Testronic, the leader in quality control (QC), localization services and compliance, has expanded mastering operations in its Burbank headquarters. The facility upgrade offering greater resolution, higher standards and accurate review capabilities for high frame rate and native 4K content. Along with the upgraded infrastructure and new hardware, are a number of new personnel hires.
“This is all part of our continued effort to provide cutting-edge services for the industry as it experiences exponential growth in distribution platforms such as Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and Hulu,” says Jason Gish, senior VP Film & Television for Testronic. “The growth in these platforms and evolving formats is a key motivator to more fully develop and expand our mastering business line. We have put our considerable experience and resources forth to be part of the evolution of these formats.”
“We have upgraded four mastering bays: two HD rooms and two 4K rooms,” explains Gish. “Adapting our 4K bays for HDR is critical to serving the growing needs of our customers’ content. We use the high-end Sony BVM-X300 4K Master Monitor as part of our optimal viewing environment.”
The 4K rooms also include the Tektronix rasterizer, Omnitek scope, custom Windows 4K workstations, and a GIC DVP player, which supports the Digital Video Prime file-based workflow platform. Testronic supports all file types and packaging (DCP, IMF, AS-02, DPX, TIFF Sequence, ProRes, J2K), delivering real time encoding, decoding, spatial transformation, and color processing. Testronic has been vetting GIC’s DVP IMF creator capabilities for IMF packaging, validation and transcoding from IMF packages – as streaming content providers, broadcasters and studios are moving towards file standards like IMF, the DVP offers unique insight into file QC capabilities, with an ability to shape these results to needs of the customer.
Mastering bays also feature new Sony and LG OLED video monitors and professional audio monitoring with powered 7.1 surround speakers. Dolby Atmos sound is also available, to offer customers a range of options for maximum flexibility.
The HD bays feature Mac workstations running Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as Linux workstations. Each room features quad 12G cabling, enabling 48G capabilities. “As the hardware and software advances, we’re futureproofing all of the rooms to the greatest degree possible,” adds Gish.
Master QC Technicians Luis Barajas and Nick Meraz recently joined the mastering department in its expansion. “Both Luis and Nick have had long mastering careers and bring extensive knowledge to Testronic,” said Gish.
Simultaneous with rebuilding and expanding the mastering department, Testronic has launched an R&D department headed by Technical Operations Manager Mike Kurzhal. “The R&D team will create and implement solutions for projects as we move forward. This is an essential role to our commitment of remaining cutting edge and exploring options to continually improve our systems and processes” Gish explained.
“We spend a substantial amount of time and energy learning and analyzing the industry,” notes Gish. “In a time of dynamic change, it’s challenging to know exactly what might be coming, but we continue to upgrade and innovate to stay ahead of the competition and deliver the best services for our clients.”
