Avid DS (which was called Avid DS Nitris until early 2008) is a high-end offline and finishing system comprising a non-linear editing system and visual effects software. It was developed by Softimage (this company was owned by Microsoft at the time of DS v1.0's launch before being acquired from Microsoft by Avid Technology, Inc. shortly thereafter) in Montreal.
43-473: DS was discontinued on September 30, 2013 with support ending on the same date next year. DS was called ‘Digital Studio’ in development. It was envisioned to be a complete platform for video/audio work. The first previews of the system were on the SGI platform, but this version was never released. The system was rewritten on Windows NT with different video hardware platforms (Matrox DigiSuite or Play Trinity running on
86-501: A San Francisco multimedia unit in 1996 under the name Kinetix to publish 3D Studio Max , a product developed by The Yost Group . In August 1998, Autodesk announced plans to acquire Discreet Logic and its intent to combine that operation with Kinetix. At the time, it was its largest acquisition, valued at about $ 410 million by the time it closed in March 1999 (down from an estimated $ 520 million when announced). The new business unit
129-453: A 6 Gbit/s physical rate led the development of an equivalent SATA speed. In 2013, 12 Gbit/s followed in the SAS-3 specification. SAS-4 is slated to introduce 22.5 Gbit/s signaling with a more efficient 128b/150b encoding scheme to realize a usable data rate of 2,400 MB/s while retaining compatibility with 6 and 12 Gbit/s. Additionally, SCSI Express takes advantage of
172-511: A European distribution agreement with Softimage, and shifted its focus on Flame, one of the first software-only image compositing products, developed by Australian Gary Tregaskis. Flame, which was originally named Flash, was first shown at NAB in 1992, ran on the Silicon Graphics platform, and became the company's flagship product . In July 1995, Discreet Logic's initial public offering raised about US$ 40 million. On May 26, 1995,
215-660: A NetPower system) before the final system was released on Intergraph/StudioZ hardware in January 1998. After its acquisition by Avid, DS was always positioned as a high end video finishing tool. However, many users found it to be uniquely soup-to-nuts in its capabilities. From version 1.0 of the product, it competed with products like Autodesk Smoke , Quantel and Avid Symphony . The toolset in DS offered video timeline editing, an object-oriented vector-based paint tool, 2D layer compositing, sample based audio and starting with version 3.01 of
258-524: A SCSI device name, which identifies the SAS device uniquely in the world. One does not often see these device names because the port identifiers tend to identify the device sufficiently. For comparison, in parallel SCSI, the SCSI ID is the port identifier and device name. In Fibre Channel , the port identifier is a WWPN and the device name is a WWNN. In SAS, both SCSI port identifiers and SCSI device names take
301-475: A Scientific and Engineering Award for Inferno and Flame. Flare, a software-only subset of Flame for creative assistants, was introduced in 2009 at around one-fifth the cost of a full-featured Flame seat. Lustre is color grading software originally developed by Mark Jaszberenyi, Gyula Priskin and Tamas Perlaki at Colorfront in Hungary. The application was first packaged as a plugin for Flame product under
344-410: A Serial SCSI Protocol target port for access to a peripheral device. An expander is not necessary to interface a SAS initiator and target but allows a single initiator to communicate with more SAS/SATA targets. A useful analogy: one can regard an expander as akin to a network switch in a network, which connects multiple systems using a single switch port. SAS 1 defined two types of expander; however,
387-680: A core suite of products to best leverage our developmental and creative resources. As part of this transition, we will be ceasing future development of Avid DS with a final sale date of September 30th, 2013" Up until version 10.5, DS was sold as a turn-key system; the software was not available without purchasing CPU, I/O and storage hardware from Avid. Beginning with 10.5, customers were able to configure their own systems using widely available components, based on recommended system requirements. In turn-key systems, there were many hardware refreshes over time. StudioZ single stream: Intergraph TDZ-425 with 30 minutes of uncompressed SCSI storage. CPUs at
430-536: A post-production house with an operator. The Flame software is licensed in a variety of forms, including Flint, a lower-priced version of Flame with fewer functions, and Inferno, introduced in 1995, a version intended for the film market, with a price of about US$ 225,000 without hardware. Traditionally Inferno ran on the SGI Onyx series, while Flame and Flint ran on SGI Indigo² and Octane workstations. Flame/Inferno were implemented on Linux in 2006. Autodesk said
