Hollywood DI, a leading Hollywood post-house and developer of file-based workflows for TV, features and commercials is pleased to announce the completion of 3D color correction for the feature films STATIC and SHOLAY 3D. The two features are the first to be finished by the newly formed joint venture between Hollywood DI and Maya Digital Studios. The joint venture provides 2D to 3D conversion services in tandem with professional Hollywood style color correction and finishing. The two companies leverage the rich functionality of DaVinci Resolve with the power and price-performance of Globalstor’s ExtremeStor-DI server running multiple NVIDIA Quadro 6000 by PNY professional graphics boards.

Neil Smith, Managing Director of Hollywood DI, is delighted with the performance and cost-savings provided by Globalstor’s ExtremeStor-DI server. “For a modern post-house like Hollywood DI that specializes in file-based workflow for filmmakers and TV shows, it’s imperative that we find the most robust and cost-effective tools to deliver our 3D digital dailies, color correction and finishing services.” said Smith. “Working with Globalstor’s highly-tuned hardware running Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve software is an amazing experience. 3D color correction and finishing demands a lot of horsepower, traditionally, this has been supplied by heavy-iron, expensive proprietary systems. However, with Globalstor’s smart engineering and system integration that leverages multiple NVIDIA Quadro 6000 by PNY graphics boards we were able to easily color correct two streams of 2K DPX files in real-time. The performance we achieved from the Globalstor ExtremeStor-SI server with four NVIDIA Quadro 6000 by PNY graphics boards was nothing short of breathtaking!”

Frank Foster, President at Maya Digital Studios, is impressed with the way that Hollywood DI processed and delivered the 3D digital files. “We knew that Neil’s background in the computing industry would put Hollywood DI at the forefront of digital post pipelines, but even I was surprised with the results they obtained by using multiple GPUs. To my knowledge this is still pretty unique in this market and I would not be surprised if others follow their example. We are certainly doing that in India and this partnership is now allowing international DI collaboration as well as shared pipeline innovation. We are just as pleased to bring Indian projects like ‘SHOLAY’ to them, as we are grateful for the north American projects like ‘STATIC’ that they bring to us. The mutual benefits are very tangible”, said Foster. “We really like how efficient their workflow is and how flexible they are on meeting our requirements in a cost-effective manner. SHOLAY was shot on 65MM film and runs 3 hours and 15 minutes. We knew it was going to be a challenge to manage and process nearly 200 minutes of two streams of 2K DPX files (2048 x 1556 each frame – 12 GBs each) in an efficient manner. Hollywood DI assured us that the combination of Globalstor workstations and DaVinci Resolve was more than capable of delivering a professionally graded feature at the price the customer could afford. HDI’s 3D colorist, Bjorn Myrholt worked closely with our VFX and post supervisors to give our clients exactly what they wanted. We graded the 2K DPX files at HDI’s facility in West Hollywood and then exported out side-by-side QuickTime files for review and approval with SHOLAY’s owners in Mumbai, where we also created the final DCPs. The whole process worked seamlessly.”

To optimize the performance of DaVinci Resolve, which uses NVIDIA CUDA™ technology for real-time processing, real-time noise reduction and a wide range of other image processing functions, Globalstor knew it could scale performance by taking advantage of multiple CUDA-enabled NVIDIA Quadro by PNY graphics boards. The Globalstor ExtremeStor-DI 24 drive server was the result, with an NVIDIA Quadro 6000 installed to drive the graphics display and three Quadro 6000s in an ExtremeStor companion PCIe expansion unit, delivering 1792 CUDA cores with enough graphics and compute performance to deliver a massive performance boost to even the most demanding color correction workflows.

Hollywood DI’s 3D colorist, Bjorn Myrholt adds, “DaVinci Resolve running on Globalstor’s ExtremeStor-DI server with multiple NVIDIA Quadro 6000 by PNY graphics boards delivers faster than real-time processing for all major camera formats including ARRI Alexa, Red Epic, Sony F65 and Canon C500 and HDSLRs. We can easily grade 3D footage and adjust the stereo alignment using the great tools in Resolve and Avid Media Composer. I’m very impressed with the Globalstor ExtremeStor-DI’s superior ability to handle large volumes of 3D data in real-time and improve the efficiency of Avid to Resolve workflows.”

Scott Leif, President of Globalstor Data Corporation, said, “The ExtremeStor-DI 3D capable server is an exciting new addition to Globalstor’s family of high-performance workstations for feature, television and commercials production. Combined with the CUDA enabled NVIDIA Quadro by PNY graphics boards, the ExtremeStor-DI is ideal for the intensive computing required in 3D color correction and 3D VFX. It gives productions and post-houses access to a set of leading edge features with the same market-leading performance of our already proven DI and finishing platforms. Working closely with Hollywood DI and Maya Digital Studios on the SHOLAY 3D and STATIC projects allowed our engineers to continually modify and improve the functionality of the hardware to better meet the needs of a modern filed-based post-house working in 3D and 2D.”

Smith added, “The combination of Globalstor’s finely tuned hardware with state-of-the-art software like DaVinci Resolve is an integral part of Hollywood DI’s approach to providing cost-effective solutions to customers requiring a professional finish at an affordable price. We are busily beta-testing Blackmagic Design’s next version of DaVinci Resolve 9 along with cutting edge hardware from Globalstor and PNY and have no doubt that this will be an incredible combination! Hollywood DI in conjunction with our strategic partners, Globalstor and Maya Digital studios will continue to provide our 3D and 2D customers with a cost-effective alternative to the typical heavy-iron expensive systems currently on the market.”

www.hollywooddi.com