Silverstack’s Look Library and grading controls enable you to receive looks from LiveGrade. You can choose to export a single look or multiple looks. A single look will be handled as a Pomfort Look (.pfl) file, while multiple looks will be put together into a Pomfort Look Archive (.pfla) file. To transfer looks from LiveGrade including all grading nodes and their settings perform the following steps.

Exporting a Look from LiveGrade

Select the desired look(s) in the library of LiveGrade. In the main menu go to “File>Save selected Looks As…”:

Figure 1: Save selected Looks as

After that a save dialog appears. As “Look Format” select “Pomfort Look (.pfl)” then choose the name and the destination to save to:

Figure 2: Save dialog for “Pomfort Looks”

More information about creating and managing looks in LiveGrade can be found in the articles Grading Modes in LiveGrade and Create Clips, Stills and Looks.

Importing a Look into Silverstack

Open Silverstack. Go to the Main Menu and select “File>Import>Pomfort Looks (pfl)…”.

Figure 3: Import the .pfl file into Silverstack.

An open dialog shows up. Navigate to the previously saved .pfl file from LiveGrade:

Figure 4: Open dialog for Pomfort Looks

Make sure that Silverstack’s Look Library in the right info bar is shown (for example toggle the right bar from the toolbar). Learn how to use the Look Library in Silverstack from the article The Silverstack Look Library. Go to the Look tab:

Figure 5: The Looks section with the imported “Blueish”

The look from LiveGrade will appear in the “Looks” section containing:

• Thumbnail
• Look name
• Metadata

The settings of the grading nodes reflect those of the look in LiveGrade. After applying the look to the desired clip you will be able to modify it in Silverstack from the point where you left off in LiveGrade.

To learn more about the grade controls in Silverstack please refer to the article Grading Controls in Silverstack 5.

Exporting a Look Archive from LiveGrade

A Look Archive can contain one or multiple looks along with all the further metadata acquired in LiveGrade Pro.

To export a Look Archive put all the desired looks into one folder in the LiveGrade Look Library. Perform a right click on that folder and choose “Export Look Archive” from the context menu:

Figure 6: Exporting a Look Archive from LiveGrade Pro

Save the resulting .pfla (Pomfort Look Archive) file to the desired destination.

Importing a Look Archive into Silverstack

Go to the looks tab in the Right Bar of Silverstack.  In the Look Library perform a secondary click (right click)

Figure 7: Importing a Look Archive as a folder.

Select the desired .pfla (Pomfort Look Archive) file and click. The Looks from the Archive will then be available in the newly created folders in the Silverstack Look Library.

Silverstack comes with HD-SDI output to play out ingested clips in best quality for QC on an HD-SDI monitor. The current clip in the player gets mirrored to the HD-SDI output showing the image in full-screen and 10 bit color depth.

Supported Devices

To enable the HD-SDI output you need one of the following devices:

• AJA T-TAP
• AJA KONA series
• AJA Io series
• Blackmagic Design Ultrastudio Products
• Blackmagic Design Mini Monitor
• Blackmagic Design Decklink Cards

Attach the according interface to your Mac (Thunderbolt or PCIe) and connect the HD-SDI output of the device to the selected destination.

Figure 1: Example of a Silverstack HD-SDI setup with Blackmagic Design’s Ultrastudio Express

Drivers

In order to use the supported devices you have to install all drivers and necessary software provided by the the manufacturer.

For Blackmagic Design devices that is the “Desktop Video” software you can download in their support area.

For AJA Devices that are the “AJA hardware drivers” included in the latest “AJA software installers” also available in their support area.

External Video Preferences

As soon as the HD-SDI device is connected, Silverstack requests permission to use it for playback. In case you decide to activate the SDI playback later, you can enable it through “Preferences>External Video”. You can disable the use of the device from the same menu in case another application demands its use (i.e. parallel use of the hardware with other software). If you have multiple output devices attached, you can select which one to use by choosing it in the drop down menu:

Figure 2: External Video settings

Additionally you can choose to release the device when Silverstack is in background. By default it will be kept even if Silverstack is in background.

The HD-SDI Indicator

As soon as you enable the external video output in the preferences a little indicator in the toolbar of the Silverstack media player will give you hints on the status of the HD-SDI output:

Figure3: The HD-SDI indicator will show up in the toolbar of the media player and the Miniplayer.

There are 3 statuses possible:

1. HD-SDI output enabled and working:

Figure 4: HD-SDI Indicator showing a working HD-SDI output.

Click on the indicator to reach the External video out settings with the settings for the HD-SDI output.

2. HD-SDI output enabled but no device attached:

Figure 5: HD-SDI indicator showing that no device is attached

Click on the indicator to reach the External video preferences to set up your attached device.

3. HD-SDI output has problems

Figure 6: HD-SDI indicator notifying about problems with the attached device

Click on the indicator to see details about the problem.

Playback Modes

You can choose between two playback modes:

• Absolute Time Playback: Tries to play back footage in sync with audio. Silverstack will skip frames to stay in sync with audio when video processing or I/O is too slow.
• Every Frame Playback: Aims to play back frame exact which leads to loosing audio. Silverstack will play back frame exact even if that leads to non-realtime playback.

