Astora Digital bets on virtual production in the Asian market with AJA ColorBox

A pipeline made up of tools AJA such as ColorBox, Io 4K Plus, Kona 5, Helo Plus and Corvid 44 12G allow Astora Digital to carry out DIT operations in a significant number of projects that include a disruptive demand for virtual production.

Founded in 2020 with headquarters in Beijing, Astora Digital designed its pipeline to support simultaneous production in SDR (standard in China) with options HDR. The company needed a system that offered support for high-precision LUTs in both formats. After studying the market, as explained by the color director of Astora Digital Lucas Lin, the company decided on the compact HDR/SDR converter AJA ColorBox: “Previously, we needed to prepare multiple LUT boxes to process SDR and HDR signals simultaneously. With ColorBox, we only need one unit to achieve real-time SDR and HDR monitoring in a single line. “It simplifies our workflows and makes the process simpler and more manageable.”

Although Astora Digital tailors each workflow to the project, they almost always start with a camera feed Log C that passes through a router 12G-SDI to color grading. The pipeline AJA ColorBox Colorfront supports conversion HDR a SDR, allowing the director and director of photography (DP) to monitor HDR and SDR simultaneously. All your capture equipment and routers are equipped with connectivity 12G-SDI, including main control level monitors, although on-site video streams are still rendered at 1080p, 24 frames per second, due to hardware limitations.

Astora Digital also provides Processed samples in 4K or up to 8K HDR based on the original sources provided. These samples are used for directors to review and cinematographers to evaluate the results. On the other hand, the team uses ColorBox to make real-time color adjustments based on the camera output to achieve the expected color effects. This lays a solid foundation for post-production and helps maintain color consistency, ensuring that captured footage matches the intended visual effects.

“The AJA ColorBox pipeline allows us to maintain color consistency at all stages of production, providing valuable support to cinematographers in overseeing LED color control in virtual production work. ColorBox also supports precision LUT and can stack 1D LUTs, which is crucial to making ColorBox unique,” ​​says Lin.

Live streaming and recording with AJA Io 4K Plus and Kona 5

In addition to using its video assistance system for film and television production and post-production, Astora Digital also uses it for live streaming and recording, in combination with the AJA Io 4K Plus and the Corner 5 con OBS for live streaming of HDR video on platforms such as YouTube. Taking advantage of AJA technology, and ColorBox in particular, has allowed Astora Digital to raise the quality of the services it provides in the changing world of film and television production.

Edge Dong, workflow manager Astora Digital, thus conveys the importance of ColorBox in its operations: “ColorBox truly stands out as the only on-set color management device available to integrate multiple powerful features with a plug-and-play user experience. It contains the trusted reliability that the AJA brand is known for while incorporating robust integrated color processing pipelines such as the AJA Color Pipeline and the acclaimed Colorfront pipeline, along with many other powerful functionalities. “We are delighted with the benefits it has brought to our daily operations.”

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