCRATCH® and SCRATCH Lab™ are also available on OS X.
MULTI LAYER TIMELINE
- Added a Multi-Layer Timeline (MLT) context to be able to overcome the slot-boundaries of a CONstruct.
- The MLT is implemented using sub-CONstructs and layers on the Main Output node.
- The Editor was extended with a Tracks view.
- To be able to easily navigate through the shots of the different Tracks, the Player navigation was updated.
STAGING, LAYER STACK AND STRUCTURE VIEW
- To improve organization, manageability and navigation through complex compositions:
- a new Staging module as an extra data-management dimension to the CONstruct.
- the Layer Stack and Structure View - composite tree view.
AAF / XML CONFORM
- Added support for conforming from AAF or Final Cut XML.
- SCRATCH supports conforming multiple tracks and most of the basic effects used: Dissolves and Fades, Vari-Speed, Flip/Flops and scaling.
- Next to Matching edit event to already loaded media, you can now also match the events with the media in an disk folder based on file-name.
MEDIA FORMATS
- Codecs Support Pack (CSP) - offers native support for; Phantom .cine, Cinema DNG, Panasonic P2 (DV, DV50, DVHD, AVCi50, AVCi100), Sony XDCam (4:2:0 & 4:2:2), MOV and AVI (Cineform Si2, DPX-C), AVCHD. Currently CSP is available as a separate downloads.
- RED r3d media.
- As of this version the SCRATCH software decoding of r3d is no longer available for new projects, only RED's own SDK decoding which can also be used in combination with a Red rocket acceleration card. The S-RED 12, S-RED 16 and Native color mode settings for R3D files are all disabled; existing projects using these settings will continue to use them but once changed you will not be able to switch back.
- Additional 1/8 proxy mode for better play-back performance when no accelerator card is available.
- New option to adjust the ReelID for r3d footage to one of four formats: A001, A001C001, A00131XX, A001_C001_1231XX. You can set the format on the General tab of the FX Ctrls menu in the Player. Note that the setting is a project-wide setting and is applied to all RED shots, unless the ReelID of the shot has been altered manually before.
- Support for the ARRI-raw format, using the ARRI SDK for debayer and collorimetry. The current implementation allows you to adjust the ISO and RGB channel gains used for decoding the image.
- QuickTime - Additional controls for color tagging and conversion for rendering QuickTime files.
- Tiff - now writes alpha as either UNSPECIFIED, ASSOCALPHA (pre-multiplied) or UNASSALPHA. Also added Tiff tags for TimeCodes and FrameRate according to the 'CinemaDNG spec' and reading/writing the 'reel id' from/into the Image header. Tiff now preserves the same metadata as DPX.
- Writing alpha is now controlled through UI options per node by selecting the RGB or RGBA mode.
- Added Range control (Video/Full) to MXF DNxHD node and using generic YUV->RGB conversion functions to prevent a color shift in AVID when loading / viewing SCRATCH generated MXF files.
- Improved performance of handling EXR footage.
THE MATRIX
- Next to the points trackers SCRATCH now also offers a Shape Tracker - allowing you to track any Scaffold created, including transformation and deformation of the shape - which can be controlled separately.
- New Masks sub-menu where you can create multiple shapes inside a Scaffold to add an alpha channel for masking areas / cutting holes in the parent Scaffold. These shapes should be viewed as a qualifier for your composite but based on 2D geometry instead of keying.
- Additional Qualifiers and keyer features.
- New Luminance Keyer using curve control to set value and slope of the qualifier.
- New Chroma Keyer - using differences in chromatics, primarily targeting blue/green-screen shots.
- New Vector Keyer, treating colors as vectors in 3D RGB cube and defining a cone shape vector limited by shadow and highlight range and allowing for additional softness to all outer edges of the key.
- Spill Suppression. This option defines a color range around the key color and uses one of three methods for adjusting colors: Recover, Desaturate or Color.
- New Expand / Shrink function to expand or shrink the matte generated by a qualifier.
- New area select - when holding down the Ctrl-key you can select an area which is used to set the initial values for a Qualifier or when the C or S buttons are enabled adds or subtracts the selected range to the Qualifier.
- Added panel mappings for all the keyer controls.
- Added new basic 'Bicubic' surface as a primitive for a Scaffold. Note that for the best results this function requires OpenGL 4.0 and support for tesselation shaders, which is available on the new generation of Quadro cards.
- Optimized the Softness algorithm used in SCRATCH; existing softness settings might render slightly different.
- Hue-Hue curve now has a relative shift to ensure the end points are symmetric.
- Added Matrix option "No Clipping" in the Source Transform. With this Switch you control whether the Curve controls will or will not clip the shot.
- Extended support for different flavors of CDL.
VECTOR PAINT
- New module providing vector paint functionality (This replaces the Scratcher plug-in which is no longer available).
- Defining, editing, saving and loading color palettes and brushes.
- Different paint modes - Copy, Clone and Reveal - and option to paint in specific color channels RGBA.
AUDIO
- New Wave Form display in the Editor.
- New Audio Mixer Panel in Player; volume control per volume, separate settings for playback and play-out, channel mapping, automatic peak/clapper-detection.
- SDI Embedded Audio. 'SDI Embedded Audio' is presented as a separate audio device when using the new generation of Quadro cards with SDI - Requires NVIDIA Quadro 4000/5000/6000.
XML SCRIPTING
- To ensure consistent order of processing the files in the XML / watch folder are now always processed based on the file's modified-date.
- Allow for a substitute path variables in XML - using $MEDIA$ to refer to the media path of a project or use $IMPORT$ to refer to the path of the XML that is being processed. Please see Appendix C of the User Guide.
OTHER
- Menu update and reshuffle. LUT and Guides menus are now available as sub-menus of the Settings menu in the Player. The LUT menu does no longer provide the option to set a Monitor LUT to be set on the operating system level as this is not possible with Windows 7 or OS X. Alternative some graphics card drivers settings allow you to implement a custom LUT. Note that you can still apply a display LUT for both the primary and secondary display. The Guides you set in the Settings - Guides sub-menu now represent settings for the CONstruct you are working on; the guides are displayed in the Player and included in SDI for Play-out but not when rendring to file. The Burn-in meta data option has been removed in favor of a solution of using a plug-in. In addition, the burn-in Grade option has been removed. All Output nodes now by default have their grade rendered.
- Renaming the Text-Frame to Burn-In and extending the plug-in with the option to burn in guides. There where the Guides sub menu in Settings represent CONstruct settings - this plug-in can be added to an Output node (or used in an Output Template) to actually burn-in meta data and guides.
- SDI (and dual-view) setup now explicitly configurable through the UI.
- Allow the CONstruct to scroll without holding down the Space bar.
- Removed the '+Grade' and '+Framing' from the Plugins Browser; input-color processing is now always enabled.
- Search Panel; When executing a Search, references of all shots found are added to a temporary CONstruct, which can be viewed in the Player.
- Improved performance rendering shapes.
- ANC data on SDI is now enabled by default. Also, the VITC/LTC timecode is now also placed in the in HANC lines for Playout to VCR.
- Play-out now automatically switches to EE when in STOP mode only and disables EE when there is any activity on the VCR.
- Support for the AVID Euphoix MC Color surface panel.
- UI taking better advantage of high resolution displays (2560x1440).
VERSION 5.2 [NOVEMBER 2010]
IMPORTANT!