To select the desired mode go to “Playback” in the main menu of LiveGrade and select the according entry right at the top:

figure 7: Select playback mode from the main menu

Image processing

There are different options when it comes to display the clips through the SDI device. You can modify these settings on the External Video Out window.

figure 8: External Video Out settings window

These are the available settings:

• Visual Controls: enable/disable the «Image Analyses» like False Color and Exposure Range, as well as Framelines. Learn more about frame lines from the article Frame Lines in the Playback View.
• Scaling and Position:
  • Scale to fit: fills the output display with the image to compensate for a difference in the resolution.
  • 1:1 Pixels: displays the image in full resolution, which can crop the image id the output display has less resolution than the source.

Supported Frame Rates and Resolutions

Supported frame rates and resolutions are:

• 720p50
• 720p59.98
• 1080p23.98
• 1080p24
• 1080p25
• 1080p29.97
• 1080p30s

Silverstack has a fallback resolution (1920 x 1080 HD) and frame rate (25p) that is executed when the desired resolution and frame rate is not supported by your hardware device. Silverstack will also try to find a solution that matches the closest to your desired format by using the following procedure:

1. find for a perfect match (same resolution, same framerate)
2. if none found, find a mode with same resolution and fallback-framerate.
3. if none found, find a mode with fallback resolution and original framerate.
4. if none found, use fallback resolution and fallback framerate.

Interlaced formats are currently not supported.

HD-SDI Features and Quality Characteristics

The Miniplayer

Additionally, you can enable the Miniplayer from the same menu, which enables to monitor the same image send through the SDI output on the computer display, at the same time as you navigate across the Project Library.

When the HD-SDI Output is enabled it will automatically open the Miniplayer to keep the HD-SDI output though you switched to the list or table view etc. As soon as you close the Miniplayer the HD-SDI output will be disabled.

You can reopen the Miniplayer manually from the Main Menu. Go to “Playback > Show Miniplayer” to open it up again. You can also open it from the Miniplayer symbol in the header bar on the right.

figure 9: the Miniplayer

Many workflows demand a high level of information sharing across the production team. Additionally, email notifications can be very helpful to inform about the completion status of specific on-set production steps. For this reason, Silverstack is prepared to work in combination with the Growl notification system, which then allows Growl to run actions as it gets notifications from Silverstack. The notifications are send to Growl for the following events:

• Job failed
• Job finished
• Subtask failed
• Subtask finished

These notifications can then lead to an email to inform the production team about any of the previous events.

Setup

Once Growl is installed (available on the AppStore) and running, there needs to be a «first notification» (i.e. a copy job finished in Silverstack) to start the communication with Growl. After that, Silverstack appears in the «Applications» section from the Growl «Preferences» menu:

figure 1: Growl «Preferences» menu

There you can enable and disable Silverstack for the notification system, as well as defining several settings. Once Silverstack has been enabled in the «Application» section, you can switch to the «Notifications» section:

figure 2: «Notifications» menu

The «Notifications» menu lets you enable and disable the notifications for specific events by selecting the blue check boxes. If you would like to get an email notification for an i.e. «Job failed» event, then select «MailMe» in the «Actions» drop down menu.

Finally, you have to set up your email server details in order to make Growl able to send the notifications. It can be done in the «Displays» section in the «Preferences» menu. Just select «MailMe» under «Actions» and fill the information fields with your specific data:

figure 3: email setup

After the setup process is complete, Growl will send an email to the specified email address informing about the event notified by Silverstack.

While using Silverstack together with LiveGrade on set to manage clip data and looks hand in hand, you surely want to combine the created information afterwards.  Silverstack offers a solution to avoid assigning looks to clips manually. You can connect them based on the metadata you already created while generating them.

How to Match your LiveGrade Pro Looks to Silverstack Clips

It is possible to automatically match a package of looks created with LiveGrade Pro to the according clips in Silverstack.  A Look Archive (.pfla) containing several different looks can be exported from LiveGrade Pro. This Look Archive can be imported into Silverstack to then match the looks to the according clips based on different metadata.

The steps to match looks from LiveGrade Pro to clips in Silverstack are:

1. Export a Look Archive from LiveGrade Pro
2. Import the Look Archive into Silverstack
3. Operate the matching Wizard to match by the desired criteria:
   • Match by Timecode
   • Match by Creation Time of Look
   • Match by Episode, Scene, Shot, Take
   • Choose if to match with Camera as well

1. Export a Look Archive from LiveGrade Pro

A Look Archive can contain one or multiple looks along with all the further metadata acquired in LiveGrade Pro.

To export a Look Archive put all the desired looks into one folder in the LiveGrade Look Library. Perform a right click on that folder and choose “Export Look Archive” from the context menu:

Figure 1: Exporting a Look Archive from LiveGrade Pro

Save the resulting .pfla (Pomfort Look Archive) file to the desired destination.

2. Import a Look Archive into Silverstack

Make sure you ingested all the clips that will get a look into one bin in Silverstack. Learn about offloading media from the article Parallel Offloading.

