Bluefish444 has announced the SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus SDI PCI Express video cards, which are compatible with the most popular nonlinear editing and compositing software products on the Windows and Macintosh operating systems.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus are multi-purpose uncompressed SD SDI / analog video cards that cater to both the boutique and studio video professional with a unique number of SD SDI and analog video and audio I/O connections and options.



The SD|Fidelity product is designed to allow a video professional to migrate from low-cost consumer analog equipment to professional SDI and digital audio devices by merely changing the connections on the SD|Fidelity video card. This allows users to work in either analog or digital as needed and provides them with the opportunity to redeploy existing analog products.



For a video professional on a tight budget who demands flexibility in connectivity and wants to work with the quality benefits of uncompressed SDI and analog video, SD|Fidelity offers 10/12 bit SD SDI I/O, 12 bit analog component, composite, s-video I/O, a built-in A/D and D/A converter, 2 channels of balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA analog audio, embedded audio I/O, and 8 channels of SP/DIF audio I/O for monitoring 5.1 surround sound from inexpensive consumer digital audio devices.



SD|Fidelity offers an internal keyer for logo insertion, embedded audio, and 6 channels of AES/EBU XLR digital audio I/O connections with built-in sample rate converters for 5.1 surround sound monitoring from professional audio devices.



SD|Focus has been designed as a SDI I/O professional video product with analog video and audio monitoring options, which saves the artist having to monitor on SDI devices which can be expensive. SD|Focus offers 10/12 bit SD SDI I/O, 6 channels of AES/EBU XLR digital audio I/O, 8 channels of SP/DIF audio I/O, embedded audio, and an internal keyer for logo insertion together with analog video and analog audio monitoring connections.



Both SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus are designed with a stable, broadcast quality genlocking circuit design, ensuring an output that meets the most stringent of broadcast jitter requirements.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus on Windows

SD | Fidelity and SD | Focus support the Adobe Production Studio suite of products, Windows Media Encoder, Autodesk Combustion, Autodesk 3D Studio Max, Eyeon Digital Fusion and any other frame buffer application previously ported to the Bluefish444 Windows driver.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus are bundled with Bluefish444's Symmetry application. Symmetry is an acquisition, review and playout solution specifically developed for the graphic artist working with uncompressed video on Windows. It provides a cost effective and simple way for graphic artists to frame accurately acquire, review and play out video projects in the YUV or RGB color space supporting a range of industry standard file formats. Symmetry supports playlist, clip editing and EDL import features, avoiding the need to use a complicated NLE package for preview and basic editing processes.



Symmetry is continually updated with new features specifically designed to improve the graphic artist's workflow and ease of use.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus are supported by the Bluefish444 Direct Show filters contained in the Windows driver. Direct Show filters make SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus seamlessly operational with any Direct Show-based application, significantly increasing the number of applications either video card is capable of supporting.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus with Final Cut Studio

SD Fidelity and SD Focus video cards both have PCI Express interfaces and a Universal driver making them compatible with the Intel Mac Pro and Power PC workstations. A unified driver supporting Final Cut Studio, Tiger OS X and QuickTime 7 will ship for free as standard with both video cards.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus Final Cut Pro users can use compression codecs including DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50 and Photo JPEG I/O for low bit-rate projects. Also supported is Final Cut Pro's RT Extreme architecture, enabling seamless realtime playback of effects such as 3-way color correction, additive dissolves, and cross dissolves, eliminating the need to render.



Both SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus support desktop preview, allowing the SD-SDI monitor to function as a second desktop which enables digital artists to view content on a broadcast monitor.



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus will support any Apple QuickTime-compatible application such as Combustion, Adobe After Effects and Photoshop. Bluefish444 is committed to supporting future operating system releases, QuickTime releases, Final Cut Studio releases and workstation releases from Apple as free driver upgrades for SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus.



Craige Mott, Managing Director of Bluefish444 says, "SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus were developed to provide uncompressed NLE and compositing solutions, for both the boutique and professional uncompressed video artist. We designed the hardware with the maximum number of I/O connections to enable the artist to simply change the connection depending on the video and audio devices they wanted to use. The flexibility to use cross platform NLE and compositing software, together with the bundling of our acclaimed Windows Symmetry software, will appeal to the SD graphics market in particular."



SD|Fidelity and SD|Focus will be available in January 2007 for Windows and March 2007 for Macintosh. They retail for $1,795 and $1,495 respectively from Bluefish444 resellers worldwide.