473-633: A role in the visual effects of Alice in Wonderland , The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 , Inception , Iron Man 2 , King Kong , Gladiator , Titanic , Life of Pi , Hugo , The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and other films. In November 2010, Ubisoft announced that Autodesk's 3D gaming technology
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#1732793901533516-475: A service delivery subsystem. Each SAS port in a SAS domain has a SCSI port identifier that identifies the port uniquely within the SAS domain, the World Wide Name . It is assigned by the device manufacturer, like an Ethernet device's MAC address , and is typically worldwide unique as well. SAS devices use these port identifiers to address communications to each other. In addition, every SAS device has
559-561: A single license for running Flame, Smoke Advanced and Lustre together on a single workstation. At launch, new licenses were priced from US$ 129,000 excluding hardware, with upgrades from existing Flame licenses priced from US$ 10,000. Existing users of Smoke Advanced or Lustre could upgrade from US$ 25,000. Serial attached SCSI In computing , Serial Attached SCSI ( SAS ) is a point-to-point serial protocol that moves data to and from computer-storage devices such as hard disk drives , solid-state drives and tape drives . SAS replaces
602-425: A subtractive port and the other via a non-subtractive port. SAS-1.1 topologies built with expanders generally contain one root node in a SAS domain with the one exception case being topologies that contain two expanders connected via a subtractive-to-subtractive port. If it exists, the root node is the expander, which is not connected to another expander via a subtractive port. Therefore, if a fanout expander exists in
645-407: Is a series of compositing and visual effects applications originally created for MIPS architecture computers from Silicon Graphics (SGI), running Irix . Flame was first released in January 1993; by mid-1995, it had become a market leader in visual effects software, with a price around US$ 175,000, or US$ 450,000 with a Silicon Graphics workstation. Time with the software was typically rented at
688-417: Is available with up to 24 Gbps; with SAS-5 under development, according to T10 . The physical SAS connector comes in several different variants: The most common connection for SAS drives connecting to backplanes in servers, i.e. PowerEdge and ProLiant Also known as a U.2 port along with SFF-8639. 8X: 74 Nearline SAS (abbreviated to NL-SAS , and sometimes called midline SAS ) drives have
731-604: Is not possible. The T10 technical committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) develops and maintains the SAS protocol; the SCSI Trade Association (SCSITA) promotes the technology. A typical Serial Attached SCSI system consists of the following basic components: A SAS Domain is the SAS version of a SCSI domain—it consists of a set of SAS devices that communicate with one another by means of
774-461: The Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for 16 consecutive years. Much of Avatar ' s visual effects were created with Autodesk media and entertainment software. Autodesk software enabled Avatar director James Cameron to aim a camera at actors wearing motion-capture suits in a studio and see them as characters in the fictional world of Pandora in the film. Autodesk software also played
817-784: The PCI Express infrastructure to directly connect SCSI devices over a more universal interface. SAS architecture consists of six layers: An initiator may connect directly to a target via one or more PHYs (such a connection is called a port whether it uses one or more PHYs, although the term wide port is sometimes used for a multi-PHY connection). The components known as Serial Attached SCSI Expanders (SAS Expanders) facilitate communication between large numbers of SAS devices. Expanders contain two or more external expander-ports. Each expander device contains at least one SAS Management Protocol target port for management and may contain SAS devices itself. For example, an expander may include
860-482: The AJA Video Systems Kona 3 (Xena 2K) card as the only I/O for the system. The last systems shipped with two Intel Core Xeon 6-core processors. SAS is the recommended storage for these systems. Autodesk Smoke Autodesk Media and Entertainment is a division of Autodesk which offers animation and visual effects products, and was formed by the combination of multiple acquisitions. In 2018,
903-429: The SAS wiring and signaling are compatible with and have loosely tracked that of SATA up to the 6 Gbit/s rate, although SAS defines more rigorous physical signaling specifications as well as a wider allowable differential voltage swing intended to allow longer cabling. While SAS-1.0 and SAS-1.1 adopted the physical signaling characteristics of SATA at the 3 Gbit/s rate with 8b/10b encoding , SAS-2.0 development of
