xSTUDIO Application features

xSTUDIO can be used as a simple image viewer to display virtually any image or movie type, or as an advanced, pipeline-centric review environment. This flexibility allows a wide range of users to find the functionality that suits their playback and review needs. We believe that offering a single, flexible, generalised toolset across all our review scenarios will provide our teams and the wider industry with a powerful opportunity to work and collaborate more effectively.

The xSTUDIO interface can be configured to show or hide various UI elements, and display different layouts depending on the type of review scenario.

Users can view a single file, or a ‘Session’ of playlists, media and timelines. Powerful tools are provided to review any media, add notes and drawings, and compare versions. Using ‘Playlists’ you can organise media to suit your review situation, and Sessions can be saved and shared between users.

Playlists

  • Create any number of playlists (and timelines in future release)
  • Drag and drop to freely reorder and organise your media

Media

  • Display virtually any image format (EXR, TIF, JPG, MOV, etc)
  • Drag and drop media from the filesystem
  • Audio playback

Notes

  • Add written notes and drawn annotations to media
  • Sketch, Shapes and Laser modes
  • Adjustable colour, opacity and size

The viewer

  • Colour accurate (1:1 match to Nuke with OCIO v2 colour management)
  • Adjust exposure and playback rate
  • Zoom/pan image, RGBA channel display, various Fit modes
  • A/B and String “Compare Modes” (with Grid, Horizontal and Vertical in future release)
  • Adjustable masking and guide-lines
  • Media Info Bar
  • Quickly switch media source (e.g. EXR, high quality pro-res quicktime, movie)
  • Flexible HUD overlays to display metadata
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Features

xSTUDIO is currently used in live production environments at DNEG. Some of the current and future feature-set is listed below, as well as a list of those features we are encouraging collaboration on.

Current

  • Displays all common media formats and codecs at almost any bit depth and resolutions up to 8K – (EXR, ProRes, h.26x, DNxHD, PDF, JPG, WAV, AIFF, etc.)
  • Accurate colour management with OCIO v2.0 integration
  • Add drawn and text notes and annotations to media
  • Frame-accurate picture playback to ensure smooth video display without ‘dropped’ video frames as long as your hardware allows
  • Audio playback is tightly synchronised with video display to avoid drift or distortion
  • Zoom/pan, RGBA channel selection, masking, adjust exposure and playback rate
  • Freely organise media into playlists and subsets
  • Push and pull data from any database
  • Flexible metadata payloads (with JSON dictionaries)
  • Pop-out viewer for multi-screen displays
  • “Frames”, “Timecode” and “Frames From Timecode” frame counter
  • Actual and target fps indicator
  • Loop, Ping-Pong, One-Shot repeat modes
  • Load Shotgun playlists, media and notes
  • Publish Shotgun playlists and notesCompare media in A/B mode
  • Auto-align compared media
  • Export viewer snapshots (to EXR, JPG, Tif and PNG)

In Active Development

  • Multi-track NLE timeline supporting audio and transitions (OTIO based)
  • ASC-CDL colour-correction with SOP and LGG controls
  • Configurable UI layouts
  • UI reskin

Opportunities For Collaboration

We are already working with a number of industry partners to further develop the xSTUDIO codebase. If you would like to discuss how you can contribute to the project we would love to talk to you. Features on our roadmap include;

  • Synchronised sessions over IP
  • Pixel streaming (stream viewport to other application instances)
  • Windows build
  • Mac build (port OpenGL code to Metal)
  • Image waveform and histogram monitors
  • Audio waveform display
  • Image transform tools (key-frameable image position/rotation/scale)
  • Onion skinning
  • Advanced sketching options (IE pressure sensitivity for width/opacity, etc.)
  • Stereo image display
  • SDI Output
  • Undo/Redo Queue
  • Additional compare modes (Grid, Horizontal, Vertical, User-Defined)
  • Mobile device apps (this could be a simpler companion product or a controller for the main application)
  • and other ideas
Find out more

Visit xSTUDIO and Developer Information or get in touch with the team.