Digital Rapids and Cinnafilm Integrate Award-Winning Automated Media Transformation and Standards Conversion Solutions

  • Cinnafilm's Tachyon® standards conversion technology is now available as an option for the Digital Rapids Transcode Manager 2 software and the Kayak workflow platform

  • The Tachyon component provides high-quality, motion-compensated frame rate conversion; inverse telecine with advanced cadence correction and more

  • The combination enables scalable, efficient, fully file-based workflows that eliminate the need for proprietary, hardware-based standards converters to achieve premium quality


Markham, Ontario and Albuquerque, New Mexico:
Digital Rapids -- the trusted provider of innovative media transformation and workflow solutions for bringing video to wider audiences -- and Cinnafilm, Inc., a leader in file-based image processing technology, announced today that Cinnafilm's Tachyon® standards conversion solution has now been integrated with the Digital Rapids Transcode Manager 2 automated media transformation software and its underlying Kayak workflow platform.

Available immediately as an optional component integrating directly into the Kayak platform, Tachyon's award-winning standards conversion and correction capabilities can be can be incorporated quickly and seamlessly into users' customized, automated Transcode Manager 2 and Kayak workflows through the visual Kayak Workflow Designer. Built around Cinnafilm's powerful phase correlation-based motion compensation engine and leveraging NVIDIA GPU-based processing, the Tachyon component provides high-quality frame rate conversion; inverse telecine with advanced cadence correction; high-quality de-interlacing and more. Cinnafilm's algorithms can automatically fix issues including broken 3:2 pulldown patterns and composited images with mismatched cadence. The new Tachyon component takes advantage of the 16-bit precision of the Kayak platform's robust processing pipeline for maximum visual fidelity.

The enterprise-class Transcode Manager 2 software seamlessly blends media file transformation and workflow processes while offering exceptional efficiency, scalability and agility for applications from post production and archive to multiscreen distribution. Building on the unique benefits of Digital Rapids' Kayak technology platform, version 2 of Transcode Manager combines its robust management tools and hallmarks of outstanding output quality and format flexibility with visual workflow design; automated decision-making with rich metadata support; an extensive partner ecosystem; easy integration of new technologies; and a dynamic deployment model that optimizes resource utilization, minimizes management effort and reduces costs.

"With the global scope of today's content distribution workflows and revenue opportunities, the need for high-quality conversion between international standards and frame rates is greater than ever for content providers and post production facilities," said Darren Gallipeau, Product Manager at Digital Rapids. "Cinnafilm's standards conversion capabilities are highly regarded by many of our top-tier media and entertainment customers. We're excited that Tachyon is now seamlessly integrated with Transcode Manager 2 and Kayak, providing our mutual users with unmatched workflow efficiency."

"We're thrilled to be making Tachyon available on Digital Rapids' Kayak platform," said Ernie Sanchez, COO of Cinnafilm. "The combination of Tachyon with Kayak's powerful and flexible transcoding and workflow capabilities enables users to create scalable, efficient file-based workflows that incorporate standards and format conversion at a quality level that previously required hybrid baseband SDI pipelines with dedicated proprietary hardware -- at a fraction of the cost of those hybrid workflows."

For more information about Digital Rapids, please visit www.digitalrapids.com. For more information about Cinnafilm, please visit www.cinnafilm.com.

About Cinnafilm -- Cinnafilm, Inc. (www.cinnafilm.com) is a global leader in innovative video optimization solutions for television, film, and multimedia delivery. Harnessing the unmatched compute power of modern graphics cards, Cinnafilm's patented, 100% file-based software solutions are true game changers in the field of high-quality image processing. Cinnafilm software is in use today at many of the world's premier, forward-thinking studios and networks, solving a wide variety of very complex problems including, but not limited to: restoration and bitrate optimization of television and classic films for modern delivery requirements; noise removal and texture-matching for digital camera and film content of all grades; and automatic transcode workflows providing real-time, fully optimized files for the "media now and everywhere" distribution model. Cinnafilm is a scientific-engineering company dedicated to ongoing research in the most complex areas of video optimization and workflow automation, and is based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

About Digital Rapids -- Digital Rapids provides market-leading media transformation and workflow solutions that enable the world's leading media organizations to reach expanding audiences more efficiently, more effectively and more profitably. The company combines innovative technology with proven expertise to help customers maximize the value of their video content while pursuing new revenue opportunities and new ways to reach their audiences, from the rapid growth of mobile video consumption to advances in 'television' delivery over IP. Founded in 2001, Digital Rapids is headquartered in Ontario, Canada with offices around the world. For more information, please visit www.digitalrapids.com.