Nits.Lab uses AJA equipment to explore the creative possibilities of HDR

The Independent Creative Studio Nits.Lab, based in Brazil, has started to offer Digital Imaging Technician services (DIT) and HDR-capable post-production to clients in Latin America with the help of Aja.

With solutions such as ColorBox, Their team is supporting commercial productions, series, documentaries and feature films across the region to embrace this evolving storytelling format and unlock its myriad storytelling advantages.

“We do most of our work in SDR, but customer preferences are slowly shifting to HDR”, says the co-founder of Nits.Lab, Rodrigo Bodstein. “It's gaining momentum here in Brazil as top streamers showcase the storytelling possibilities of HDR, and quite a few of the larger studios, as well as some post-production houses, they're already experimenting with HDR delivery. We're working to help the market transition and make HDR more accessible here. We want to give professionals the tools they need to get up to speed on HDR and explore its storytelling implications, so they can keep pushing the content visually”.

To support your mission, Nits.Lab features the color system AJA ColorBox, one AJA Io 4K Plus for I/O and a router AJA Kumo 3232-12G to help manage color in SDR and HDR productions. For on-set work, your two-person team leverages DIT trolley technology along with a range of monitors.

The engine Colorfront and the AJA Color Pipeline in ColorBox are used for transformations when reviewing SDR and HDR content side-by-side, plus Colorfront streaming server for remote reviews. The team also plans to add a third ColorBox to its studio color suite so that it can send signals to another TV for customer viewing.

Nits.Lab workflows vary depending on the project and whether or not they're in the studio or on set, but they're all designed around 12G-SDI routing. In one of his designs, one Mac Studio It is the main station for live grading, while a MacBook Pro takes care of the ingest and download.

A router AJA Kumo 12G-SDI is located in the center of the signal path, giving the team full control over signal distribution and routing. Set up a salvo for each specific workflow in the Kumo, allowing them to save different profiles for different types of work. For example, A salvo is set up for live color grading, another for broadcast and one for color grading, color correction, Visual Effects & Editing.

For live grading, the inputs and outputs of two AJA ColorBoxes, one Io 4K Plus and two monitors Sony are connected to the Kumo. Camera signals are fed through the AJA Kumo router on the Io 4K Plus and via the ColorBoxes on the monitors. One monitor is set to SDR and the other to HDR.

The NitsLab team uses the software Pomfort Livegrade Pro to control the dynamic LUT in the AJA Color Pipeline in ColorBox. Since their work is typically focused on an ACES pipeline, Nits.Lab regularly relies on the integration of Pomfort Livegrade Pro and Pomfort Silverstack Lab to create dailies with all the requirements for each customer (burn-ins, metadata, Etc.). This helps ensure color consistency throughout the process.

When commenting on the workflow, Rafael Lopes, co-founder of Nits.Lab, states that "it's important for project stakeholders to be able to view HDR footage alongside SDR footage. They may not need to understand how the PQ curve works or why PQ signals are necessary. 12 Bit, But they need to feel the difference and how it affects the final product. We want them to see how they can control the picture with HDR, even if some lenses have flashes in HDR that don't work". AJA's solutions, together with Colorfront, they help us achieve this and are amazing at modelling HDR in live situations and on set. We love and use both very much.".

Nits.Lab also uses AJA Io 4K Plus for computer I/O, including four bi-directional 12G-SDI inputs, to send test patterns to your monitors for some HDR projects that require express captures for dailies. Aside from your 12G-SDI workflow demands, The team also uses the control panel Tangent Wave, one Stream Deck where they save shortcuts, RAID storage and a 40TB drive for backup and transport.

All of this technology is connected to a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with 128 GB RAM via ethernet via switch. A CalDigit TS4 hub with professional-grade media readers and MacBook Pro M1 Max with 2 TB and 64 GB of RAM is also part of the workflow design. In addition to these tools, for remote workflows, Nits.Lab also uses Colorfront Streaming Server, A cloud-based media management and collaboration tool, and Pomfort ShotHub.

 

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