Bull moves to a UHD post-production workflow with Blackmagic

Blackmagic solutions make up the new UHD workflow for Tokyo-based post production company Bull.

While Bull was born as an audio recording company, over the years it has expanded its services to encompass content post-production through nine editing suites and three audio suites.

Recently, to meet the demands of an industry that has already taken UHD as standard, Bull decided to integrate a wide selection of Blackmagic solutions into its facilities, such as the Videohub 12G 40×40 and Videohub 12G 20×20 communication matrices, as well as the Videohub Smart Control and Videohub Master Control Pro solutions. Toshiya Okada, from Bull’s technology systems department, confirms that these systems “serve as the central hub of our signal system.” “In addition, we updated various equipment to 12G models such as converters, and also introduced Teranex AV, SmartView 4K monitors, and DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel,”Okada remarks.

Bull’s system upgrade includes other products that support 4K resolutions in order to process the demand for high-definition content, especially new TV programs and Internet streaming services. The company also decided to install several Teranex Mini Quad SDI to 12G-SDI, Teranex Mini 12G-SDI to Quad SDI, Teranex Mini SDI to HDMI 12G and Teranex Mini SDI to Audio 12G units. In addition, Bull has moved to a DeckLink 8K Pro capture and playout card, a 12G Audio Monitor unit, a Mini Converter SDI to Audio 4K converter, and UltraStudio 4K Mini and UltraStudio 4K Extreme 3 devices, to ensure that it was possible to work with any type of format.

“Despite the various formats within 4K, such as 60P, 24P, and 30P, Blackmagic Design converters can correctly display all these without the need for switching. Some other brands might show a divided image when receiving signals of certain frequencies, which requires special adjustments to get proper picture. In contrast, Blackmagic Design’s converters process signals accurately without any modifications, which makes them very user friendly,” says Okada.

DaVinci Resolve at Bull

Bull’s high resolution editing suites also feature Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel or Micro Panel units to meet the growing demand for color grading services. According to Okada, “We introduced DaVinci Resolve mainly for grading, and we’ve been using it extensively for skin retouching. Recently, we used DaVinci Resolve for online editing for two titles of TV Asahi drama series,” said Okada.

U-dai Ryoki, one of Bull’s editors, is very positive about working with DaVinci Resolve: “The AI (DaVinci Neural Engine) capabilities of DaVinci Resolve are quite impressive. The Magic Mask feature makes keying much easier. I also frequently use Face Refinement in Resolve FX to improve skin tone. DaVinci Resolve allows me to combine tools from different pages for various tasks. In scenes where I needed to replace a car’s license plate, we used tracking in the Fusion page, followed by Magic Mask in the Color page.”