Nits.Lab explores the possibilities of HDR with the help of AJA

The independent creative studio Nits.Lab, based in Brazil, has begun offering HDR-capable Digital Imaging Technician (DIT) and post-production services to clients in Latin America with the help of technology from AJA.

With solutions like ColorBox, its team is supporting commercial productions, series, documentaries and feature films across the region to embrace this evolving storytelling format and unlock its countless narrative advantages.

“We do most of our work in SDR, but customer preferences are slowly shifting to HDR,” says the Nits.Lab co-founder, Rodrigo Bodstein. "It's gaining momentum here in Brazil as major streamers showcase the narrative possibilities of HDR, and quite a few of the larger studios, as well as some post-production houses, are already experimenting with HDR delivery. We're working to help the market transition and make HDR more accessible here. We want to give professionals the tools they need to get up to speed on HDR and explore its narrative implications, so they can continue to push content forward visually."

To support its mission, Nits.Lab has the color system AJA ColorBox, and AJA Io 4K Plus for I/O and a router AJA KUMO 3232-12G to help manage color in SDR and HDR productions. For on-set work, his two-person team takes advantage of the DIT cart technology along with a range of monitors. The engine Colorfront and the AJA Color Pipeline in ColorBox are used for transformations when reviewing SDR and HDR content in parallel, in addition to the Colorfront streaming server for remote reviews. The team also plans to add a third ColorBox to its studio color suite so it can send signals to another television for customer viewing.

Nits.Lab workflows vary depending on the project and whether or not they are in the studio or on set, but they are all designed around 12G-SDI routing. In one of his designs, a Mac Studio is the main station for live grading, while a MacBook Pro handles ingest and download.

A router AJ NOW 12G-SDI sits at the center of the signal path, giving equipment complete control over signal distribution and routing. They set up a salvo for each specific workflow in the KUMO, allowing them to save different profiles for different types of work. For example, one salvo is configured for live grading, another for broadcast, and another for grading, color correction, visual effects, and editing.

For live grading, the inputs and outputs of two AJA ColorBoxes, one AJA Io 4K Plus and two Sony monitors are connected to the KUMO. Camera signals are input through the AJA KUMO router on the Io 4K Plus and through the ColorBoxes on the monitors. One monitor is set to SDR and the other to HDR.

The NitsLab team uses the software Pomfort Livegrade Pro to control the dynamic LUT in the AJA Color Pipeline in ColorBox. Since its work normally focuses on an ACES pipeline, Nits.Lab regularly relies on the integration of Pomfort Livegrade Pro and Pomfort Silverstack Lab to create dailies with all the requirements for each client (burn-ins, metadata, etc.). This helps ensure color consistency throughout the process.

When commenting on the workflow, Rafael Lopes, co-founder of Nits.Lab, says, "It's important for project stakeholders to be able to see the HDR footage alongside the SDR footage. They may not need to understand how the PQ curve works or why 12-bit signals are necessary, but they need to feel the difference and how it affects the final product. We want them to see how they can control the image with HDR, even if some lenses have flares in HDR that don't work." AJA solutions, along with Colorfront, help us achieve this and are incredible at modeling HDR in live and on-set situations. We love and use both a lot.”

Nits.Lab also uses AJA Io 4K Plus for computer I/O, which includes four bi-directional 12G-SDI inputs, to send test patterns to your monitors for some HDR projects that require express capture for dailies. Apart from its 12G-SDI workflow demands, the equipment also uses the control panel Tangent Wave, and Stream Deck where they keep shortcuts, RAID storage and a 40TB drive for backup and transport.

All this technology is connected to a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with 128 GB of RAM via Ethernet through a switch. A CalDigit TS4 hub with professional-grade media readers and the MacBook Pro M1 Max with 2TB and 64GB RAM are also part of the workflow design. In addition to these tools, for remote workflows, Nits.Lab also employs Colorfront Streaming Server, a cloud media management and collaboration tool, and Pomfort ShotHub.

Pipeline ColorBox in real time

Both Lopes and Bodstein enjoy taking advantage of these powerful configurations in their daily work with clients. Lopes says: "Our goal is to help clients get comfortable with HDR and have room to experiment live. Our AJA solutions are a key element in this regard, making it easy to propose new color options and tests for clients. The real-time ColorBox pipeline is essential. We can experiment on set, see the results, make adjustments in real time and easily transmit guidance and direction to the post-production facilities in the color room for greater consistency of look."

“Knowing the vision, the look that you have established and recorded on set, and knowing that that intention will be maintained until the final delivery is invaluable,” he adds.

Bodstein acknowledges that "I get excited about balancing colors and seeing the impact it has on people's emotions in a collaborative environment, especially when everything falls into place and the feeling is right. It's like we're designing feelings, and that's really rewarding work."