Figure 2: Bin with clips that should receive matching looks

Make sure to have the according bin selected prior to starting the import.

To import a Look Archive into Silverstack go to the Main Menu. Choose “File > Import > Match with Pomfort Look Archive”:

Figure 3: Importing a Look Archive for Matching

3. The Look Matching Wizard

After that a wizard window will open that first advises you to select a Look Archive for the matching:

Figure 4: Select the desired Look Archive

Navigate to the .pfla file you saved from LiveGrade Pro, select it and click “Open”.

You will now be presented with the matching wizard window:

Figure 5: The look matching wizard

You can choose between three different matching criteria:

• Match by Timecode

This criterion will match the looks by timecode. The look will match to a clip if its TC In is before or within the range of the TC of the clip. Additionally the looks will be applied to all clips that follow until the next look with a subsequent TC In. If a new look has a TC In that is inside of the TC range of a clip (so the look before ends within the clip) the matching wizard will suggest two looks but preselects the latter by default.

• Match by Creation Time of Look

This criterion will match the looks by their creation time. The look will match to a clip if its creation date is before the time range of the clip. It will match to all following clips until a new creation date of a look is found that is placed inside the time range of a clip. Additionally you can shift the timezone if the camera setup was wrong at the time of recording:

Figure 6: Adapt the timezone offset if needed.

• Match by Episode, Scene, Shot, Take

This criterion will match the looks by the episode, scene, shot and take metadata values. The look will match to a clip if the metadata for episode, scene, shot or take is equal.

Additionally to the three different matching criteria, for each of them you can:

• Match with Camera

Additionally to the selection of your criterion among the three criteria you can choose if the looks should be matched to the clips by the camera metadata value.

Example:

If you have Camera A and B and match looks by timecode the looks may apply to both of the cameras if they have the same TC. If you then enable the checkbox “Match with camera” the camera value will be considered on top of the TC and will then match the correct looks to the camera specific clips.

To learn how to simply transfer looks from LiveGrade to Silverstack please refer to this article Transferring Looks from LiveGrade Pro to Silverstack.

Try the Look Matching Feature: Sample Material

You want to try the matching feature but don’t want to build a whole environment to produce the matching clips and looks? No worries, we went ahead for you.

Click here to download sample material and the Look Archive to test matching by Timecode.

Click here to download sample material and the Look Archive to test matching by Episode, Scene, Shot, Take.

Click here to download the Silverstack 5 beta Library including the prepared bins.

You will be able to import the Silverstack Library from the Main Menu of Silverstack. Choose “File > Import Library Folder” or use the shortcut Command + Shift + O .

You can relink the sample material to the bins in the Library by performing a right click on the bin. Choose “Relink” in the context menu and in the following wizard choose the directory you downloaded the clips to.

If you are also interested in testing the complete process from the start click here to download the LiveGrade 3.4 Library including the looks from the Look Archives.

Silverstack offers a solution to export clips to DaVinci Resolve including ASC-CDL color metadata. Additionally it is possible to set up Resolve with the according LUTs to reflect the color processing done in Silverstack.

How to Transfer Clips from Silverstack to a DaVinci Resolve Timeline

The steps to perform to transfer a bin from Silverstack to a Resolve timeline are in detail:

1. Export FCPXML and additional color metadata from Silverstack
2. Import FCPXML into DaVinci Resolve
3. Use the Colortrace function in Resolve to add ASC-CDL color data

Export FCPXML and additional color metadata from Silverstack

To export to Resolve select the desired bin from the Silverstack Library. Either perform a secondary (right) click on the bin and select “Export to > Davinci Resolve Export” or from the “Export” button in the title bar of Silverstack choose “Davinci Resolve Export”.

You will be presented with a window where you can select or deselect clips from the bin that should be exported:

Figure 1: Choose clips and media files for Davinci Resolve export

After making your selection click “Continue”.

A further dialog window opens up:

Figure 2: Davinci Resolve export options

Here you can choose to either just export the FCPXML to result in a timeline in DaVinci Resolve without color metadata.
Or you can additionally export look that result in an EDL and CCC file and contain the required information to match the looks to the clips via Colortrace in Resolve.

To receive the possibility of having color metadata matched to the clips select both checkboxes and click “Export…”. Select the desired destination for the FCPXML file. The EDL and CC file will be put in the same directory automatically.

Import FCPXML into DaVinci Resolve

Open up DaVinci Resolve and create a new Project.

Before importing the FCPXML we will have to set a preference in Resolve to pull the Reel Name metadata from the FCPXML which will be important for the color matching. In the Project Settings  go to “Master Project Settings” and inside of that to “Conform Options”. Make sure to check “Assist using reel names from the:” checkbox and select “Embedding in Source clip file” as an option:

Figure 3: Set the Project Settings Conform Options for the right reel name handling for Color Trace matching

The option you have to choose for a proper match can differ for different material. The option described fits for QT Prores files.

Now you can import the FCPXML.

From the Main Menu choose “File > Import AAF, EDL ,XML”. Navigate to the path where you saved the FCPXML from Silverstack select it and click open.