- v5.2 is NOT fully compatible with previous versions; Loading a 5.2 project back into a previous version might cause loss of data.
RED
- This version includes the latest official released RED SDK and requires driver version 1.3.3.0 and firmware version 1.1.8.6.
- RED Settings are maintained per Shot rather than per Track as in previous version. Multiple shots pointing to the same physical file can have their own RED decode color and gamma settings.
- The Media Browser allows for updating the RED settings for multiple shots at once.
- Added RedLogFilm gamma option.
PROJECT / OUTPUT
- Broadcast Wave support. The new audio-tab in the Media Browser also contains a new function to match (broadcast) audio files with shots, based on the time-code of the audio file and the shot. The match function allows you to select a folder containing audio files of which the time-codes are read and matched with the (selected) shots in the Media Browser. If the time-code (plus the length) of the audio file overlaps the time-code (plus the length) of the shot, the two are length. Additionally a slip value for the audio is calculated. The slip value can be adjusted manually afterwards for all shots if needed. To be able to calculate a correct match, you must set the actual sample rate on which the time-code of the audio file is based (NTSC).
- Project Consolidate. This function allows you to copy/move all used physical media to a new media folder or to just copy/move any media external to the media folder into the project's media folder. Note that the Consolidate process might be a lengthy process and that during the process you cannot enter the project. You can pause the process and enter any other project and you can abort a Consolidation all together. However, aborting a consolidate may result in some cases in invalid media references. Before aborting SCRATCH will ask to finish Consolidating the current shot to minimize the change of invalid data references. The Consolidate functions writes to a separate consolidate log file in the Project folder. The Consolidate function is available in the Project Settings panel in the Logon screen. Because the consolidate can have far reaching consequences, you can remove the option for all users by setting the "AS_CONSOLIDATE = FALSE" parameter in the SConfig file.
- Option to create a new Collector node from a selection on the CONstruct. A collector node can be viewed of as a timeline-in-a-node. When entering the Player with a Collector node, the Edit module allows you to change the edits of the underlying nodes or add / remove shots from the Collector node. With this functionality, the Collector node adds another dimension to the CONstruct. The node-type is recognizable by the mini-timeline that is displayed in the top-bar to the proxy-image. Creating a Collector node is simply done by selecting one or more shots in the CONstruct and using the Create Collector button in the Media menu. With this button two options are available. Enabling "C" will also remove all the slots of the selected shots that are inserted in the Collector. Any versions of the shot will be moved to the new Collector shot. This option is only available when the selection consists of consecutive shots on the Timeline layer. The "+T" option forces the addition of slot transition info to the Collector node, even if the shot selection is not on the Timeline. When selecting a single Collector node on the CONstruct, you can also expand it again, creating copies of all the underlying nodes.
- Additional #eventpos and #colorspace field codes for the file-naming scheme. The codes translate to respectively the absolute frame position within a slot and the color space of the shot (lin, log, xyz). In addition, the file-naming scheme restrictions where loosened; SCRATCH will no longer generate an error when the file-mask set will overwrite any previous rendered data. SCRATCH will still generate an error when using a file-mask that results in non-unique filenames within a single output. To make the use of file-masks easier, 3 default template masks are added that can be used and will always result in a unique file sequence..
- New Custom Command Control interface which uses an xml settings file and allows you, next to launching third party software & scripts directly from SCRATCH, also to launch a plug-in directly from the CONstruct (optionally including preset values) or opening a web-page (incl. providing meta data on the shot to the web server). In addition, the XML also allows for setting a default plug-in for a second monitor (SDI or Second Head). Please see Chapter 11 - Customizing SCRATCH of the user guide for more details and the formatting of the xml.
- New Stereo Plug-In which takes two inputs and processes them into one of the available stereo patters; Side by side, Over/under, Line interleave, Checkerboard and Anaglyph. The plug-in can be applied directly on a node, on an output node in the Pipeline view (where it will automatically select its second input and display that by a dotted line) or, using the new Custom Command XML interface, you can use the plug-in on the second monitor, where it automatically will take Layer 2 of the CONstruct as its second input. Please read more about this option in Chapter 11 - Customizing SCRATCH of the user guide.
- Additional (default) column in an ALE and new tags in XML to Import / Export Audio time-codes.
- Support for rendering 8 and 16-bit dpx, both RGB and RGBA.
PLAYER / MATRIX / PROCESS
- SDI output produces ANC data (VANC) with the following fields set: VITC/LTC Timecode -> Timecode of the current shot, Film Timecode -> Source Timecode of the current shot, Production Timecode - Record Timecode. This function requires NVIDIA drivers version 197.90 or newer.
- A new Stereo Lock mode option in the Player Settings panel [S.Lock] which, when enabled, locks the left/right channels in a dual view setup. Selecting the right eye in the version stack will then maintain right-left view and you are editing on the right view of the dual view. Selecting another shot in the Version stack will automatically select a new Stereo (version) pair. Note though, that you cannot combine this function with selecting a Reference in the dual view as that would break the stereo effect.
- Tracker update, improving accuracy and an option to edit the offset by holding down 'shift' while re-positioning the track-box.
- Improved quality and performance of the rescale function.
- Support for 8 additional audio-channels.
- New A.Relative option in the Paste-dialog, which will paste any copied Animation Channels relative to the in-point of the shot. Also, the Animation Editor has a new option to re-align the animation with start of the slot / the in-point of the shot.
- Additional panel mappings for navigating key-frames.
- View position and scaling - Player settings are now stored in the database per CONstruct and restored when entering the Player.
- The Overlays of plug-ins are now available when in the FX Ctrl menu inside the Matrix.
- Dock-able Scaffold panel the left side of the screen. The default size of the Scaffold list is increased and when dragging the panel to the left of the screen it will dock and behave the same as the Project stack and shot-stacks.
GENERAL UPDATES & FIXES
- Audio icon on proxy-image, indicating presence of audio; a white icon represents media-embedded audio while a colored icon represents a separate linked audio file.
- Update on dissolves; in a new project a dissolve now always start at the first frame rather than frame+1.
- Clicking the Snapshot button in the Player while holding Control key will ask for a filename. By default the filename now includes the name of the CONstruct and shot.
- Fix on the Create Version if files are rendered out over multiple folders. The function now moves the underlying media to a new folder, loads all individual shots and create a new Collector node.
- Update on File Browser - improved performance and more responsive with large folders. The File browser also shows available drive labels / UNC paths with all the drives listed in the top left panel.
- The Paste Grade function now takes slot-length into account to find the best match. Also, the Copy Grade is only applied to the selected shots on the CONstruct, unless none are selected; in that case all shots are processed. This way you can apply the function quickly to only a second layer or version.
- Typing project name in the Logon screen auto-scrolls the project list.
- An new panel-id was added to the default cs_devices file and used in the mappings file, which enabled that you can have different panel configurations on multiple systems while using the same panel-mappings file.
- If you change a value in any text control within SCRATCH it will remember that value. So when you are next in a text control you can press the up-cursor key and scroll through any previously remembered values. The history is maintained until exiting the project.
VERSION 5.1 [JULY 2010]
IMPORTANT!
- v5.1 is NOT fully backwards compatible. Projects created or once opened in v5.1 will not always load properly in a previous version of SCRATCH. Also, Play-out settings in the pconfig file might need adjustments for this new version, which might take some extra setup time.
