|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SYNTHETIC APERTURE ANNOUNCES TEST GEAR 2.0 FOR ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS CS3
Waveform Monitor, Vectorscope, Histograms Enhanced and Fully Integrated into the CS3 User Interface
SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, CA — April 7, 2008 — Today Synthetic Aperture announced Test Gear™ 2.0, a new version of their video and audio monitoring software specifically designed for Adobe® After Effects® CS3. Test Gear's full collection of waveform monitor, vectorscope, and other diagnostic displays are now fully integrated into After Effects CS3's user interface. Version 2.0 also adds Universal Binary support for Intel-based Macintosh systems.
Test Gear 2.0 will be previewed at NAB (April 14-17) in Synthetic Aperture's booth SL 2128B.
New Features for Test Gear 2.0
Version 2.0 enhances all of the test instruments by adding full support for 32-bit floating-point projects. Video footage imported into After Effects properly displays values above 100 IRE and below 0 IRE on the waveform monitor, slice display, and histogram.
A new Gamut Display has been added which clearly shows the "legality" of the levels in the image, making it easy to see where colors should be adjusted or a color legalizer applied.
The Swatch Book feature has been enhanced to support 32-bit floating-point color values, and to set paint and text colors with a simple right-click contextual menu. In addition to the existing support for importing Photoshop swatch books, Test Gear 2.0 now supports importing swatch books in Adobe Exchange format.
Integration with After Effects CS3
All Test Gear test instrument windows are integrated into the After Effects CS3 user interface, allowing them to be moved, docked, or floated as desired. The test instrument windows are now fully resizeable so that they can be shaped to show the most important information. For example, the waveform monitor can be made extra tall to show more resolution when measuring an exact value; or it could be made extra wide to show more detail across each scan line.
Standard Features
Test Gear 2.0 adds the following test instruments and functions to After Effects:
- Waveform monitor (luma-only, composite, parade, RGB, YRGB, GBR, overlay; units selectable as IRE or mV; field or frame display)
- Vectorscope (75% or 100% calibration, with 1x, 2x, 5x, and 10x magnification)
- Histogram (YRGB or individual channels)
- Image Slice Tool (takes a user-defined slice through the image and shows the pixel values)
- Color Picker (RGB, HLS, HSB, grayscale, webcolor; colors can be made video-legal with a mouse click)
- Swatch Books (multiple swatch books supported; swatch collections are compatible with Photoshop)
- Audio Monitoring (waveform, phase, stereo image, and spectrum displays)
- All instruments can be set for Rec 601, 709, or SMPTE 240M coefficients
Compatibility
Test Gear 2.0 is a Universal Binary which will work on either PowerPC- or Intel-based Macintosh systems. For Windows users, Test Gear 2.0 is compatible with Windows XP and Vista 32/64.
Test Gear 2.0 requires Adobe After Effects CS3. It is not compatible with earlier versions of After Effects. For users of After Effects 6.5 and CS2, version 1.1 of Test Gear is still available for order.
Pricing and Availability
Test Gear 2.0 will be previewed at NAB (April 14-17) in Synthetic Aperture's booth SL 2128B. It will begin shipping in late April. Pricing is $125 per license ($95 if downloaded via the company's web site). Upgrades from previous versions of Test Gear are $49, available by download only. Discounted multiple-seat licenses are available; contact Synthetic Aperture directly for further information. A downloadable trial version is available on the company's web site, www.synthetic-ap.com.
About Synthetic Aperture
Founded in 1995, Synthetic Aperture is a provider of practical tools for digital video, specializing in color correction and measurement. Synthetic Aperture publishes the Color Finesse advanced color corrector as a stand-alone application and as a plug-in for Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro; Echo Fire video previewing software for Adobe After Effects and Photoshop; the Test Gear test instrument plug-in for After Effects; and the popular free utility Test Pattern Maker. More information may be found on the company's web site, www.synthetic-ap.com.
Note to editors: Color Finesse is a registered trademark and Test Gear, Colorociter, QuickGrade, Echo Fire, LiveFire, Video Finesse, Synthetic Aperture, Test Pattern Maker, and Boss Backgrounds, Tasty Textures, Cool Clips are trademarks of Synthetic Aperture.
Adobe and Adobe After Effects are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Apple, Final Cut Pro, and QuickTime are registered trademarks of Apple Computer Inc.
All other products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders.
Product images suitable for reproduction are available on the company’s web site in the Press section.
|
