Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 Posted by Jim Thacker

The Foundry releases free open beta of STORM

The Foundry has released a free open beta of STORM: its new tool for on-set playback, rough editing and grading of digital footage. Digital camera manufacturer RED describes it as being like its own REDCINE-X grading system “on steroids”. More details below.

PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Leading visual effects software company, The Foundry, today launched an open beta of their brand new digital cinema camera workflow product, STORM.

STORM addresses the growing complexity of shooting digital, performing a variety of core tasks on and near-set and bringing camera and post production closer together.

Quick and easy to operate, STORM can rapidly navigate and playback footage allowing producers, directors and editors to view takes in high resolution without interruption or delay. Anyone who has done basic colour correction and editing will feel comfortable sitting with STORM and cutting together a rough edit or exploring a ‘look’ interactively with the cinematographer. Supporting the digital technician, STORM provides simple and intuitive metadata tagging and timeline re-conforming to ensure the exchange with editorial and post production is sped up significantly.

The Foundry is making this public beta widely available in response to the huge amount of interest shown in STORM since it was first shown at IBC this year. “STORM has been developed in very close collaboration with users, and the open beta is a chance to gain wider feedback – ensure that STORM lives up to expectations and continues to develop to meet the growing needs of the digital camera community. The Foundry looks forward to seeing the STORM platform grow to deliver new and exciting things in the future,” said Richard Shackleton, Head of Product Development at The Foundry.

The STORM beta can be downloaded from The Foundry website and is FREE to use until the 1st March 2011. It requires a MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or iMac with at least 2GB RAM running OSX 10.6.4 or later. STORM is optimised for RED R3D footage and will use a RED ROCKET card if one is installed.

Ted Schilowitz, Leader of the Rebellion at RED, adds:
“Having seen STORM in detail, I’d describe it as REDCine-X on steroids. Well worth the time to investigate it’s capabilities if you are involved in post production, working with RED footage. The Foundry have looked at RED workflow in great detail and taken logical integration with RED to a very evolved state. We’re very excited that those shooting and posting RED all over the world will soon have access to this software.”

Download the beta of STORM