Kit manufacturer Discreet and Hungarian software developer Colourfront are secretly planning to ditch the popular Colossus grading product - as used on both Lord of the Rings movies - and replace it with a new Discreet-branded digital colour-grader, write
The companies have entered an exclusive agreement to co-develop a high-end product for use on digital intermediate and based on similar code to Colossus which is now licensed to Discreet. When the new offering hits the market the two companies will 'cease to market Colossus', according to Discreet managing director Patrick Jocelyn.The new unnamed grader, which will compete with Thomson's Spectre and QColour from Quantel, will be on show for the first time at this year's NAB exhibition in Las Vegas. Colossus was previously licensed to 5D, which went bust last year.Jocelyn reassured Colossus customers that Colourfront will continue to support anyone with the existing product and said an upgrade package - possibly discounted - will be offered.Discreet also confirmed that it will not continue the development of the 5D compositor formerly known as Cyborg, even though it bought the code and intellectual property rights to the product before Christmas.

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