You will be presented with an option window for loading XMLs:

Figure 4: Preferences for loading an XML in DaVince Resolve

Check to have the checkbox “Automatically set project settings” enabled which should be the case by default. That makes sure all settings will be adapted to match the clips from the FCPXML.

Click “Ok”.

Figure 5: The main window of Resolve with the imported timeline

You should be presented with the “Edit” tab in Resolve that shows the Media Pool on the left and a timeline containing all the clips from the Silverstack bin you formerly exported.

How to Add Color Metadata to the Clips in the Timeline

Use the Colortrace Function to add ASC-CDL color metadata.

After creating the timeline you will be able to add the color information.

Select the timeline from the media pool. It should be marked with a little XML indicator on its lefthand side. Perform a secondary (right) click on it and choose “Timelines > ColorTrace > ColorTrace from CDL” from the context menu:

Figure 6: Select ColorTrace from CDL

You will be presented with an open dialog where you will first have to choose the exported EDL file. Right after that you will have to choose the exported CCC file.

After opening both of them you will be presented with the ColorTrace option window:

Figure 7: The ColorTrace option window

If all the clips have green borders everything matches fine. Click “Copy Grade and Exit” to copy the according grades to the clips.

Switching to the Color tab presents you with the clips that now have the ASC-CDL color metadata from Silverstack added:

Figure 8: Switch to the color tab to see the clips with added color metadata

It is usual to record footage with an aspect ratio different to the one used in the final product, which makes the quality checking of the clips a bit more challenging. For this reason, Silverstack offers the possibility to overlay frame lines over the clips in the playback window, as well as for the SDI output.

The frame lines can be activated through the «Visual Controls» menu. You can open the visual controls from the Main Menu. Choose “Playback>Show Visual Controls”:

figure 1: frame lines settings

Once in the Visual Controls window you can activate the frame lines with the checkbox. You can then select the aspect ratio and appearance of the frame lines:

figure 2: aspect ration an appearance settings

Frames lines are available for normal playback and SDI output. For more information about how to setup the SDI output in Silverstack, please refer to the article HD-SDI output in Silverstack.

To learn about the basic process of transferring metadata to AVID please refer to the article Transferring Metadata to Avid Media Composer. The article will help you through the process of matching metadata from an ALE file generated from Silverstack to master clips in Avid.

 Adding Color Metadata to the ALE Export

When exporting your ALE file from Silverstack make sure you have the checkbox “CDL Values in ASC-SOP & ASC-SAT column” checked:

Figure 1: Include the CDL Values in the according columns of the ale file.

After the values are included in the ALE file perform the same steps as pointed out in the article Transferring Metadata to Avid Media Composer. The result will be clips that have the CDL values from Silverstack in the ASC_SAT and ASC_SOP metadata columns in AVID Media Composer.

Transforming the Color Metadata Information into Looks in AVID

We will now use the color metadata information from the ASC_SAT and ASC_SOP column to apply them to the clips.

Select all clips in the bin you merged the metadata with. Perform a right click on the film reel icon on the left of an arbitrary clip:

Figure 2: The bin with selected clips and the reel icons marked.

From the context menu choose “Source Settings”. You will see the following window:

Figure 3: The Source Settings with the Color Encosing tab selected.

Make sure to have the tab “Color Encoding” selected at the top left of the window. Click the dropdown indicator in the menu where it says “Levels scaling (full range to video levels)”  below the “Color transformations” list.

You will see a list of transformations to choose from:

Figure 4: Choose the CDL ASC_SOP and ASC_SAT values from the bottom of the dropdown list.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list and select the  “CDL ASC_SOP ASC_SAT” entry. Click “Add” right below and it will appear in the “Color transformations” list:

Figure 5 : The Source Settings with CDL values in the Color transformation list.

Now click “Apply to All” on the bottom of the window to apply the according CDL values to every clip. Click “OK” to leave the wizard. Every clip will now receive the look that is generated from its associated values in the ASC_SAT and ASC_SOP columns.

Adding a 3D LUT to the Color Processing

To add a 3D LUT again select all the clips you want to apply a LUT to. Perform a right click on the film reel icon on the left of an arbitrary clip and from the context menu choose “Source Settings”.

Instead of choosing “CDL ASC_SOP ASC_SAT” from the dropdown select the desired LUT and click “Add” to put it into the “Color transformations” list above:

Figure 6: The source settings with CDL and LUT in the right order in the Color transformations list

Make sure that the CDL entry is on top of the LUT entry in the list. They will be applied in order from top to bottom as in the nodes in Silverstack.

Now click “Apply to All” to add the LUT to all the selected clips. Then click “OK” to leave the wizard. The clips will now all have and additional LUT added to the CDL processing.

It is possible to export CDLs and 3D LUTs from the Silverstack Look Library. To learn more about the Silverstack Look Library please refer to the article The Silverstack Look Library.

To export the desired information go to the Look Library in Silverstack and choose one or more looks to export. Perform a secondary click (right-click) on one of the selected looks and from the context menu choose “Export selected Looks”:

Figure 1: Select one or multiple looks for export and with a secondary click open the context menu.