RED
This version includes the latest official released RED SDK to enable processing footage shot with the new MX sensor. The new version also enables the use of multiple Red Rocket decoder accelerator cards, especially useful in a Stereo Workflow. In case of stereo footage, SCRATCH also interprets the flip/flop meta settings of an r3d file and copies them to the new flip/flop option in the Source Transform of the SCRATCH color pipeline. The new RED setup in the Process-FX Ctrl menu panel in the Player in SCRATCH is spread out over 2 menu-tabs: General and Color. It is very important to note that:
- the decoder settings on the General tab are still global and apply to all r3d footage in the project
- the red color transform setup in the Color tab apply to a single r3d file; all (copies of) shots that refer to the same physical file share the same transform settings!
- if you are using a Red Rocket harware card, v5.1 requires an upgrade of both the driver to version 1.3.2.0 and firmware to version 1.1.8.6; available from the RED website www.red.com.
The new Color tab contains additional controls for the RED decode and color transformation. Note though that this transformation is done outside the SCRATCH color pipeline. Please read more about the RED implementation in Chapter 9 - Output and Plug-ins of the SCRATCH User Guide.
COLOR
The setup of the Color Pipeline has been updated to further improve performance. A number of new features are implemented
Qualifiers & Keyer
The Qualifier interface offers a new Source Selection option to set the level the Keyer is applied to:
- Source Image; the base image without any grade
- Primary; the base including the primary grade.
- Recursive; the image including all grading and any (underlying) Scaffolds.
- The Fill or Matte used in the Scaffold
On the left top side of the Qualifier menu, two new View buttons are added: Source and Matte. The first shows the image used by the Keyer as selected in the Source Selection to actually see what color you are picking, the second shows the matte of the Key. To actually pick a color you must use Ctrl+Click.
Other new features
- New Grading Memory buttons in the Matrix to store grades. With Shift+Click the grade of the current shot is stored in Memory. Clicking the button applies the stored grade on the current shot. You can map the memory on a panel to Map-1. The Memories are stored as user settings so are not restricted to a single project.
- The Curves menus show the full histogram as background
- Moved the Framing options to the Matrix for easier access
- New re-sampling algorithm for more accurate LUTs
PROJECT & OUTPUT
SUPPORTING THE MXF FORMAT
The new version supports both playback and rendering of the (AVID) DNxHD MXF format. For rendering MXF format SCRATCH uses the AVID AMT library. Shots are rendered to singleton an MXF file with accompanying AAF and XML files containing meta data. The functionality to render out MXF is packaged in a separate installation which is available at the bottom of this page. The procedure to render out MXF is similar to rendering out footage in a QuickTime format; add a MXF node to an Output node, set the appropriate encoding options and start processing the node.
FILE-NAMING SCHEME
The file-naming scheme in this latest version has been enhanced and extended. The number of codes that can be used in the file-mask are increased and the dialog to create the mask now also has the option to create and load preset masks. Most of the codes can also be used in the new Text-Frame plug-in which is explained further down, while some codes are exclusively for file-naming or for the Text-frame. The list below contains all available codes.
- #reelid - Reel ID of the input.
- #name - Name of the shot.
- #sname - Name of the source shot.
- #file - Filename of the shot (excluding extension). (Text-Frame only)
- #sfile - Filename of the source shot (excluding extension).
- #note - Annotation stored with the shot. (Text-Frame only)
- #snote - Annotation stored with the source shot. (Text-Frame only)
- #tc[0] - Timecode of the shot.
- #stc[0] - Timecode of the source shot (only applicable to filenaming scheme).
- #rtc - Record timecode. (Text-Frame only)
- #frame[6,0] - Frame number of the shot.
- #sframe[6,0] - Frame number of the source shot.
- #eventno[3,1] - The source event/shot number. (File-naming only)
- #date[ymd] - The current system date.
- #slotname - Name of the slot. (File-naming only)
- #spath - Path of the source shot excluding media folder or drive-letter but including last folder separator.
- #fps - The frame rate of the shot in frames-per-second.
- #res - Resolution of the output eg. 1920x1080.
- #ext - The default filename extension for the output format. (File-naming only)
- #project - Name of the project in which the output resides. (File-naming only)
- #group - Name of the group in which the output resides. (File-naming only)
- #construct - Name of the construct in which the output resides. (File-naming only)
- #md[a] - Meta-data description. (Text-Frame only)
- #subtitle - The subtitle(s) at the current time. (Text-Frame only)
The new file-naming dialog automatically pops-up when selecting the file-name textbox in the configuration panel of an Output node. Through the Code - optionslist button you can select any of the available coes for inserting in the file-maks. By typing one or more '\' (backslash) in the maks directly you can create a custom folder structure. On exiting the dialog, SCRATCH will validate the file-mask and in case that will lead to duplicate file-names within the project, issue an error. The presets that are saved in the pop-up dialog are stored in the FileMasks.cfg file in the c:\programdata\assimilate\settings folder.
PLAY-OUT
The Play-Out module has been updated to get stricter timings. Also:
- A new Crash-mode, next to Insert and Assemble, which disables cueing the VCR to a specific point and instead starts recording right after obtaining a servo-lock.
- Use CTRL+Connect on the Play-out menu to switch to Emulate-mode. This mode makes Play-out available but without the VCR control. When pressing Record in Emulate-mode, a normal Play-out run is performed but without actually activating the VCR. This mode can be used for testing, reviews or audio sync on SDI. One option is e.g. sync audio to SDI without adjusting the slip (during user-sessions).
- A new parameter 'prst_init' can be used in the PConfig settings file. This parameter is used to set the initial offset on the time-code generator of the VCR for an Assemble. In certain cases the first frame needs a different offset than all the other time-code changes in the timeline that is being recorded.
Note that using this new version might mean that you have to adjust your current VCR settings in the pconfig.xml in the c:\programdata\assimilate\settings folder!
The NVIDIA graphics driver version used on a system is a major determinant for the performance of Play-Out. Test results for the 197.90 drivers have shown good results. The driver is available on the NVIDIA website.
META-DATA HANDLING, ALE IMPORT AND CDL SUPPORT
SCRATCH can now maintain an unlimited list of name-value pairs per shot. This meta-data is shown in the new 'Extended Properties' tab of the shot Info-panel (Quick Key - I while hovering over proxy image).
- each shot in SCRATCH inherits the meta-data from its main input, so all meta-data is preserved up to the final output.
- meta-data can be updated through the shot Info-panel, XML scripting or with the new ALE Import Manager.
The new ALE Import Manager offers a flexible way to set up matching criteria and include / exclude columns from importing. In the second row of the ALE Manager's data grid you can select the function of a column: use for matching, import or exclude. The matching algorithm and procedure is similar to that of the EDL Manager. You can either just import the meta data or also Assemble a new Timeline from the matches found. You can change the default settings by updating the AleDefaults.xml file in the c:\programdata\assimilate\settings folder, created after using the ALE Manager the first time.
ASC-CDL SUPPORT
Both ELD and ALE import / export can now include and handle ASC CDL parameter. The formatting in the EDL / ALE is in line with the 'ASC CDL Avid Workflow' specification. Note though that if CDL compatibility is required only a limited set of grading parameters should be used in SCRATCH. The ASC CDL parameter mapping is implemented as follows:
ASC CDL -> SCRATCH
Slope -> Pre-Gain (r,g,b)
Offset -> Offset (r,g,b)
Power -> Gamma (r,g,b)
Saturation -> Color-B Saturation
XSLT / HTML EXPORT AND EXTENDED XML SCRIPTING OPTIONS
SCRATCH offers the option to export data using an XSLT transformation, which can be used to create HTML (but also any other format). When selecting HTML as export format, SCRATCH will:
- create an XML file with the data; this XML is identical to that when choosing XML export.