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#1732793901533946-480: The SAS-2.0 standard has dropped the distinction between the two, as it created unnecessary topological limitations with no realized benefit: Direct routing allows a device to identify devices directly connected to it. Table routing identifies devices connected to the expanders connected to a device's own PHY. Subtractive routing is used when you are not able to find the devices in the sub-branch you belong to. This passes
989-748: The company acquired the assets of Brughetti Corporation for about CDN$ 1 million, and in October acquired Computer-und Serviceverwaltungs AG, located in Innsbruck , Austria and some software from Innovative Medientechnik-und Planungs-GmbH in Geltendorf , Germany. After a 2-for-1 stock split on October 16, 1995, a secondary offering in December 1995 raised an additional $ 28 million. On April 15, Discreet invested $ 2.5 million in privately held Essential Communications Corporation. Autodesk originally created
1032-550: The company began operating as a single operating segment and reporting unit. Montreal-based Discreet Logic was founded in 1991 by former Softimage Company sales director Richard Szalwinski, to commercialize the 2D compositor Eddie, licensed from Australian production company Animal Logic . Eddie was associated with Australian software engineer Bruno Nicoletti, who later founded visual effects software company The Foundry , in London , England. In 1992, Discreet Logic entered into
1075-409: The competing products at the time. It offered a large number of built in effects. Avid OMF import was available, positioning Softimage DS as a strong finishing tool for then typical off-line Avid systems. Lastly the integration of the toolset of Softimage DS was beyond what other product offered. A Softimage DS user could quickly go from editing, to paint, to compositing with a few mouse clicks all inside
1118-487: The configuration, it must be the domain's root node. The root node contains routes for all end devices connected to the domain. Note that with the advent in SAS-2.0 of table-to-table routing and new rules for end-to-end zoning, more complex topologies built upon SAS-2.0 rules do not contain a single root node. SAS connectors are much smaller than traditional parallel SCSI connectors . Commonly, SAS-3 provides for point data transfer speeds up to 12 Gbit/s. Currently, SAS-4
1161-638: The form of a SAS address , which is a 64 bit value, normally in the NAA IEEE Registered format. People sometimes refer to a SCSI port identifier as the SAS address of a device, out of confusion. People sometimes call a SAS address a World Wide Name or WWN, because it is essentially the same thing as a WWN in Fibre Channel. For a SAS expander device, the SCSI port identifier and SCSI device name are
1204-437: The link is routed to a single expander connected to a subtractive routing port. If there is no expander connected to a subtractive port, the end-device cannot be reached. Expanders with no PHYs configured as subtractive act as fanout expanders and can connect to any number of other expanders. Expanders with subtractive PHYs may only connect to two other expanders at a maximum, and in that case they must connect to one expander via
1247-636: The name "Colorstar" to emulate film type color grading using printer lights controls. It was then developed as a standalone software. It was introduced through British company 5D under the Colossus name in private demonstrations at IBC show in Amsterdam in 2001. Alpha and beta testing were held at Eclair Laboratoires in Paris. During the trials, Colossus was running on the Windows XP operating system, but
1290-438: The older Parallel SCSI (Parallel Small Computer System Interface, usually pronounced "scuzzy" ) bus technology that first appeared in the mid-1980s. SAS, like its predecessor, uses the standard SCSI command set . SAS offers optional compatibility with Serial ATA (SATA), versions 2 and later. This allows the connection of SATA drives to most SAS backplanes or controllers. The reverse, connecting SAS drives to SATA backplanes,
1333-504: The product, a 3D environment. Originally, a subset of the Softimage|;XSI 3D software was planned to become part of the DS toolset, both were built on the same software foundation, but over time the code bases divided between the applications and the integration never happened. While the first version of the DS still lacked a few key features (no 3D, poor keying, no real-time effects), it had some significant features compared to
Avid DS - Misplaced Pages Continue
1376-491: The request to a different branch altogether. Expanders exist to allow more complex interconnect topologies. Expanders assist in link-switching (as opposed to packet-switching) end-devices (initiators or targets). They may locate an end-device either directly (when the end-device is connected to it), via a routing table (a mapping of end-device IDs and the expander the link should be switched to downstream to route towards that ID), or when those methods fail, via subtractive routing:
1419-526: The same SAS address. There is little physical difference between SAS and SATA. The Serial Attached SCSI standard defines several layers (in order from highest to lowest): application, transport, port, link, PHY and physical. Serial Attached SCSI comprises three transport protocols: For the Link and PHY layers, SAS defines its own unique protocol. At the physical layer , the SAS standard defines connectors and voltage levels. The physical characteristics of
1462-502: The same code base was also used on the IRIX operating system. After the demise of 5D in 2002, Autodesk acquired the license to distribute the Lustre software, and later acquired Colorfront entirely. In the 2009 Academy Scientific and Technical Awards the original developers received a Scientific and Engineering Award for Lustre. In September 2010, Autodesk introduced Flame Premium 2011,
1505-429: The same interface. Some of the lacking features were quickly resolved, within months of version 1.0 a new chroma keyer was released. Early versions of the software (up thru 4.0) added additional key features. Development continued with one of the first uncompressed HD editing systems (version 4.01) and an attempt to make the system more friendly to Media Composer editors in version 6. In later versions (v7.5 on beyond) DS
1548-506: The time were Pentium II/300 MHz. StudioZ dual stream: Intergraph TDZ-2000 GT1 with one hour of fibre channel storage. CPUs on first systems were Pentium II/400 MHz, but last shipping systems had Pentium III/1 GHz. DS was one of the first applications to show that real-time effects could be processed with just the CPUs of the system, not requiring special video cards with real-time effect hardware. Equinox: Developed by Avid, it
1591-534: The use of more powerful hardware allowed complex 3D composites to be rendered more than 20 times faster than on the previous SGI workstations. The first movie to use Flame was Super Mario Bros. ; the software was then still in beta . The software also saw use on PBS's 1995 graphics package, designed by PMcD Design and animated by Black Logic. At the 1998 Academy Scientific and Technical Awards , Gary Tregaskis (design), Dominique Boisvert, Phillippe Panzini and Andre Le Blanc (development and implementation) received
1634-600: The years, Autodesk augmented its entertainment division with many other acquisitions. One of the most significant was in October 2005, when Autodesk acquired Toronto-based Alias Systems Corporation for an estimated $ 182 million from Accel-KKR, and merged its animation business into its entertainment division. Alias had been part of SGI until 2004. In 2008, it acquired technology of the former Softimage Company from Avid Technology . In 2011, Autodesk acquired image tools and utilities that use cloud computing called Pixlr . By 2011, these products were used in films that won
1677-411: Was criticized for slow development of compositing tools, mainly lack of a new 3D environment and better tracking tools. Many DS users felt that Avid had not been giving DS the attention that it deserved. On July 7, 2013, Avid sent out an email marking the end of life of the DS product. "To Our Avid DS customers, We are writing to inform you that Avid will be realigning our business strategy to focus on
1720-611: Was named the Discreet division. The combined Discreet-branded product catalog then encompassed all the Discreet Logic products, including Flame, Flint, Fire, Smoke, Effect, Edit, and Kinetix's product, including 3D Studio Max , Lightscape , Character Studio . In March 2005, Autodesk renamed its business unit Autodesk Media and Entertainment and discontinued the Discreet brand (still headquartered in Montreal). Through
1763-475: Was one of the first uncompressed HD video cards available. Systems were available on CPUs from Pentium III/1 GHz to Pentium 4/2.8 GHz. Storage was typically SCSI, but fibre channel was also supported. Nitris DNA: Developed by Avid, the Nitris hardware was probably the largest hardware update to the system since it was released. 10-bit HD and SD support was standard. Real-time down and cross convert. This
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1806-534: Was the only hardware for DS that had on-board effect processing. This allowed a system at the time to play back dual-stream uncompressed HD effects in real-time at 16-bit precision. This was also the first hardware from Avid to support the DNxHD codec. Starting with Pentium 4, Intel Core Xeons were supported. SCSI storage was primarily used. AJA Video Systems: First available as a 4:4:4 option to be used in conjunction with Nitris hardware. Final-generation DS systems used
1849-467: Was used in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood . The division's products include Maya , 3ds Max (the new name of 3D Studio Max), Softimage , Mudbox , MotionBuilder the game middleware Kynapse , and the creative finishing products Flame, Flare, Lustre , Smoke, Stingray game engine (discontinued, but still supported until end of subscription). Inferno, Flame, and Flint (collectively known as IFF )
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