Adobe on Thursday released a beta version of a file format called CinemaDNG that the company hopes will simplify higher-end digital video processes and improve its quality.
The company behind Photoshop has developed a technology for still cameras called DNG, short for Digital Negative, and is trying to standardise it to encourage broader adoption. CinemaDNG takes the technology and applies it to video.
For higher-end cameras such as SLRs, DNG records the raw data from the image sensor with no in-camera processing. That means there are no compression artifacts, no sharpening or contrast filters applied, no camera assumptions made about lighting conditions such as shady or sunny, and no discarding of richer 12-bit, 14-bit or even 16-bit data in the conversion to 8-bit JPEG.
The drawback to this flexibility and quality is that images require processing before they can be viewed.
CinemaDNG is comparable, according to the Adobe Labs description, including Adobe's hope to provide an alternative to proprietary raw formats.
"In many digital cinematography workflows, captured content is processed by software and hardware in the camera before it is saved to a storage device — and assumptions made during this processing could irrevocably damage the original imagery.
"Cinema DNG avoids these problems by capturing raw digital data directly from the camera's sensor, giving artists the power to make qualitative judgments after imagery has been saved to disk," Adobe said.
Other companies supporting CinemaDNG are Fraunhofer, Gamma & Density, Ikonoskop, Indiecam, Iridas, MXF4mac, RadiantGrid, Synthetic Aperture, The Foundry, Vision Research and Weissc.
Adobe also released software to let its video-editing software import CinemaDNG files.
"Adobe and other industry participants have finalised the CinemaDNG specification and Adobe has made CinemaDNG plug-ins for Adobe After Effects CS4 and Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 software available online on Adobe Labs," the company said in a series of announcements at the 2009 IBC trade show in Amsterdam.
Adobe also announced beta testing of a new project, Adobe Story for writing scripts.
"Scriptwriting typically goes through several phases: initial outline, several drafts, final draft, shooting script and creation of a production shot list that accompanies the final script. Adobe Story is designed to help simplify and accelerate this process for virtually any creative endeavour," Adobe said.
Scripts in a variety of other formats can be imported into the software.
The software company also announced Flash Access 2.0, digital rights management technology that can control which individuals or devices are permitted to view online video.
"Flash Access 2.0 now supports output protection, enabling content providers to specify requirements for protection of analogue and digital outputs, providing additional safeguards against unauthorised recording," the company said.