- perform an XSL transformation on that XML with the XSLExport.xslt file. A default xslt file is provided with the installation of SCRATCH. You can change it by copying the file to the \programdata\assimilate\settings folder and modifying it there or providing a new completely new xslt file with the same name.
- create proxy images in a subfolder for all the shots included in the export. These images can e.g. be used in the HTML page created with the XSLT.
The HTML export functionality requires a license that includes the 'Remote' module.
AUTO-EXPORT
SCRATCH also offers the option to execute the XS transform automatically each time you exit a project, so the most up to date information is available for third party system integration. When setting the auto-export option to HTML in the Project-settings menu of the Logon-module, two additional options are available:
- Overwrite Proxies. By default SCRATCH will overwrite the image proxy files for all shots included in the export. When switching off this option, SCRATCH will only write a file when none is present yet. This saves considerable time processing for large projects but can also mean that not the most recent proxy is present.
- Export LUT. Together with creating a proxy image, SCRATCH can also create a LUT file per shot, depending of the selection this is a 1d or 3d LUT. The Overwrite setting also applies to exporting a LUT.
XML EXTENSIONS
- As of this version all the primary grade parameters are included in an XML export and can be updated through XML script / import.
- A slot can now also be referenced by its name next to its index position in XML scripting. Next to using the 'index=' attribute, you can also use the 'name=' atribute in the slot-tag.
- The 'Shot'-tag in an XML script / import can now include a new 'copy_grade' attribute. The value of this attribute references a shot of which the grade is copied to the shot updated / inserted. The value is either a slot-index number or a uuid.
- Until the previous version, when a new shot was inserted of which the media was already referenced by another shot, the color settings were automatically copied. In the new version an explicit color-copy is needed.
- Inserting new shots through XML when the actual media is not present (yet) will now create an empty node, rather than no node. An error is still generated to notify the missing media but this way no new commands have to be processed when the media becomes available.
CONSTRUCT UNDO / REDO
Each CONstruct now has its own Undo/Redo stack. The Undo/Redo functions ara available in the left bottom corner of the CONstruct menus or with Quick Keys Ctrl-Z / Ctrl+Y. Each stack has a maximum of 25 actions that can be undone. The following actions will clear the undo-stack: entering the Player, conforming an EDL / ALE, switching between slots and freeform CONstruct and exiting the project. Switching between CONstruct will preserve the undo-stack of the individual CONstruct.
USER INTERFACE
The menu lay-out of the CONstruct has been re-arranged to provide more comprehensible layout and to preserve space for future developments. Also, the layout of proxy images has been updated:
- The proxy image now includes a bar-code with 4 bars representing: 1. the shot contains a primary grading; 2. the shot contains a secondary grade; 3. the shot contains scaffolds; 4. the shot -framing is set. The bar code replaces the color bottom border
- The bar-code is also added to the Scaffold list where it represents the presence of: 1. primary grade; 2. secondary grade; 3. canvas/shape; 4. keyer, fill or matte.
- The presence and status of annotations with a clip are displayed in the proxies by the colored overlay and/or a new, more subtle, tag in the right top corner.
- Proxy display can be controlled in more detail and per user in the Settings sub-menu of the Timeline menu.
DEEP COPY BEHAVIOR
In previous version whenever you copied a shot, the new copy would use the same inputs as the original. In the new version SCRATCH will also make copies of any inputs the shot that is being copied uses. To prevent this deep-copy behavior you can place shots on a so called Reference-Construct. Shots placed on such a CONstruct are, when acting as an input for a shot that is being copied, referenced rather than also copied. You can switch a CONstrut to 'Reference'-mode through the Settings menu . The CONstruct will be marked with an additional icon in the Project-tree stack.
OTHER
- New options to export and import Tracking and Animation data. Using the general Save / Load buttons of the Matrix while in the Tracking submenu enables you to write and read (x,y) coordinates to and from a CSV file. In the Animation menu panel new Import and Export buttons are present through which you can import and export multiple Animation channels at once; all selected channels are imported / exported.
- Shot Quick Search. A new Search button on the CONstruct (Quick Key Ctrl+F) opens a dialog panel where you can enter search criteria to perform search over multiple CONstructs; a text search on shot name, reel-ID and annotation, together with the option to filter shots based on the annotate color / status.
- A new user setting in the Logon screen offers the option to set the default proxy size SCRATCH uses; small, medium or large.
- Creating a reference node in the Tray from multiple selected shots now preserves dissolves when the shots are on the timeline layer.
- A new Inverse option with the Load Layer function to add new shots bottom-up in the slots. Currently each shot found in the Load Layer function will be added to the CONstruct on top of previously found shots and already present shots. With the Inverse option each new subsequent shot found is added on the Timeline layer.
- Option to set negative value for SDI-Wipe option in the Settings menu of the Player; this will reverse the dual view display on the SDI view.
PLUG-INS
TEXT-FRAME AND SUBTITLES
A new Text-Frame plug-in offers text-overlay options. Next to adding plain text, the plug-in can use most of the same field-codes that are available for the new file-naming scheme. Adding a '#' with the name of the code and optionally the parameters will translate to the actual value. In a Text-Frame you can enter multiple textboxes and position each independently in the base image, as well as set properties like text size, font and color.
The new Text-Frame also supports loading external subtitle files, either *.stl or *.str formatted. After loading the subtitle file, use the field-code #subtitle to display the subtitles. The two formats supported are both plain text formats. The srt format is described in http://srt-subtitles.com/. The stl format has different sub-formats, however SCRATCH supports only the plain text variant:
....
00:00:56:06 , 00:01:00:16 , first subtitle with in- and out-timecodes
00:01:00:21 , 00:01:05:24 , second subtitle | the pipe character represents a line-break
.....
The '$' tagged meta-data items at the beginning of an stl files are not processed by SCRATCH.
PROCESS NODE
A new Process node replaces the previously used 'Pan-Scan' node. A processing node can be initiated from the CONstruct Media menu. The function will create a new processing node for each selected node in the CONstruct and take the selected node as input.
NEW DE-INTERLACER
A new OpenGL based De-Interlacer plug-in replaces the traditional de-interlacer. The new plug-in offers additional conversion types such as 24-25. When loading an existing project all old de-interlacer plug-ins are replaced with the new ones.
OTHER
- Substantial disk IO performance increase for read operations.
- The option to set a LUT and burn in the grade on an output node has been removed. Alternative you can enter the Player with the output node and use the Matrix menu panels to apply a grade or add a LUT to the output node.
- Added 'mp4' file extension for loading QuickTime files
- Dual-view is now the default setting in case 2 monitors are available. User the AS_ENABLE_DUALVIEW=FALSE in the SConfig file to disable dual view.
VERSION 5.0 [DECEMBER 2009]
IMPORTANT!
- As of v5.0 SCRATCH is released as a 64-bit application only and will NOT run on a 32-bit operating system. The target OS for SCRATCH v5.0 is Windows 7 64-bit (any edition). Be aware that not all graphics cards are fully functional with Windows 7 (yet). We urge you to plan your upgrade to v5.0 and please read carefully the additional notes at the end of this article and the information in this article about (NVIDIA) graphics card support, downloading a suitable NVIDIA driver for Windows 7, installation issues and hardware requirements.
