Nits.Lab uses AJA equipment to explore the creative possibilities of HDR

The independent creative studio Nits.Lab, based in Brazil, has begun to offer Digital Image Technician services (IT) and post-production with HDR capability to clients in Latin America with the help of technology from AJA.

With solutions like ColorBox, your team is supporting commercial productions, series, documentaries and feature films across the region to embrace this evolving storytelling format and unlock its countless narrative advantages.

“We do most of our work in SDR, but customer preferences are slowly shifting to HDR”, says the co-founder of Nits.Lab, Rodrigo Bodstein. “It's gaining momentum here in Brazil as major streamers show off the narrative possibilities of HDR, and quite a few of the biggest studios, as well as some post-production houses, They are already experimenting with HDR delivery. We're working to help the market transition and make HDR more accessible here. We want to give professionals the tools they need to get up to speed on HDR and explore its narrative implications., so they can continue to push content visually”.

To support your mission, Nits.Lab has the color system AJA ColorBox, and AJA Io 4K Plus for I/O and a router AND 3232-12G to help manage color in SDR and HDR productions. For work on set, Your two-person team leverages DIT cart technology along with a range of monitors.

The engine Colorfront and the AJA Color Pipeline in ColorBox are used for transformations when reviewing SDR and HDR content in parallel, plus Colorfront streaming server for remote reviews. The team also plans to add a third ColorBox to its studio color suite so it can send signals to another television for customer viewing..

Nits.Lab workflows vary depending on the project and whether or not you are in the studio or on set, but they are all designed around 12G-SDI routing. In one of his designs, and Mac Studio It is the main station for live grading, while a MacBook Pro takes care of ingest and download.

A router AJA Kumum 12G-SDI sits at the center of the signal path, giving the team full control over signal distribution and routing. Configure a salvo for each specific workflow in Kumo, allowing them to save different profiles for different types of work. For example, a salvo is configured for live grading, another for broadcast and another for grading, color correction, visual effects and editing.

For live grading, the inputs and outputs of two AJA ColorBox, an Io 4K Plus and two monitors Sony They are connected to the Kumo. Camera signals are input through the AJA Kumo router on the Io 4K Plus and through the ColorBoxes on the monitors. One monitor is set to SDR and the other to HDR.

The NitsLab team uses the software Pomfort Livegrade Pro to control the dynamic LUT in the AJA Color Pipeline in ColorBox. Since your work is usually focused on an ACES pipeline, Nits.Lab regularly relies on the integration of Pomfort Livegrade Pro and Pomfort Silverstack Lab to create dailies with all the requirements for each client (burn-ins, metadata, etc.). This helps ensure color consistency throughout the process.

When commenting on the workflow, Rafael Lopes, co-founder of Nits.Lab, states that “it is important that project stakeholders can view the HDR footage alongside the SDR footage.”. They may not need to understand how the PQ curve works or why signal signals are necessary. 12 bits, but they need to feel the difference and how it affects the final product. We want you to see how you can control the image with HDR, although some lenses have flares in HDR that do not work ». AJA solutions, together with Colorfront, They help us achieve this and are incredible at modeling HDR in live situations and on set.. We love and use both a lot..

Nits.Lab also uses AJA Io 4K Plus for computer I/O, including four bi-directional 12G-SDI inputs, to send test patterns to your monitors for some HDR projects that require express captures for dailies. Aside from your 12G-SDI workflow demands, The computer also uses the control panel Tangent Wave, and Stream Deck where they keep shortcuts, RAID storage and a 40TB drive for backup and transport.

All this technology is connected to a Mac Studio M1 Ultra con 128 GB of RAM via Ethernet through a switch. A CalDigit TS4 hub with professional-grade media readers and the MacBook Pro M1 Max with 2 TB and 64 GB of RAM are also part of the workflow design. In addition to these tools, for remote workflows, Nits.Lab also uses Colorfront Streaming Server, a cloud media management and collaboration tool, y Pomfort ShotHub.