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Synthetic Aperture Echo Fire
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Contents
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The Stats
- Version: 2.1.4
- Developer: Synthetic Aperture
- Platforms: Mac, Windows
Purchase
- Echo Fire Boxed
- Echo Fire Download
- Echo Fire Upgrade Boxed
- Echo Fire Upgrade Download
- Color Finesse / Echo Fire Bundle
Download
Description
Still previewing your video projects on your computer monitor?
Then you're not seeing what your project really looks like. You're not seeing differences in color, the interlace and color coding artifacts, and the image overscan. And working with non-square pixels on a square pixel computer monitor means your image is always stretched or squashed. Being able to see your project previewed on a real NTSC or PAL video monitor lets you work accurately and more quickly.
Echo Fire displays the current After Effects composition or Photoshop document on your NTSC or PAL video monitor, letting you see how your artwork really looks.
Macintosh Features
- Displays video previews via FireWire and other video output boards.
- Displays the current comp (AE) or document (PS).
- Realtime video previews in After Effects, with audio.
- Handles 4:3, 16:9, and 14:9 aspect ratios.
- Can overlay waveform monitor, vectorscope, safe title and action areas, and test patterns on the video preview.
- Drag and drop video playback to FireWire. Includes timecode display and VTR-style playback control, as well as the ability to display still images.
- Screen previewer outputs Mac desktop to video.
- Exports DV (video and audio) to FireWire from QuickTime Player. (Mac OS 9 only.)
- Video-to-FireWire routing allows any application that can play QuickTime movies to play DV movies out the FireWire, including DigiDesign ProTools and Logic Audio. (Mac OS 9/QT 5 only.)
- Video color picker lets you preview your color choice on the video monitor and automatically "legalize" chosen colors for broadcast use. Available in Photoshop (under OS X) or system wide (under OS 9).
- Compatible with NTSC and PAL.
- Includes 60-page User's Guide in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
Macintosh Highlights
FireWire/DV, Uncompressed Video, and Everything In-Between
Choose the video output that fits your needs, whether the FireWire ports built into your Macintosh or an uncompressed video card. Echo Fire can connect your computer to your video monitor via a camcorder or FireWire converter box, giving you an inexpensive video interface that doesn't need another PCI slot. Plus, it also supports a wide variety of other video output boards, including AJA Io and Kona, Digital Voodoo D1 Desktop, Media 100, and Blackmagic Design DeckLink.
Realtime Video Previews in Adobe After Effects
Echo Fire's After Effects video previews include realtime playback, giving designers the ability to see exactly what their work looks like on video without the need to render separate movie files. Previews can loop and be paused, stepped, rewound, and fast-forwarded, allowing for detailed checks of key areas. Previews can be saved to disk for future reference and client approval. And previews include audio, making it easy to check for proper audio/video synchronization.
Clipboard Previewing
Echo Fire 2.1 provides video previewing of the current clipboard contents. Select an image in your favorite application, do a command-C to copy it to the clipboard, and you have a video preview via Echo Fire! Virtually all applications support clipboard operations, so you now have video previews virtually everywhere, including 3-D applications, painting programs, etc. (Available under OS X only.)
LiveFire - FireWire Video Routing
Using Echo Fire for Macintosh's LiveFire video-to-FireWire routing feature, any application that can play QuickTime movies can now have DV-compressed movies routed to the FireWire connection. For professional audio applications like DigiDesign ProTools, this means video playback locked to audio without the mechanical delays of a VTR, a miniature image on the computer screen, or the need for another PCI-bus slot. Echo Fire is fully compatible with Apple QuickTime 4.1 and 5.0 so it won't interfere with the operation of other QuickTime applications. It even offers single-field still images to eliminate annoying interlace flicker when the video is paused, without degrading video playback.
NOTE: LiveFire is not currently available under OS X or with QuickTime 6.0. It is fully supported under OS 9.x with QuickTime 5.0.2. We are working to resolve these limitations.
Windows Features
- Displays video previews via FireWire (IEEE-1394/iLink).
- Displays the current comp (After Effects) or document (Photoshop).
- Realtime video previews in After Effects, with audio.
- Handles 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios.
- Can overlay waveform monitor, vectorscope, safe title and action areas, and test patterns on the video preview.
- Screen previewer outputs Mac desktop to video.
- Video color picker for Photoshop lets you preview your color choice on the video monitor and automatically "legalize" chosen colors for broadcast use.
- Compatible with NTSC and PAL.
- Includes 60-page User's Guide in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
Windows Highlights
More Than Just Previews
If you're working with 16:9 anamorphic footage, you're probably tired of looking at the "squished" images on your computer monitor. Echo Fire can not only display your work on your video monitor, but it can also adjust the aspect ratio for proper display of 16:9 images, both cropped and letterboxed. It also supports the 14:9 format favored by many producers.
Echo Fire does more than just preview your projects on a video monitor. It can also overlay test and diagnostic information on your preview, including a waveform monitor, vectorscope, safe action and title areas, and a variety of color bar test patterns. Evaluate your video signal, verify title placement, and calibrate your monitor, all with Echo Fire.
Video Color Picker for Photoshop
Color Picker Dialog Echo Fire provides a special Video Color Picker for use in Photoshop. The Video Color Picker previews your color choice on your video monitor, showing you exactly what the color will look like. It also displays waveform and vectorscope displays to let you see just what color you're specifying. And the Color Picker lets you know if you've chosen an "illegal" color and will "legalize" it at the touch of a button.
ScreenWriter Outputs Computer Desktop to Video
Using Echo Fire's ScreenWriter utility, output a copy of your computer desktop to your video monitor. This provides a video preview capability for all your design applications, even if they don't support video previews themselves.
System Requirements
Macintosh
- Mac OS 8.6 or 9.x, or Mac OS X 10.2 or later.
- QuickTime 4.1.2 or later
- Video output device such as Apple's built-in FireWire, Digital Voodoo D1 Desktop, Media 100, Pinnacle Systems CineWave or Targa 1000/2000, or Aurora Igniter or Fuse. (Not all hardware is supported under all OS's--check with the hardware manufacturer.)
- For Mac OS 9.x: Adobe After Effects 4.0 or later, and/or Adobe Photoshop 5.0 or later. For Mac OS X: Adobe After Effects 5.5 or later, and/or Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or later. (Some features of Echo Fire 2.1 require After Effects 5.0 or later.)
- FireWire users will need a camcorder, VTR, or similar device to convert FireWire to video.
Windows
- Pentium III 500 MHz processor or better
- Windows 2000 or Windows XP
- OHCI-compatible FireWire (IEEE-1394/iLink) interface using standard Microsoft drivers.
- Adobe After Effects 5.0 or later, and/or Adobe Photoshop 5.0 or later.
- FireWire users will need a camcorder, VTR, FireWire-to-video converter, or similar device to convert FireWire to video.
