NAB 2011: Germany-based research institute Fraunhofer today unveiled its long-term archive system for post production houses and broadcasters.

Curator Archive Suite creates a master archive package (MAP) file with lossless coding as well as intermediate access package (IAP) files.

Dr Siegfried Foessel of Fraunhofer IIS’ Moving Pictures Technology department said that lossless compression is critical to preserving the integrity of digital film archives.

“This will be especially important as projectors and film production evolves to 8k or to higher color gamuts, because the archives will be only capable of producing a file for remastering based on their archived quality,” he said. 

The suite consists of three components: Curator Creator to package the image, audio and metadata files for the creation of a MAP, IAP or DCP; Curator Player for real-time playback of the MAP or IAP on a standard PC for quick quality checks and unpackaging; Fraunhofer J2K Quicktime plug-in to convert images into MOV files with JPEG2000 encoded images. 

Fraunhofer also demonstrated its quality assurance software for post firms involved in the creation of digital cinema packages.

EasyDCP Player, bundled with the easyDCP Creator, is a quality assurance tool that Fraunhofer says is the first to allow real-time playback of DCPs on a standard PC.

The company claims that without easyDCP Player, the only option for studios and post production houses is to review DCPs in a theatre or on their own screen within a facility, which can be cost prohibitive for smaller firms.

“Both high-level professionals and non-experts will find our easy user interface a plus over alternative systems,” added Foessel.

EasyDCP is a JPEG2000 decoding solution that can play back encrypted DCPs. The easyDCP Player can be used on Windows-based PCs or Linux-based computers, with the MAC version launched at NAB.

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