GearBox Offers Rental Clients Unparalleled HD Standards Conversion With Snell & Wilcox Alchemist Ph.C - HD

Snell & Wilcox today announced that GearBox (Sound and Vision) Limited, a leading U.K. supplier of professional audio and video solutions to the broadcast, film, postproduction, and music recording industries, has purchased two Alchemist Ph.C - HD motion compensated HD standards converters. GearBox is among the first rental companies in Europe to offer its clients the unparalleled performance of the Alchemist Ph.C - HD, which complements the company’s extensive stock of HD VTRs and nonlinear editing systems to enable delivery of high-quality HD content to just about any broadcast market.

“Snell & Wilcox offers some of the best-engineered and flexible video solutions on the market,” said Richard Eastwood, managing director of GearBox. “The company’s products have proven to be as invaluable as the proverbial Swiss Army Knife -- fixing standards issues as quickly as they appear. The Alchemist Ph.C - HD takes HD conversion to a completely new level, and in our view, it is truly the Rolls Royce of standards converters. It will provide GearBox clients with unsurpassed power and flexibility in delivering their HD productions to broadcasters and viewers around the world without compromising quality.”

The Alchemist Ph.C - HD yields converted images of unparalleled quality and clarity so that even the most dynamic inputs are delivered with stunning detail, free from artifacts and virtually indistinguishable from the original HD content. The unique system owes its superior performance to Snell & Wilcox’s Emmy® Award-winning Ph.C motion estimation technology, the most powerful and accurate type of motion estimation available today. In addition to HD frame-rate conversion for 1080i and 720p standards, the Alchemist Ph.C - HD unit also performs SD standards conversion between 50-Hz and 60-Hz material and HDTV upconversion, downconversion, and crossconversion.

“The Alchemist Ph.C - HD reflects our expertise both in developing advanced motion estimation technology and in creating of standards conversion algorithms, which combine to deliver pristine HD images that are low in noise and high in detail and fidelity, regardless of the content type or display,” said Roger Bowley, head of sales, northern Europe at Snell & Wilcox. “When quality is of the essence, particularly in high-value HD content such as sports, live events, or breaking news, GearBox rental clients now can use the Alchemist Ph.C - HD to achieve the peerless picture quality they require.”