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Studio l'Equipe Film Restoration Workflow Wins With Archangel Ph.C and Ukon

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HAMPSHIRE, United Kingdom — Dec. 3, 2004 — Studio l’Equipe, a video and audio post-production firm based in Brussels, is using the Snell & Wilcox Archangel Ph.C Real-Time Motion-Compensated Video Archive Processor and Ukon Universal Conversion Platform to streamline and expand the company’s digital workflow for film restoration and digital cinema applications.

“The acquisition of Archangel has enabled us to attract customers – such as museums and film archives – that are very concerned about creating high-quality masters of valuable film assets,” said Dominique Marcel, video department supervisor for Studio l’Equipe. “These clients want to preserve the best possible video images, and they understand that Archangel offers the tools necessary to achieve that standard. Archangel helps us bring new life to classic images and prepare them for re-release or distribution on DVD.”

Snell & Wilcox’s Archangel is a real-time restoration system with the ability to correct artifacts using motion compensation working on both 525- and 625-originated material. At Studio l’Equipe, the system is being used for a wide variety of restoration projects, with recent titles including “Bourvil: La bonne planque”; Frans Buyens’ “Sarah dit, Leila dit,” “Dwaalicht,” and “Un jour les témoins disparaîtront”; the Benoît Lamy films “Jambon d’Ardenne” and “Home Sweet Home”; and “Son de mar” by J.J. Bigas Luna.

Located at the center of the facility’s SD operations, Archangel allows Studio l’Equipe staff to improve film masters for archiving or mastering by cleaning up, fixing, and stabilizing – in real-time – any video material that has deteriorated or been damaged. The system is capable of restoring typical material within two or three times its running length, producing images that often are better than the original when it was first shot.

The Ukon system at Studio l’Equipe enables operators to encode SD images from events such as concerts and upgrade them to HD quality for digital cinema viewing. Ukon can be configured to provide upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion (SD-to-SD or HD-to-HD) singly or in any combination. Designed for applications in which precise lip-sync, and time-code integrity are important considerations, Ukon manages audio requirements including embedded, AES, and compressed audio formats and carries out time-code conversion with the reassurance of exact frame mapping.

“We selected both the Archangel and Ukon systems because they offer ease of use, excellent performance, and reliability,” added Marcel. “Both of these post-production tools from Snell & Wilcox have significantly enhanced the range and value of the services we offer to our customers.”

Studio l’Equipe, based in Brussels, Belgium, is one of the few audio and video post-production firms with the benefit of more than 40 years’ experience in this market. A pioneer in Belgium’s post-production industry, Studio l’Equipe was the first company to work with Dolby stereo audio. The company offers a complete range of services built on digital technologies to ensure superior image quality for a broad variety of applications. Its services include negative development, DVD mastering, and digital film restoration. Additional services are provided by the company’s sister company, B&B Communication, located in Paris. More information is available at www.studio-equipe.be.

Snell & Wilcox, the leader in its field, delivers technologies and products that enable television and satellite broadcasters, post-production facilities, filmmakers, and communications professionals to move content seamlessly between analog, digital, high definition and file-based systems and to bridge the world’s multiplicity of line/field and color standards. The company provides switchers and keyers, standards conversion systems, networked infrastructure components, and products for noise reduction, image enhancement, and restoration. In business since 1973, Snell & Wilcox maintains its U.S. headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., and European headquarters in Hampshire, UK. Additional offices are located in New York, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Russia. Visit www.snellwilcox.com for more information.

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