- This version uses a new file format for storing project data and is NOT backwards compatible. Existing projects will be converted to the new file format and any changes will be saved in the new file. The old project files are maintained and can still be opened with an older version of SCRATCH but will not reflect any changes made since the upgrade.
- Furthermore, this version of SCRATCH implements NVIDIA's CUDA technology, which is not fully supported by older graphics cards. Only NVIDIA cards with CUDA - Compute Capability version 1.0 or higher support all the new features. For the Quadro FX range these are the x800 and x600 cards. Even though most SCRATCH functions still work properly for older cards, ASSIMILATE does no longer actively support those cards from SCRATCH v5.0 onward. When using an older card, the new CUDA based image-statistic functions will not update continuously during playback and revert to a CPU fallback mechanism.
- This version requires a new license to be installed. See below for information on how to obtain a new license.
GENERAL
- Support for RED Rocket, RED's r3d decoding card. Once installed, you can choose to use either the SCRATCH software decoding or the RED Rocket hardware decoding by selecting from a pulldown in the Process->FX Controls menu.
- Version 5.0 also implements a new transformation step in the color pipeline which is very useful in the RED workflow. You can read more about the changes regarding handling of RED's r3d format and the new Source Color Transform in this article.
- Version 5.0 implements a real time Full Histogram, Waveform Monitor and Vector Scope. With the use of NVIDIA's CUDA technology all the statistics are updated with very little overhead on regular playback. In case your hardware does not support the proper CUDA level, SCRATCH will switch off the auto-update function or, in case of no CUDA support, use the CPU fallback version; in both latter cases the histogram, Waveform and Scope statistics are recalculated only for the last active frame each time the player is stopped.
- All project data is stored in a new SQLite database format. SQLite is a high performance, open source, file based database format and makes SCRATCH projects more scalable and makes saving project changes more efficient. When loading an existing project, SCRATCH will first require you to convert the existing project data. For more information about storing project data, please read this article.
CONSTRUCT / OUTPUT PROCESSING
- Updating both Media and Timeline menu panel; moving command buttons to more appropriate positions.
- Importing & exporting individual CONstructs, Group of CONstructs of the entire Project to an external file which can then be imported into another project. There are two file formats: a binary format which saves all project data and an XML format which will only save specific properties of a project and is intended primarily for external processing.
- New implementation of XML scripting capabilities with more fine-grained control over updating a SCRATCH project, copying media to the local system and adding media to a SCRATCH project. You can read more about the new SCRATCH project database format and XML scripting in this article.
- Additional function in the Media Browser to change the color space setting for a group of clips at once.
- New function (plug-in) to add a color frame. The plug-in generates a single frame shot, with either a solid color or pattern: color bars, grey ramp or zoneplate. You can add a color frame from the CONstruct menu. Furthermore, a color frame is also used when conforming an EDL; a black frame is inserted for a BL-event, rather than an empty clip.
- Added "Sound TC" field to the ALE export.
- Option to change the color / status of sticky notes on Clips, CONstructs and Groups.
- An output node's format, aspect and frame rate can be easily modified by dragging and dropping a clip node from the timeline on the output node in the Pipeline View. The resolution, frame rate and aspect ratio of the clip node are all applied to the output node.
PLAYER / MATRIX
- New Source Color Transform step in the color pipeline. A new Input menu panel was added in the Matrix. Through this panel you can set an initial color transformation before your primary grade. For more information on this, see this article.
- Added a new Profile section in the Player through which you can run a number of Benchmarks. The results are written to the SCRATCH log file but you can also save them to a separate profile file. Making a profile for your system right after installation can be very useful, serving as a reference in a later stage against which you can check system performance.
- Plug-in controls are now available from within the Matrix menu. You can insert a plug-in on an individual Scaffold and control the parameters of that without having to revert to the Process menu.
- Added GPU based high-order filter pass for SDI output.
- Enabled the use of 2 x SDI 422 during playout; this can be used with either the same source or layer0/layer1, enabling support for stereo left eye/right eye and recording both signals onto a single tape in a single pass.
- Matrix control layout; The Numerical menu panel has been updated to now also include Pre-Gain.
- Drag and drop functionality in the Version Stack of the Player.
- Added support for multi-channel WDM audio and RF64 audio format to cope with audio files larger than 4Gb.
- Improved playback performance QuickTime in Dual View.
OTHER
- Added a User setting to set the amount of mirror effect under a slot in the CONstruct.
- Added SConfig variable DM_MAX_RETRIES to recover from failures on processing files that were dropped in the SCRATCH Watch folder.
FIXES
- Missing Frametables for r3d files where sometimes wrongly reported, (not) logged or slowing down project loading.
- Spinning cursor would sometimes appear and remain when using r3d footage and a RED Rocket.
- Order of entries in recent paths list in file browser was not maintained properly.
- Proper paging and layout of parameter controls of OFX plug-ins.
- Stabilizer preserves existing framing setup.
- Camera was using incorrect offset on multi-pass renders.
- Handling illegal character in the Tangent WAVE mappings file.
- Dissolve on odd height destinations was 1 line off between render and view.
- SCAFFOLDS texture with different origin was showing incorrect.
- Orientation of texture fill/matte changed unexpectedly under some circumstances.
- RED TC global-mode was not persisted properly.
- Scaling of SCAFFOLDS maintained inconsistent center.
- Adjust the play position for disabled slots.
- Timeline not updating after Prune Construct.
- Incorrect sorting on timecode.
- Problem playing 24bit AIFF audio.
- Displaying correct initial time code of QuickTime.
- OFX plug-ins; search path for 64-bit plug-ins and plug-ins using hidden controls.
- When loading a custom Display LUT, the setting was not maintained across sessions.
- Display was not updated when selecting a reference node in the Tray.
- Use 10 bit (deep color) when not in spanning mode.
- Paste multiple shots did not maintain slot order correctly.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- For version 5.0 a new license is required. You can request a new license by sending both your current license file and a SCRATCH log file to licensing@assimilateinc.com. The new license is not backward compatible. The new license should be placed in the C:\ProgramData\Assimilator\Settings folder.
- To work with SCRATCH and the Red Rocket you need to install the correct firmware (version 1.1.6.8) and the driver (version 1.1.4.0). These are available from the RED website at www.red.com.
- Please do read this article about NVIDIA graphic card support for Windows 7; be aware that not all graphics adapters are supported and / or fully functional with Windows 7 (yet).
- Additional information on hardware requirements and installation instructions are provided in chapter two of the manual .
VERSION 4.4 [JULY 2009]
IMPORTANT: For this version the settings for Play-out have changed. Please read about these changes in the release notes below and the user manual.
GENERAL
- This version implements RED’s new R3D Color Transform for its camera build 20 firmware. Footage shot with older firmware will also use this transformation but to maintain the look and feel of the old transformation, the color temperature values Kelvin and Tint are adjusted. Footage in existing SCRATCH projects will not be affected in any way and continue to use the old transformation unless the grading on those clips is explicitly reset.
- Multi-core CPU Hyper Threading detection procedure Updated (i7 Core); SCRATCH now only use physical cores for memory intensive multi-threaded operations.