You will then be pointed to a save dialog where you will be able to choose from different formats for the export:

Figure 2: The export window with the different export options.

You can choose between three categories to export your look:

• Looks
• LUTs for Software
• LUTs for Devices

Looks include:

• ASC-CDL (.cdl, for all grading modes where possible)
• Pomfort Look Exchange Format (.pfl, for Look Exchange with LiveGrade Pro)
• Alexa Look (.xml, for ARRI Alexa compatible look export)
• Amira Look (.aml, for ARRI Amira compatible look export)

LUTs for Software include:

• Pomfort LiveGrade (33x33x33, RGB order, .cube file)
• Pomfort Silverstack (33x33x33, RGB order, .cube file)
• Adobe Speedgrade (32x32x32 3D LUT, .cube file)
• Assimilate Scratch (32x32x32 .3dl file)
• Autodesk Lustre (33x33x33 .lut file)
• Colorfront OSD (17x17x17 .3dmesh file)
• Convergent Design Odyssey (17x17x17 .cdlut file)
• DaVinci Resolve (33x33x33 3D LUT, .dat file)
• DigitalVision Nucoda (17x17x17 .cms file)
• Filmlight Baselight (32x32x32 .cube file)
• REDCINE X PRO (33x33x33, rgb order .cube file)

LUTs for Devices include:

• BlackmagicDesign HDLink Legal to Legal (17x17x17 .cube file)
• BlackmagicDesign HDLink Extended to Extended (17x17x17 .cube file)
• AJA Lut box (17x17x17 .cube file)
• Panasonic Varicam (17x17x17, rgb order .vlt file)

Choose the desired look format and the intended directory and hit “Save”. You will then be able to use the exported look in the intended destination software or device.

Exporting Look Archives from Silverstack

You can export complete folders with looks directly from the Silverstack Look Library into a Look Archive (.pfla). To do that select one or multiple folders from the Silverstack Look Library. Perform a secondary click (right click) and select “Export selected Folders as Look Archive”  from the context menu:

Figure 2: Exporting a Look Archive from a folder in the Silverstack Look Library.

In the following wizard select the directory you want to save to and click “Save”. The .pfla file will then be available for further use from that directory.

To learn how to import a Look Archive please refer to the article Transferring Looks from LiveGrade to Silverstack.

If you are a user of Silverstack 4 you might want to migrate your projects to Silverstack 5. There is an easy process to perform this migration.

Locating the Library Folders

Silverstack 4 and Silverstack 5 have different library folders that contain the projects. You will find them at the following paths on your Mac:

            ~/Library/Application Support/Pomfort/Silverstack4

            ~/Library/Application Support/Pomfort/Silverstack5

You can also navigate to the folders from the Main Menu of Silverstack 4 or 5. Select “Silverstack>Show Library in Finder” in the main menu bar at the top of the screen. This will open the project folder an bring you to the Silverstack.psdb file of your currently opened project. From there you can go two directories backwards to find yourself at the directory of the Silverstack library folders.

Migrating the Library

1. Close Silverstack 5
2. Rename the “Silverstack5” folder in the directory  /Users/[yourUser]/Library/Application Support/Pomfort/ to “Silverstack5_old” (you will need that folder to keep new projects)
3. Open Silverstack 5
4. Just like when you started Silverstack 5 from scratch the first time you will be asked if you want to migrate your libraries from v4 or want to start clean:

Figure1: Copy existing Silverstack v4 Projects and Settings

5. Choose “Copy Existing Projects” to migrate your Silverstack v4 libraries.

6. The library migration assistant will keep you updated on the process and tell you when the migration has finished:

Figure 2: The library migration assistant

7. You can now use Silverstack 5 with your projects from Silverstack 4.

Keeping Projects from Before the Migration

If you want to keep projects you created in Silverstack 5 before the migration process you can do that by copying the project folders:

1. Close Silverstack.
2. Go to the previously renamed “Silverstack5_old” folder.
3. Select the projects you want to take over to your migrated Silverstack 5 library (projects folder usually are named like “Project-1F342864AF90”)
4. Copy them to the Silverstack5 folder that was automatically created during the migration.
5. Start Silverstack

You will then have all your migrated and the previously created projects in Silverstack 5 together at one place.

If you want you can then delete the “Silverstack5_old” folder because now your current Silverstack 5 library contains all your projects from Silverstack v4 and v5.

You can use ScopeBox by Divergent Media for software-based waveform and video scopes for Silverstack’s player. ScopeBox offers a variety of waveform monitors and video scopes that enable image analysis and color control of the clip assets of your Silverstack library.

You can receive information about how to download, setup and license ScopeBox software on Divergent Media’s Website. To use the integration of Silverstack in ScopeBox you have to run version 3.5 or later of the ScopeBox application.

Connecting Silverstack and ScopeBox via ScopeLink

Silverstack sends the current image of the player directly to the ScopeBox application by DivergentMedia’s ScopeLink technology. To enable ScopeLink open the ScopeBox application.

