Snell & Wilcox Ukon becomes industry standard for flexible format conversion

With Ascent Media, HTV, and Sunset Digital among its worldwide users, the Ukon universal conversion platform from Snell & Wilcox has become the preferred choice of the broadcast and film industries for high-quality format conversion in editing suites, telecine intermediates, and DVD production.
"Snell & Wilcox's Ukon is a remarkable tool in today's technology-driven post-production industry," said Ron Burdett, President and CEO of Sunset Digital. "Ukon is the centrepiece of Sunset's conversion centre. It is the workhorse of our Digital Film Mastering Division, and vital to transferring film to digital high definition video. I couldn't do business without it."
Able to handle any kind of HD-to-HD, SD-to-HD, or HD-to-SD conversion, its flexibility and efficiency make Ukon a natural choice as the image processor for virtual telecine applications. Because it performs its functions in real time, the system can be used to convert from telecine or tape or disk in the time it takes for dubbing. The Ukon also features real-time aspect ratio conversion as part of this process so that SD copies created from an HD master telecine can be panned, scanned, zoomed, and tilted to suit.
Jim Hardy, CEO of HTV, Inc. said: "It has been very advantageous for us to integrate the Ukon into our workflow. The great thing about Ukon is that you can work with everything in real time. There is no rendering or low-res proxies, just the material in its native resolution. In the end, our clients just want to know that we can get the job done -- and done right -- by a certain date. Using the Ukon makes a big difference in being able to deliver this certainty to our clients."
Snell & Wilcox's Ukon provides upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion either singly or in any combination. Designed to handle different frame rates, image sizes, and aspect ratios, the system includes features such as tilt, pan and zoom, timecode conversion with precise frame mapping, comprehensive audio handling, and 3:2 cadence detection and repair. Unlike any other format conversion system, Ukon executes all these functions at the same time, in a single pass. Frequently used conversions can be programmed for reuse at the touch of a button.
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