CONSTRUCT / OUTPUT PROCESSING
- The layout of the PConfig.xml file for Play-out VTR settings has been changed to support a separate delay setting for audio. The delays set now exclude the (5) NVidia frame buffer delays which are set dynamically. The names of the xml properties were changed to prevent using old settings. Most old values can be re-used by subtracting 5, but should in the end be determined by trial and error as they are VTR specific. Another element added to the play-out function is that SCRATCH will log if material with different framerates is used on the same timeline; something which might lead to duplicate frames and timing errors.
- In the main CONstruct module, an Output Pipeline view is added, showing the hierarchy of all outputs of a single CONstruct. You can enter this Pipeline view by using the Output button on the main menu bar of the CONstruct screen. From there you can manage all the outputs of a single CONstruct; changing output settings, adding or removing outputs. The Pipeline can either be shown in Proxy mode or in Icon mode (toggled with the View button); the former will show the proxies of the rendered output and the format / size of the individual outputs, the latter view will give a better overview when dealing with a complex pipeline.
- From the new Pipeline view you can also manage the new Output-Template functionality to create, store and re-use pre-configure output setups. A single CONstruct can have multiple outputs in different resolutions and formats, shown in the Pipeline view. You can now select a node in the output tree and save all nodes in the underlying branch to and external template file. This can then be re-used on other / new CONstruct to quickly setup your output pipeline. The files are saved in a pre-defined folder (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Assimilator\Settings\Outputs) and the files are listed in the Output menu panel under Output Templates to be selected and applied. A template is always applied to the currently selected output node, meaning that the branch defined in the template is created under the selected node.
- As a result of the new Output Pipeline view, the controls in the CONstruct have been renamed / and re-arranged. The Settings menu was renamed Output and position switched with the Media button. Furthermore, the Exit and Save All buttons were added to the Media menu.
- Another addition to manage output rendering in SCRATCH is the Process Queue dialog, which can be opened from the corresponding button on the main menu bar of the CONstruct screen. The Process Queue gives you Project wide (over all CONstructs) overview and functionality to manage output rendering. Initially the Output Queue is empty. You can add jobs to the queue from the CONstruct screen or from within the Player, by either using the Process or Add to Queue buttons. The former will right away start the render process, the latte will only add the output render task to the queue. These will only be rendered till you start them from the Process Queue dialog or set a timer scheduler from within that same dialog.
- The Process Queue dialog shows of all outputs added to the queue the status and progress of the rendering. The dialog shows the order in which outputs are rendered and alows for you to set a start time to render the queue. Outputs remain in the queue untill you remove them but are only rendered again till the underlying media is invalidated (e.g. by changing the timeline of a CONstruct). Finally, the dialog shows where the output is rendered to and gives an approximation if there is enough space to render the output to a specific path.
- In the EDL Assembler an option to match name and reels cross-wise is added. Also, the auto-match function was replaced with regular start-stop buttons to control the matching process, including an abort option, progress indication and a Clear option to remove all matches in order to start the process again from scratch.
- The performance of the Media Manager was increased considerably. When dealing with large projects, opening of the Media Browser (introduced in the previous build) could take considerable time. In the new version part of the loading of the data will be done in the background, showing the dialog and initial results quicker.
- The user can set the default Output / Render folder in the project setting in the logon screen.
- Added a "Recently used paths" list to the File Browser. Each time a folder or file is selected the folder is added to a list; different lists are maintained for different purposes, such as images, color management, plug-ins.
PLAYER AND MATRIX
- Additional new Color Curves in the Curves menu of the Matrix: Hue vs. Hue, Hue vs. Saturation, Hue vs. Lightness, Saturation vs Luma and Luma vs. Saturation
- The mouse wheel is now enabled for all numerical controls which are mapped to the control surface and for Pre-Gain in the Levels menu in the Matrix
- Option to load Color Decision List (ASC CDL) as color setting. The existing function CDL Export from the CONstruct menu was removed to prevent confusion, as this was a different type of file.
- A User Setting was added in the panel in the logon screen to switch off the Bottom Swipe in the Player. When switched on use can no longer swipe down to switch to full screen / accidently remove the bottom control panel. When the setting is used, the short key 'Shift-Home' still works to switch to full screen; when in full screen, bottom swipe will still recall the Player control panel.
- The output node stack can now be accessed from within the Player, making it easier to switch between outputs. When the user entered the player with an output node the right swipe will show the full output stack.
- VU meters maintains the maximum levels within a single frame by keeping the higher level LEDs lit. The meters also continue to show last level when playing is paused.
- A Stereo option was added for QuickTime exports; when setting this option and when two audio channels are present, the stereo flag in the exported QuickTime movie will be set. Some external players would indicate that audio consisted of 2 mono tracks instead of stereo (a pure display matter).
- Added a Color Copy plug-in; takes the color from the first source clip and the luminance from the second and combine these into a new clip.
OTHER
SConfig variables and GFX Rendering (only use these settings after consulting Assimilate Support):
- Full floating point 1D LUTs are now the default mode on any G80 GPU's (as of FX4600/5600) or latter. The use of full floating point 1D LUTs has a severe performance impact on any pre-G80 GPU's. In case you do want to use this option on an older card you can use the AS_FULL_FLOAT_LUT = TRUE option in the SConfig file.
- Added two SConfig configuration variables: QT_MAX_OPEN and R3D_MAX_OPEN. These can be used to put a limit on the maximum number of simultaneous opened files. This is a tradeoff between memory usage and performance and should only be used with project with a very high number of r3d / qt clips and indications that one is running out of memory. The default for QuickTime is 256 and for R3D is 0 (unlimited).
- Added AS_RENDER_FLOAT32 to force rendering in full (32bit) floating buffers. This setting will double the memory needed for rendering!
- Added AS_USE_10BIT_FMT to force using native 10 bit GPU format for 10 bit images (DPX/Cineon). This only works on G80 GPU's and latter.
- Added AS_USE_16BIT_FMT to force using 16 bit integer format for 3D LUTs and 16 bit images. The 16 bit integer formats are supported natively as of G80 (NVidia) GPU's
This build also replaces AS_NO_16BIT_FP with AS_USE_16BIT_FP to force old behavior if needed on older GPU's (FX4600/5600 and later are G80 GPU's)
- Alpha is now by default disabled for QuickTime exports; with the SConfig variable QT_ENABLE_ALPHA you can enable the alpha channel again.Added 16 bit decode mode for RED RAW material. This only works when AS_USE_16BIT_FMT is set. User can change decode mode in the Processing control page in the Player.
- New version of SCRATCH's plug-in API. Details and examples of the API can be requested and will be posted on the SCRATCH support site.
FIXES
- Allow changing the current shot version while dragging Scaffold
- Audio channels after the first were interpretated incorrectly when converting to 16 bit
- Duration of 3:2 pulldown node was incorrect
- Scaffold layer with matte and fill the same did not scale properly
- Gamma range on R3D adjusted, now the same as in the Matrix
- CONstruct: move shots sometimes made a copy, slots can now be scrolled with the mousewheel
- Update on the OFX plug-in interface
- Plugin presets loading correctly.
- Adjusted statists view to support increasing number of CPU's. Also, the SDI interlaced modes did not always show the correct number of bars in the statistics view.
- Adjusted drop-frame detection in Play-out .
- Exporting EDL Dissolve-events properly.
- Dragging a node to another CONstruct did not result in a proper copy.