Click in the upper left area of the ScopeBox main window to set a new source. Choose “Add ScopeLink Source > Pomfort Silverstack” from the context menu:

Figure 1: Add Pomfort’s Silverstack as a source.

After that the source should show a pending image:

Figure 2: ScopeBox waiting for the Silverstack connection.

Now open Silverstack. Open a clip in the media player.

Make sure that in the preferences of Silverstack under “External Video” the checkbox “Connect to ScopeBox” is enabled. You reach the preferences from the Main Menu by choosing “Silverstack > Preferences…”:

Figure 4: ScopeBox Preference in the External Video tab

There you can also choose if you want to update the frames in ScopeBox during playback in Silverstack. Checking this box may increase performance, but Silverstack only updates Scopebox when being paused.

When you switch to ScopeBox you should then see the default view including an image preview of the image showing in Silverstack:

Figure 3: The ScopeBox UI with a preview of the Silverstack clip and scopes.

Learn how to use ScopeBox with this tutorial (from Divergent Media):

Find more tutorial videos from Divergent Media about ScopeBox here.

It occurs that the Codex Live software that currently is in beta state blocks the Fujifilm IS-Mini in a way that it can not be used anymore in LiveGrade Pro. We are in contact with Codex about that problem and they promised to avoid it as soon as possible but at least in any case for the final release.

Codex also included a script for uninstallation of all the installed elements into the latest beta version of Codex Live available from the following link: 

https://codexdigital.com/?action=asset&id=3B905666-E525-4526-9276-44AC759C2341

Current Workaround

You can also follow this workaround to make your IS-Mini(s) work again with LiveGrade Pro:

1. Close LiveGrade Pro.
2. Open the Terminal on your Mac.
3. Copy and paste the following line into your Terminal window:

   sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.codexdigital.lutboxdaemon.plist

4. Hit enter.
5. Enter you user password.
6. Hit enter.
7. Open LiveGrade again.

After executing these steps you should be able to assign the IS-Mini to a Slot in LiveGrade Pro.

LiveGrade offers the possibility to export .cdl (Color Decision List) files that can then be imported to the REDCINE-X software offered by RED Digital Cinema. With this workflow you will be able to transfer color decisions from LiveGrade Pro to REDCINE-X.

Exporting a CDL from LiveGrade

To export a CDL from the LiveGrade library perform the following steps:

1. Select one or multiple looks from the library:

Figure 1: Multiple looks selected

2. Go to the Main Menu. Choose “File > Save selected Looks as…” to export the selected looks (you can also use Shift+Command+S as keyboard shortcut):

Figure 2: The «File» menu

You can also select “File >Save current Look as ..” to only export the look that is currently applied.

3. In the export wizard you will then be able to select the desired format for your export:

Figure 3: Choose the desired format for the export

Choose “ASC-CDL (*.cdl)” from the dropdown and hit “Save”.

Please be aware that you cannot export a CDL from every grading mode with any node constellation. Please refer to the article Exporting Grades for more information.

Importing a CDL in REDCINE-X

Open REDCINE-X.

In the File Browser on the left side navigate to the folder with your desired clips and then load it into the viewer.

Select the “Look” tab from the tabs on the right side. “Post : Look : Effects” should contain a subsection “Look: Effect : CDL” :

Figure 4: The REDCINE-X “Look” tab with the CDL effect.

From the “Load” button (marked with a yellow box in Fig. 4)  you can now select the CDL you saved from LiveGrade. You can see it taking effect when the Slope, Offset and/or Power values below become altered.

To see the CDL take effect you have to enable the checkbox above the Effects tab (see blue box indicator in Fig. 4).

You  will also be able to add a 3D LUT to the color processing in REDCINE-X. This way you can rebuild the CDL+LUT node structure used in LiveGrade Pro.

For more information take a look at the REDCINE-X Pro Operations Guide.

The One-Button Check for Travel Drive Consistency

Introduction

Pomfort SealVerify is the one-button software that ensures the completeness and consistency of media data. It’s a free tool for Mac OS X and Windows. 

Pomfort SealVerify guarantees a complete and consistent data transfer and a quick and easy verification of checksums. It benefits from the sealing functionality that complements the widely used and production-proven MHL standard for checksums.

Travel drives sealed with Silverstack contain a complete inventory list of the entire content.  After any further copy step, for example in post production, the free tool Pomfort SealVerify enables the verification of the intended content. It’s dead easy: With the click of one button you can check the completeness and consistency of the copied media.  A clear approval sign gives you confidence about the perfect condition of your data.

Please visit the Pomfort SealVerify Product Page to download the application for free.

How to Install on Mac OS X ?

You can download Pomfort SealVerify for Mac OS X from the product page on the Pomfort website.

After a successful download double click the .dmg to mount the disk image and access the application that is inside. Copy the Pomfort SealVerify application to your Applications folder or any other selected place. Double click the app icon to start the application.

How to Install on Windows ?

You can download Pomfort SealVerify for Windows from the product page on the Pomfort website.

Open the .exe file to start the installation process.

You will be guided through the installation process by the installation wizard. Pomfort SealVerify will then be available on your system. Check the Start menu or the desktop icon to launch the application.

