Casablanca - Amigaclon Videostation 

Casablanca II
Complete system for
video-editing, titling, effects and audio mix
   

Casablanca Bahia will be the top modell of the new Casablanca II product line. Designed for professional use, it offers highest image quality. The included SDI interface gives you a lossless data transfer to your broadcast equipment.

The professional MPEG-2 editing system with real-time effects and SDI-interface

Since it's launch during August 1996, Casablanca has become the embodiment of the effective, simple and PC-independent, non-linear video editing. Many professional video editors and even broadcast facilities make use of Casablanca - with a tremendous success.

Casablanca is one of the most successful video editing systems.

With the Casablanca II product palette, MacroSystem now presents the next generation. All three variants have the following technology in common:

• The MPEG-2 standards
• "Dual Stream Playback" for the frame-exact editing with MPEG-2
• Real-time effects

Following the already announced models Avio and Kron comes the announcement of the most powerful Casablanca system up to now: Casablanca Bahia.

Bahia makes use of SDI (serial digital interface according to the SMPTE 259M standard). There's no other in- or outputs apart from connections leading to the control monitor (FBAS, Y/C, Y/UV). It only really makes sense, if you use an SDI capable video recorder. Together with such a machine, (e.g. D9/Digital-S, DVCPro, Digital Betacam, BetacamSX), it is also possible to use the available analogue in- and outputs of the recorder itself.

Bahia differs from the "smaller" models due to the used standard "MPEG-2 422P@ML". This is the recommended MPEG-2-standard for broadcast. The data rates can reach up to some 21 Mbit/second (2.5 MB/second) for each data stream. This allows for an absolutely broadcast capable quality, as using the IP frame standard makes it possible to reach a very effective data saving - more than 2-4 times as much as the Motion-JPEG-Standard allows for. 2.5 Mbyte/second with MPEG-2 422P@ML IP therefore corresponds to a compression factor of 1:2 - 1:3 with Motion JPEG.

The transmission of the signals is done digitally via SDI interface. As this is an uncompressed digital signal, the full quality can be achieved.

But the highest picture- and sound quality is only one part of the Casablanca Bahia. The main advantage of the systems is the simple and effective user interface, without losing all the advantages of the digital, non-linear post-production.

Casablanca Bahia is a totally self-sufficient system in 19"-format (four height). An additional computer is not required. Although the system makes use of computer technology, it is specialized on video editing and can not be used for other purposes (e.g. word processing). This results in a "rock steady", configuration and makes it impossible to de-configure Casablanca Bahia. There's no operating system (like Windows or similar), there are no hardware collisions and no unexpected system errors.

Upon starting the machine, the first thing to appear is the main menu. Here, you will access the various editing menus directly. From the recording menu, to the many effect- and title options and audio editing and finally to the actual finished video tape recording (via SDI) - the user has all the necessary functions right at the touch of a button. Each sub-menu offers only the required functions. This leads to the well-known easy-to-understand and structured Casablanca user-interface - indeed, the characteristic interface that has made Casablanca so ideal for video editing. Unlike so many other non-linear video editing systems, Casablanca can be used without long and enduring training.