- Tracker did not maintain origin correctly on scaled images.
- RGB channel mixer did not work correctly with Offset and pre-gain. Loading existing setups which have used the channel mixer (Matrix/Levels) might be affected!.
- OFX plug-in controls were not always showing up correctly.
- Slot numbers in the CONstruct now take correctly into account the 'Count From' system setting; starting from 0 or 1.
- Proper audio from r3d files when rendering out to QuickTime.
- EDL, handling of reel-ids with non-supported characters. When SCRATCH writes out an EDL it will replace the reel-ids with numeric characters when some of the reels contain unsupported characters, such as an underscore. SCRATCH will then write a translation table at the bottom of the EDL with the original reel-ids. Now when reading back the EDL, SCRATCH will properly process that translation list.
- A texture image auto created an offset when "Grade" was applied.
- Aspect ratio was not always properly maintained after first load.
- QuickTime not always maintained lin/log flag correctly.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- The configuration for Play-out has changed; previous set delays do not work anymore and need to be re-entered into the new PConfig file. The new layout is relatively self explanatory. The way the PConfig file is used and its location have not changed; check the manual for more info on this.
- This version of SCRATCH contains optimization specifically for newer (G80) NVidia GPU's. When using older GFX board (FX550 and before) you can use the enhanced features by setting the SConfig variable AS_FULL_FLOAT_LUT = TRUE. There will however be a performance penalty! The SConfig file can be found in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Assimilator\Settings. Check the manual for information on the usage of configuration variables.
VERSION 4.3 [April 2009]
IMPORTANT: Upgrading to this build requires a new license to be installed.
GENERAL
- Improvements in GFX and main memory management and increasing robustness when dealing with large projects. The amount of GFX memory being allocated is displayed in the (Ctrl-F1) statistics display.
- Increased performance in debayering of r3d files and handling of large numbers of QT on the CONstruct.
- SDI enhancements:
- Added 'Identity (RGB)' matrix to the SDI configuration dialog
- Update on SDI color-space matrices used; now using ITU defined color-spaces.
- When player sync option is set to automatic, SCRATCH will sync to SDI (when no audio is used and SDI is enabled).
- option to frame-lock to external sync.
- when SDI is enabled, SCRATCH will show warning message when frames are dropped on main output.
- The default API that is used for SDI has changed; the config variable 'AS_USE_FBO_SDI_API' is obsolete and has been replaced with 'AS_DISABLE_FBO_SDI_API'.
- Enabling the Alpha in 8 and 16 bit DPX files
- User can abort Load Layers function by pressing Escape, if the process takes too long.
- New auto-save scheme. Auto-save is no longer turned off after an unexpected shut down and SCRATCH will make back-up copies of project files when the project is opened again. Also, the log file of the unexpected shut down is preserved by copying it to the project folder.
- A project is automatically saved before a render process is started.
- OS administrator rights are no longer required (although still advised); this is for facilitating installation on (not actively supported) Vista OS.
CONSTRUCT
- New and enhanced Project CONstruct tree management:
- the CONstruct tree displays current clip/frame of individual CONstruct,
- user can add notes to CONstruct and Groups,
- drag and drop functionality to manage CONstruct, incl. user setting "Drag Threshold" to better time distinguish between click and drag
- easy copying of whole CONstructs and binning multiple constructs,
- Rectangle selection on CONstruct and improved panning and scrolling of CONstruct.
- Enhanced selection and clip management in Trays; easy select and removing of (multiple) clips.
- Added function in the Timeline menu to paste the grading from clips in the copy-buffer to clips on the current CONstruct based on matching source-timecodes, reel-id and names.
- Added option to copy/past entire slots.
- Added controls in the media browser to set in- and out- handles on multiple clips at once. Also, added a column with the clip resolution. In- and out controls on the media menu in the CONstruct now set the handles of the new clips that are loaded.
PLAYER and MATRIX
- Gaussian fall-off smoothness function for softer-edges on Scaffolds.
- Added second dual view reference for the Edit module; this reference can be set seperate from the Matrix reference.
- Added options to set bit-depth and decode-quality for playing Quicktime movies and increased efficiency of handling large numbers of QuickTime movies on a CONstruct.
- Audio VU meters in Player menu and added audio playback capabilities for QuickTime.
- Option to adjust the y-axis scale of Full-Histogram with mouse wheel.
- New color-channel mixer to remap R, G and B to an alternative component; used for generating RGB from for example BGR image.
- Enhanced track-ball vector mapping. User can switch off vector mode and set an angle (in User Settings menu) to adjust color mapping.
- Separate controls for texture blur setting for fill and matte to individually control the blur level. When both fill and matte are selected controls are linked.
PROCESS and OUTPUT
- Increased render efficiency by placing encoding of Quicktime movies in separate background process.
- Enhanced support for Avid DNxHD QT codecs. The resolution index is set based on best match scenario relative to various project settings; Progressive/Interlaced; Bit depth 8/16; X/Y Dimensions; Quality; and FPS.
- Added a configuration variable to exclude certain QuickTime codec’s from option list in SCRATCH. This setting can be used to prevent less stable codec’s from being used. Furthermore, of all codec's with the same type identifier only the first (alphabetically) is shown in the selection list.
- Added option to enable audio channels on the VCR on an edit command.
FIXES
- Update on SDI levels and clipping
- Loading (named) LUTs properly
- Improved parsing of FCP EDL (dissolve) events and ignoring audio events
- Handeling of EDL vari-speed and EDL from FCP with flip/flop events.
- Playout stop accuracy and audio output
- Regenerate correct timecodes when rendering QT or R3D to separate folders
- Audio playback did not resume when after player encountered clip without audio
- SDI colorspace selection mismatch
- Better smoothening on Scaffold edges
- Time codes in exported EDL and ALE files are formatted with the CONstruct framerate.
- EDL reverse-assemble generates dissolves
- Process-fit width and height are now properly applied if CONstruct included anamorphic shots.
- The image formats configuration file now accepts resolutions larger than 4096
- Graded textures display properly in 2nd Scaffold
- Color-B wheel updates properly with Wave panel.
- Wave panel also works during playback from another module than the Matrix menu.
- F12 – quick key for starting output rendering is more responsive
- Properly handling of long list of audio devices.
- Remove audio artifacts in r3d files.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- For version 4.3 a new licence is required. You can request a new licence by sending a log file to licensing@assimilateinc.com . This license is not backward compatible. However, you can just leave your existing licencse file where it ( C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Assimilator\Settings ) and copy the new one in the same directory. That way, in case you want to to install a previous build, it will be fully functional.
VERSION 4.2 [dec 2008]
GENERAL
- Support for the new NVIDIA 'Deep-Color' (10bit Display Port) mode has been added.
- Two new RED color spaces, RED RAW LIN and RED RAW LOG, have been added for direct grading in linear or logarithmic mode on RED R3D files.
- The NVIDIA-SDI settings can now be controlled from within the SCRATCH interface.
- SCRATCH’s custom configuration parameters, including many new parameters, can now be more easily managed using a single configuration file.
- The Scaffold Softness parameter has been enhanced along with improved performance.
- SCRATCH uses more sophisticated memory management for processing 4k source material.
- Further optimizations for reading large files from disk have been added.
CONSTRUCT
- The new EDL processing tool, called The Assembler, provides precise control over the conform process as well as allowing you to edit the EDL to ensure a proper conform.