System Requirements

For Mac Pomfort SealVerify requires OS X 10.9.5 or later.

For Windows Pomfort SealVerify requires Windows 7 or later.

Workflow

For more information about the optimized workflow with Silverstack and Pomfort SealVerify please see the article A Typical Set-to-Post Scenario with Silverstack and Pomfort SealVerify .

User Interface & Functionality

The initial user interface of Pomfort SealVerify basically has one functionality — it enables you to open the sealed drive or directory you want to verify:

Fig. 1: The Pomfort SealVerify start screen.

When a sealed drive is detected you will receive detailed information about the seal and the sealer of the drive. You can then start the verification process with the click of one button:

Fig. 2: A sealed drive was detected.

After the verification a clear approval sign gives you confidence about the perfect condition of your data:

Fig. 3: Succesful verification of a sealed drive.

If you want to learn more about detailed functionalities of the application please refer to the article Verifying Sealed Drives in Pomfort SealVerify.

Troubleshooting

For basic troubleshooting please refer to the following articles:

• I have a problem with the software
• I have a question about the software

If you had no success finding a solution to your issue please visit our support forum where you can find community help about the free application.

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More Information

You have already stepped right into our KnowledgeBase about Pomfort SealVerify. Here are more articles you could be interested in:

Pomfort SealVerify Getting Started

A Typical Set-to-Post Scenario with Silverstack and Pomfort SealVerify

Understanding the Pomfort Seal

Verifying Sealed Drives in Pomfort SealVerify

Error Cases

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Quick Overview

Pomfort SealVerify is the one-button process that ensures the completeness and consistency of media data. Pomfort SealVerify is able to verify drives that have been sealed with a Pomfort seal. This Pomfort seal can be produced by Pomfort’s on-set media management application Silverstack. The sealing functionality in Silverstack complements the widely used and production-proven MHL standard for checksums. Instead of a standard checksum consistency check with MHL files the Pomfort seal additionally secures the completeness of your media data.

Learn more about a possible workflow with the exemplary use case described in the article A Typical Set-to-Post Scenario with Pomfort SealVerify and Silverstack.

Verifying a Sealed Drive

Pomfort SealVerify allows you to verify sealed drives as well as sealed folders. For simplicity reasons we may only refer “sealed drives” below but want to make clear that the same procedure will work for sealed folders.

Learn how to seal drives in Silverstack from the article Sealing Drives in Silverstack.

First Step: Choose a Sealed Drive

Fig. 1: The Pomfort SealVerify start screen

Click the  button “Choose Drive or Folder” to choose the sealed drive to verify.

When a sealed drive is detected you will receive detailed information about the seal and the person who sealed the drive.

Second Step: Start the Verification Process

You can then start the verification process with the click of one button:

Fig. 2: A sealed drive was detected.

Below the seal you will be able to click the button “Seal Info”. This will open up the Seal Information with all the details provided in Silverstack during sealing:

Fig. 3 : Disk Seal Info in Pomfort SealVerify

During the verification process you will see a progress bar and detailed information that will indicate how long the verification process will take. Please note that the verification will read every file in order to create checksums and compare them with the checksums stored in the seal information. The duration of this process depends on the amount of data as well as the read speed and may take from seconds to hours.

Fig. 4: Verification in Progress

Third Step: Review the Result

After the verification a clear approval sign gives you confidence about the perfect condition of your data:

Fig. 5: A successful verification process.

After the completed verification you can open the detail view with a click on the arrow that points down in the middle of the UI. The detailed table view will present details about the files that have been verified:

Fig. 6: Verification completed succesfully

As displayed in fig. 6  you can see details about a file by selecting it from the table.

The details include:

• File path
• Verification result
• Hash value
• Media Hash List file the verified file is included

If you want to learn about possible error cases please visit the article Error Cases.

Fourth Step: Create a Report

After the verification is finished you will be able to export a report that will give you the overview of the verification task. Click “Save Report” at the bottom right side of the user interface to save the report in a .txt file format:

Fig. 7: A Pomfort SealVerify report example

The report contains all the information from the table view of the verified files (see fig. 6).

Verifying a Drive with MHL Files (without Pomfort Seal)

If there is no Pomfort Seal present on the drive, but the data is accompanied by MHL files, the verification of the drive is slightly different to verifying a sealed drive.

After choosing a sealed drive in step one, the application will scan for MHL files:

Fig. 8: Preparing verification and looking for Pomfort Seal or mhl files

You can choose to start the verification process immediately after scanning by enabling the checkbox “Start Verification Immediately After Scanning”. In some cases this processing step can be so quick that you will not notice it. It will then directly display the next step.

When there have been .mhl files found you will see the following user interface:

Fig. 9: MHL files found and ready for verification

You will then be able to start the verification. Please see the article Error Cases for further information about “uncheckable” files

Grey vs. Green Checkmarks for Passed Files

When you take a look at the tab for “Files Passed” after your verification finished you may find two types of checkmarks: Green ones and grey ones (see fig. 10).

