SANTA MONICA, CA – Avica Technology made significant technological contributions to the production Lucasfilm's "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones." The company's platform for digital cinema was used extensively during the acquisition, post production, digital cinema mastering and digital playback processes.
During principal photography, Lucasfilm used Avica's StillStore to examine - at a pixel-by-pixel level - the output of the Sony CineAlta digital cinema camera, providing image quality analysis on the set and on location. The Avica StillStore has the capability to zoom up to 256x resolution, while maintaining accurate pixel-level representation of the original captured image.
Avica's MotionStore was used at Skywalker Sound during the final mix of the film to provide playback of high definition images while interlocked with a multi-channel audio recorder.
Working with Industrial Light & Magic, Avica provided a suite of encoding hardware, software and content packaging tools to manage the process of creating final digital distribution masters, encrypted for secure delivery via satellite and DVD. The Avica DataStore was used to encode, secure and package the digital movie data in formats for worldwide distribution in nine languages, including both dubbed and subtitled versions.
Avica technology also played a role in enabling the motion picture's delivery for multiple manufacturers' digital cinema servers. Working with Lucasfilm's THX division, Avica encrypted and packaged the movie for secure delivery and for playing on any of the MPEG2 Interop Partners' servers. Avica's FilmStore product line is one of the first digital cinema servers to have earned THX Certification, and has been deployed for Episode II playback in eleven countries across Europe, North America and Asia thus far.