- Media Browser to manager all of the shots within your SCRATCH Project, including filtering capabilities so you can quickly locate the shots you are looking for and modify them with a single click.
PLAYER
- The Plugin Browser makes it easier to find and apply effects and save presets of your most common effects.
- The updated Tracking functionality gives you more control over the tracking process to get exactly the results you require.
PLAYER - Extended Audio Support
- ASIO devices are now supported for audio output.
- You can load individual audio files per shot and control up to 8 separate channels.
- Embedded audio in the RED R3D file format is automatically read directly from the R3D files.
- Any loaded audio is automatically included in QuickTime exports.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- As of SCRATCH 4.1 build 491, the REDNODE is included in the AssimSetup.msi. If you are upgrading from a previous build of SCRATCH where you had to add the REDNODE as a separate operation, any existing REDNODE files in the C:\Program Files\Assimilate\bin folder MUST be removed manually before installing this build.
- SCRATCH 4.2 build 504 is fully compatible with previous setups. However, projects created with this version are NOT backward compatible.
VERSION 4.1
GENERAL
- The Tracker has been updated to be faster and more precise with a new interface. Added tracking support for r3d media at all resolutions.
- SCRATCH now supports DUAL output for STEREO workflow and versioning. Allowing for simultaneous fast processing of left eye and right eye.
- SCRATCH now support per shot audio and added support for r3d embedded audio.
VERSION 4.0
GENERAL
- SCRATCH now fully supports the Tangent CP-300 Wave panel.
- Additional XML commands are now available.
- Offset, Lift, Gamma, Gain and a custom LUT can be applied to individual clips.
- Audio file and audio slip values can be applied to individual clips. NOTE: The ability to play per-clip audio is still in development at this time. Audio clips can be assigned but playback is currently limited to the entire CONstruct audio file.
- Reading large image files with small block sizes has been optimized.
- Overall bug fixes and optimizations.
CONSTRUCT
- An ALE file can now be exported from the CONstruct. This allows users to pass clip information to other systems while preserving all of the metadata information.
- The 'AS_ALWAYS_MATCH_NAME' environment variable was added. When set, SCRATCH will only conform a clip if the timecode and clip name both match the source EDL. Previously, only one matching value was required.
- There is now a FIND MEDIA option in the CONstruct. This allows users to reconnect shots in a SCRATCH Construct for which the source files have moved to a different location.
PLAYER
- Support for ASIO audio devices has been added. The active audio driver can be selected in SYSTEM SETTINGS. When audio is enabled in the SCRATCH Player, the sync will default to AUDIO. To ensure proper audio sync, the ASIO audio card must be locked to a valid reference. Additionally, when using the NVIDIA SDI output, both the ASIO audio card and the NVIDIA SDI card must be locked to the same SYNC source to ensure synchronized playback of picture and audio.
- The QuickKey 'TAB' has been added for toggling to a clean, full screen display.
- A new per-project error log and dialog have been added. This allows users to view and troubleshoot playback errors within the SCRATCH interface. The Error Log dialog can be accesses using the ERROR MENU button in the CONstruct view or through the QuickKey ‘CTRL-E’.
- Timecode and frame number entries can now be directly selected from the Player interface.
- The Version Stack selection can now be controlled through QuickKeys ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’. The Version Stack selection can also be mapped to the external control panels.
- ‘Add Version’ and ‘Bin Version’ in the Version Stack can now be mapped to the external control panels.
PROCESS
- Timecode can now be embedded in the header of EXR files rendered out of SCRATCH.
- Dedicated XYZ conversion options have been added. Pre- and Post-Gamma settings can be adjusted in the PROJECT SETTINGS. These are set to .65 and 2.6 by default but should be set to proper values to match specific XYZ conversions.
- A new REGENERATE option is available in the CONstruct SETTINGS menu. When DISABLED, each clip’s source timecode will be written into the resulting output file’s header. This was previously the default behaviour. When ENABLED, the SCRATCH CONstruct timecode will be written into the output file’s header. Users can control this by toggling the button on or off.
- Source timecode can now be written into files generated by additional SCRATCH Output Nodes. Previously, only the Main Output Node would use the source timecode. Now all Output Nodes can include this information.
- The CONstruct is now saved before processing is started.
- Output rendering has been optimized. NOTE: These optimizations may create slightly different output results from previous SCRATCH versions.
- QuickTime outputs have been optimized.
MATRIX
- Users now have the option to disable Texture Fill/Matte assignments for PASTE operations.
- The way SCAFFOLD Canvas’s are rendered has been modified so that any blur applied to the Matte channel will be applied to the Canvas shape as well. This allows for more control over the softness of a Canvas shape. As a result of these changes, this version of SCRATCH may create different results from previous versions.
- The SHOW MATTE option can now be controlled using the QuickKey ‘M’ while in the MATRIX menu. Also, the MATTE for the current shot can be viewed as a high-contrast, black-and-white image by toggling the Alpha channel selection in the View Port Menu Bar at the top of the View Port.
- When isolating a color channel on a SCAFFOLD, the source image no longer needs to be loaded separately into the MATTE channel.
PLAYOUT
- The PLAYOUT menu now has an option for RECORD TC or SOURCE TC.
- When set to RECORD TC, SCRATCH uses the CONstruct timecode as the basis for the PLAYOUT to tape.
- When set to SOURCE TC, each clip’s source timecode will be recorded as the timecode on tape for PLAYOUT. This requires that the deck’s internal timecode generator be set to PRESET, so that SCRATCH can update the timecode being generated to match each source clip as the PLAYOUT is happening.
- The ‘AS_ABORT_ON_ERROR’ environment variable has been added. When this variable is set to ‘OFF’, PLAYOUT will continue even when errors have been detected. The errors are still logged, but PLAYOUT will not abort the layoff. Users can view the Error Log and check the resulting tape for accuracy once the PLAYOUT has completed.
RED
- SCRATCH now supports the latest RED camera Firmware, Build 16.
- The R3D metadata color information is now processed outside of the SCRATCH MATRIX values. Previously, the R3D metadata was added using the MATRIX OFFSET parameters. With Version 4.0, the metadata color is processed prior to the SCRATCH MATRIX. Users can still bypass the metadata color information by using CTRL-RESET from the main MATRIX menu. A normal RESET will revert back to the metadata color values.
- The new REDspace color space has been added as a gamma option for R3D files. The gamma selection is accessed in the PROCESS->FX CONTROLS menu.
- A new REDspace display LUT has been added in the RED folder under C:\Program Files\Assimilate\Settings\LUT.
- The decoding of R3D files has been improved to allow for better recovery from errors in the R3D files themselves. When rendering, SCRATCH will render any bad frames as black frames and report them on the new error console. Users should always check the Error Log to determine if any frames have been skipped or eliminated.
- SCRATCH now reads the frame rate of R3D files directly from the file. This ensures the proper frame rate is assigned to the shot.
- The ISO value for R3D files is read directly from the metadata of the R3D file. This ensure the proper ISO value is used within SCRATCH.
- The handling of half- and quarter-resolution proxies has been improved to ensure proper scaling and framing.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
- If you are upgrading from SCRATCH 3.5 you need to obtain a SCRATCH 4.0 license. Please send your current license file and a new log file [after installing new version] to licensing@assimilateinc.com. Keep in mind that it might take some time to get your new code from the licensing team.
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Last Modified:Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Type: INFO
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