Da Vinci Systems
| Private | |
| Industry | Digital cinema |
| Fate | Liquidation; assets acquired by Blackmagic Design |
| Predecessor | VTA Technologies |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Defunct | September 2009 |
| Headquarters | Coral Springs, Florida, United States |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
da Vinci Systems was a digital cinema company founded in 1984, based in Coral Springs, Florida and wholly owned by JDSU. It was known for products like the 888, 2K and 2K Plus (hardware based color correctors), TLC, Resolve (GPU-based color grading and digital mastering systems) and Revival (film restoration and remastering systems) and its innovations include the color control panel based on trackballs and other discrete controls that enable colorists to control the software that manipulates motion picture images.
As one of the earliest pioneers in post production products, da Vinci Systems introduced several innovative products and was considered a significant player in the post production industry during its 25 years of operation. da Vinci Systems equipment was initially developed by Video Tape Associates (VTA) in 1982 for use by the Hollywood, Florida, USA-based production/post production facility to alter and enhance colors from scanned film and video tape. The Wiz system, as it was later known, was marketed to other post production facilities, laying the foundation for the creation of the colorist and the post production color suite.
In September 2009, after the liquidation of the company, the assets of da Vinci Systems were acquired by Blackmagic Design, an Australian digital cinema company and manufacturer known for its products based in digital cinema and cameras.
The Wiz was the predecessor to the da Vinci Classic color corrector and was built in 1982 by VTA Technologies in Ft. Lauderdale. It was built on an Apple computer, the program was stored in EPROM and the list could be backed up to mini cassettes. The Wiz was the first color correction system to have a customized external control panel and was also the first color corrector with internal primary and secondary processing. Prior to that, the primaries in the telecine were used. The Wiz had 10 vector patented secondary color correction. The first two systems were bought by Editel, Chicago, which at the time used the color corrector on Bosch Fernseh's FDL60 telecine.
da Vinci Classic analog system was manufactured from 1985 to 1990 and had customized external control panel with internal primary, secondary processing and an internal NTSC encoder. It ran on a Motorola 68000 Multi Bus 1 system computer. The program and color correction list were stored on a 20MB MFM hard disk, with backup to a 5.25" floppy disk.
Its features include:
Options include:
Used with FDL60/90 and MK3 telecines (Not URSA) and tape-to-tape. Early models had knob only color correction controls; trackball control was introduced later.
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