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Snell & Wilcox Ukon Helps Global Entertainment Partners Improve Workflow and Expand Business Offering

Ukon Universal Conversion Platform Provides Flexible Solution for High-Quality HD and SD Mastering

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Full-service post-production company Global Entertainment Partners (GEP) has integrated a Snell & Wilcox Ukon universal conversion platform into its Sherman Oaks, Calif., high-definition facility, which specializes in providing HD and SD mastering, dailies, and ancillary services to post-production and digital mastering operations at major studios.

Installed in a Spirit Datacine telecine bay, the Ukon from Snell & Wilcox interfaces seamlessly with da Vinci's 2K color correction system to give GEP colorists maximum flexibility in digital panning and scanning. GEP is also using the Ukon system as an additional downconverter.

"We selected the Ukon system over competing products because we were impressed by how easily it integrated with our existing systems and because it offered a very robust feature set in a single device," said Juan Carlos Astoquillca, GEP's director of engineering and technology. "The Ukon has opened up new business avenues for our company by enabling us to provide services for customers whose source elements are native 16:9 in either HD or SD format. Our colorists now can use all the panning tools available in the telecine bay to create first-rate pan/scan masters with excellent technical and aesthetic quality."

Ukon can be configured to provide upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion (SD to SD or HD to HD) either singly or in any combination. The system handles the different frame rates, image sizes, and aspect ratios, as well as AES and compressed audio formats. Because it also carries out time-code conversion from any SD or HD format to any HD or SD format with exact frame mapping, the Ukon is ideally suited for applications in which precise lip-sync and time-code integrity are important considerations.

"The integration of the Ukon is a win-win situation for us," concluded Astoquillca. "The impressive performance, integration, and options of the Ukon meet our present operational demands and allow us to offer a greater number of services to our clients at an appealing price point."

Global Entertainment Partners (GEP) was formed in 1994 as an Avid Rental company serving the feature film industry. Since then, the company's service offering has expanded to include post-production film transfers including high definition and standard definition telecine of feature film dailies as well as digital mastering. The company is made up of experienced professionals who come from a variety of technical backgrounds within feature film post-production. GEP offers 24/7 technical support on Avid rental, with flexibility and a high standard of customer service. The California company has facilities in Sherman Oaks and West Los Angeles.

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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EMEA Press Contact: Karen David, Wall Street Communications Europe, Phone: +44 (0) 1865 310422. Email: karen@wallstreetcom.tv.

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