Idol's Choice: Avid DNxHD
Millimeter By Michael Goldman 
This year, American Idol became, among other things, the poster child for Avid's DN×HD codec and its application in broadcast postproduction. That happened after producers decided to evolve Idol's production and postproduction pipelines into HD, starting with a conversion of all interviews and field recordings for each episode from Digibeta to Panasonic's Varicam (AJ-HDC27) format. That decision was part of Fox's mandate to move toward 720p (16:9, 720p, 59.94 to be exact) as its standard format for all HD programming. But considering the live performance nature and quick turnarounds required for certain segments, decisions also had to be made about the quickest way to edit and master those segments. Bill DeRonde, president of the Chainsaw editing facility in Santa Monica, Calif., and supervising editor on the show, opted to rely on the Avid DN×HD (10-bit, 220MB) standard to shrink file sizes and speed up render times while mastering each episode to Sony HDCAM-SR tape for broadcast. read more..
This year, American Idol became, among other things, the poster child for Avid's DN×HD codec and its application in broadcast postproduction. That happened after producers decided to evolve Idol's production and postproduction pipelines into HD, starting with a conversion of all interviews and field recordings for each episode from Digibeta to Panasonic's Varicam (AJ-HDC27) format. That decision was part of Fox's mandate to move toward 720p (16:9, 720p, 59.94 to be exact) as its standard format for all HD programming. But considering the live performance nature and quick turnarounds required for certain segments, decisions also had to be made about the quickest way to edit and master those segments. Bill DeRonde, president of the Chainsaw editing facility in Santa Monica, Calif., and supervising editor on the show, opted to rely on the Avid DN×HD (10-bit, 220MB) standard to shrink file sizes and speed up render times while mastering each episode to Sony HDCAM-SR tape for broadcast. read more..
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