Fig. 10: Green and grey checkmarks in the table view for “Files passed”

The difference is simple: Files that are referenced inside an MHL file with a source hash value receive a green checkmark when successfully checked by Pomfort SealVerify. Files that are referenced inside an MHL file only with their file size and are then successfully verified by Pomfort SealVerify receive a grey checkmark. These are e.g. all files inside the “Lost & Found” folder Silverstack creates while sealing the drive and finding files not registered in the Silverstack library.

Copy all files with Silverstack with a secure process including checksum verification to avoid less secure grey checkmarks in Pomfort SealVerify.

In this article you will learn about a typical set-to-post scenario with Pomfort’s Silverstack and Pomfort SealVerify. The products are designed to work hand in hand to deliver a secure and optimized copy chain.

About the Workflow

Copying data with Silverstack secures a consistent copy through the use of different hash algorithms. In addition to that, the sealing functionality in Silverstack allows to also verify the completeness of the data copied to the drive. You can think of the seal as a complete inventory list of the drive. After any further copy step, for example in post production, Pomfort SealVerify enables the verification of the intended content.

Due to the Pomfort Seal that is copied along with the data you will always be able to verify if the content of the drive is identical to the initial state when it was sealed. Even after insecure copy steps e.g. with Windows Explorer or Finder verification will be possible.

Fig. 1: A typical set-to-post scenario.

Fig. 1 shows a typical set-to-post workflow. The initial copy process from the camera source is made with Silverstack. Before sending the drive to the post production facility Silverstack seals the drive. This process secures consistency and completeness of the media data. When the drive arrives at the post house it is copied to the in-house infrastructure. Because of the seal that is carried along, the content can then be verified with one-click by Pomfort SealVerify.

Pomfort SealVerify marks the end point to a maximum secure copy process initialized with Silverstack.

Learn about verifying sealed drives or folders in Pomfort SealVerify from the article Verifying Sealed Drives in Pomfort SealVerify. Get an overview about the application in the article Pomfort SealVerify – Getting Started.

The (always latest) change log for the Pomfort SealVerify application can be found here:

http://updates.pomfort.com/seal-verify/changelog.php

Pomfort SealVerify is a free tool offered for Mac OS X and Windows platforms. Feel free to browse the Pomfort SealVerify KnowledgeBase to find articles that help you with your issue.

For support questions we have installed a support forum where you will be able to post your problems or questions about the software to find community help.

Click here to go to the forum now.

We kindly ask for your understanding that we will not be able to run email support for Pomfort SealVerify. As it is a free application we try to offer the best infrastructure for users to help each other and advance together in the usage of the product.

Please feel free to browse the Pomfort SealVerify KnowledgeBase to find an answer to your question among the existing articles.

We have also installed a forum for the application where you can ask all the questions that arise around the application:

Click here to go to the forum now.

Typical questions are:

How do I get started?

I have a problem with the software – what can I do?

How can I verify a drive with Pomfort SealVerify?

This article will help you understand the intention and background of the Pomfort Seal.

The Pomfort Seal

The Pomfort Seal complements the widely used and production-proven MHL standard for checksums and can only be produced by Silverstack. During the sealing process, Silverstack creates a seal file (.pfsl) that references all MHL files on the drive. An additional MHL file will be created for all data that was detected on the drive but was not copied onto it with Silverstack. The Pomfort Seal holds all this information together and is even secured against altering the seal itself. Any kind of change of the data on the drive will break the seal and will therefore be detected by Pomfort SealVerify.

Sealed vs Unsealed

The following table will show you the advantages of a drive sealed with Silverstack:

MHL files (or other hash files such as .md5 files) basically carry hash values and filenames. With this information, you can verify the consistency of files without access to the original source files. The appropriate tools can determine if the contents of the files mentioned in the MHL file still have the same content as at the time when the hash values have been created. The MHL files are usually created during a copy process.

For a drive with multiple folders copied with multiple copy processes (for examples on a film set, where multiple camera cards are copied to the same travel drive), you cannot verify if one entire folder together with its MHL file is missing. This means with MHL files alone you can verify consistency of single files, but not the completeness of an entire drive.

To solve this problem , the Pomfort Seal contains a list of all MHL files on a drive. With this information, a missing MHL file can detected very easily. This  means that the Pomfort Seal together with the MHL files allows to verify consistency as well as completeness of a travel drive.

The sealing process in Pomfort Silverstack also searches for files on the drive that haven’t been listed in MHL files yet. This ensures, that the Pomfort Seal together with the MHL files cover the entire content of the sealed drive.

Pomfort SealVerify is the free one-button process to verify the Pomfort Seal and the listed MHL files. This way a reliable copy chain can be built where both, consistency and completeness of media data can be verified at any time.

Updates to the Pomfort SealVerify application will be automatically delivered through the built-in update mechanism. To manually check for updates go to the Main Menu and select “Pomfort SealVerify > Check for Updates…”. In case of the availability of a later version the sparkle feed will let you start the installation process.

You can see the latest change log for the application in the article Change Log for Pomfort SealVerify. For any questions about the application or occurring issues please find help in the forum.