SCRATCH Engine™
The foundation of digital post-production innovation.
Select the right SCRATCH product for you:
SCRATCH®
Are you an independent feature film or documentary maker who needs a comprehensive, end-to-end post-production DI workflow with uncompromising quality? Or are you an editor who needs a conform and color-grading tool ideal for the unique requirements of episodic broadcast? SCRATCH is so flexible and comprehensive it is the ideal tool for both specific needs. Click to learn more based on your industry: Film or Broadcast.
SCRATCH Lab™
If you produce dailies on-set for a feature film, or in a visual effects pipeline at a FX house, SCRATCH Lab is the workflow tool for you. SCRATCH Lab is the industry’s first and only comprehensive end-to-end digital lab system designed to bring review, versioning, conform, primary color grading and deliverables all into one fast, intuitive application. Click to learn more.
Resources
SCRATCH is impressive in so many ways – it’s truly a workhorse. Our team was living and breathing SCRATCH for a few months of intense dailies and color grading of the visual effects for Invictus. Reviewing work in context with audio was truly necessary based on the nature of the show, and SCRATCH was a fantastic tool for managing all the images within the construct. For any given shot, we had not only the latest version but also the few previous stages of development as well as the original plate. In some cases this was as much as eight layers deep. We were able to toggle back and forth between iterations in real time. We were also able to project at 2K while doing color correction on-the-fly in our theatre with visual effects supervisor Michael Owens. The ability to work in real time in SCRATCH is an incredible advantage. The time savings we experienced, along with the quality results, is impressive and made a huge impact on our successful delivery of the show.
Jason Dowdeswell,
Head of Digital Studio
CIS Visual Effects Group - Vancouver BC and Hollywood
Invictus (2009)
SCRATCH is a remarkable engine that has been at the heart of innovation in the Post-production and DI workflows for more than 10 years. Today, the benefits of the engine are delivered via two applications: SCRATCH® and SCRATCH Lab™. These applications continue the pedigree of ingenuity by specifically addressing the scalable needs ASSIMILATE’s artists.
Now more than ever the newest generation SCRATCH is the ideal digital workflow platform to deploy applications that maximize artist creativity, productivity and profitability whether you’re working on a documentary, a commercial, an episodic TV show or a Hollywood blockbuster.
SCRATCH Engine features include:
A high performance graphics environment.
All applications built on the SCRATCH platform are fast and highly interactive. Featuring a fully GPU accelerated, 64 bit architecture, SCRATCH delivers the sheer performance you need to meet the post production workflow challenges from tight dailies deadlines to the demands of collaborative client-attended color grading sessions.
An open data pipeline.
All applications built on SCRATCH can be automated and extended via XML to build the most efficient pipelines possible. In addition, full HTML support offers the flexibility of remote client review and approvals. Finally, a robust plug-in architecture allows all SCRATCH applications to be enhanced via plug-ins such as The Foundry’s Furnace™ and GenArts Sapphire™.
Comprehensive data management capabilities.
SCRATCH features a complete SQL database that organizes metadata from virtually any source- from cameras to rigs and lenses. Moreover, since all SCRATCH apps work seamlessly together, that metadata is available to any other tool (such as editorial or VFX) at any point in the workflow.
Seamlessly integrated stereo/3D controls.
Stereo is not an add-on in SCRATCH, it’s designed in from the ground up. Imagine the creativity of a full stereo workflow that provides consistent, intuitive feedback during the conform, color grading and finishing process. Stereo image pairs are automatically linked for versioning and real-time playback to a wide variety of stereoscopic delivery systems.
SCRATCH Engine benefits:
Any application built on top of the SCRATCH Engine will automatically inherit all its benefits. These unique benefits include:
Greater productivity
The efficient, high-performance data pipeline underneath SCRATCH delivers real-time performance- even while working with high-resolution media, making SCRATCH ideal for client-attended sessions.
Unbounded creativity
A unique CONstruct™ view of shots enables artists to view multiple versions side-by-side — even while mixing 2D and stereo/3D. Artists may experiment with unlimited different looks without having to render each time.
Unmatched flexibility
User interface controls are fully customizable, and the architecture is fully extensible via XML and HTML, engendering a highly flexible yet efficient workflow. Artists may fully automate tasks and integrate SCRATCH into any other application in the pipeline.
Supreme practicality
SCRATCH was designed from the ground up to support native Digital workflows. It was the world’s first DI tool to support RED and today it is still at the forefront with support for all the major camera formats including those from, Phantom, SI-2K and Panasonic camera formats, making it the most mature and reliable tool in the industry for digital cinema workflows. Period.
SCRATCH on Mac OS® X
That’s right - the SCRATCH platform is now completely cross-platform. Sitting side-by-side in the product line-up, the Mac OS X and Windows 7 versions of every SCRATCH application will have virtual feature parity. Now, artists can choose whichever hardware configuration meets their needs, and all SCRATCH applications will scale functionality and performance purely based on OS and hardware. Best of all, SCRATCH eliminates the “platform tax” that artists have had to pay with our competitor’s products, if they choose to move from one OS to another. All SCRATCH applications are always the same price: Mac or Windows.