AJA unveils ColorBox for colour-accurate broadcast, production and post

AJA has debuted ColorBox, a portable, high-performance device with what is said to be unprecedented inline algorithmic colour transforms and LUT processing capabilities delivering precise colour space conversions for live broadcast, live events, on-set production and post production.

ColorBox enables a range of HDR and SDR conversions and allows DITs to easily load, modify and save looks, and create reference images for dailies to ensure colour accuracy across all production stakeholders and creative vendors.

ColorBox arrives as more productions are standardising on 4K/UltraHD HDR, with colour and LUT management proving essential to creating and achieving looks for live and scripted content. Designed to support a wide range of look management approaches on-set and in live production environments, ColorBox features 12G-SDI in/out and HDMI 2.0 out for up to 4K/UltraHD 60p 10-bit YCbCr 4:2:2 and 30p 12-bit RGB 4:4:4 signal support.

It includes AJA Color Pipeline (ACP) Mode with a 33-point 3D LUT processor with tetrahedral LUT interpolation, four built-in user-configurable 1D LUTs, and two 3×3 user-configurable matrices. ColorBox users also benefit from a built-in RGB colour corrector and ProcAmp, extensive LUT, matrices and image libraries, powerful capture and recall capabilities, ancillary (ANC) metadata management and more. All of this is controlled via an integrated web browser-based interface.

In total, ColorBox offers five Modes with one active at any given time: AJA Color Pipeline (ACP); Colorfront; Orion-Convert (optional licence – watermarked preview); BBC HLG LUT (optional licence – watermarked preview); and NBCU LUT.

“Powered by the HPA Award winning Colorfront Engine, the new Colorfront Mode in AJA’s exciting new ColorBox offers state-of-the-art conversions between SDR and HDR content,” explained William Feightner, CTO, Colorfront. “As opposed to traditional LUT-based processing, the Colorfront Engine’s Human Perceptual Model algorithm assures flawless artifact-free conversions. This ensures the preservation of creative intent.”

“Orion-Convert was developed out of the need to create bespoke colour-managed conversions for our clients at Cromorama. The ease of use and the simplicity of the user interface together with unprecedented highlight control help deliver the most challenging live broadcasting events and episodic file-based content,” explained Pablo Garcia Soriano, Cromorama’s founder and head of color. “Now, with the implementation of Orion-Convert in AJA’s new ColorBox, we can finally use optimised floating point processing that provides greater precision than can be achieved using standard LUT solutions.”

ColorBox packs ultra-low-latency, high-density 4K/UltraHD processing into a portable device with a robust feature set of SDR/HDR/WCG colour transforms for many applications. Extensive frame capturing features include pre-processed image capture or post-processed output capture for reference stills with overlaid metadata, such as video payload IDs, pipeline configuration and customisable user text. These frame captures can be saved locally and exported to the configuration PC running the web browser-based ColorBox user interface.

A built-in USB OTG port lets users easily configure ColorBox wirelessly via a third-party USB WiFi adapter. 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 outputs provide up to 4K/UHD video for local monitoring, and an additional 12G-SDI loop through output is available for connecting the unaltered source to other devices.

“Reliable, high-end colour processing and display have become essential to creating scripted and live content that resonates with audiences, and AJA developed ColorBox in response to this demand. Drawing on an extensive engineering background in HDR and conversion technology, as well as third-party partnerships with experts in colour science, we’ve delivered an unparalleled and flexible image processing toolset in this device,” said AJA president Nick Rashby. “ColorBox streamlines colour management and display for environments ranging from TV, episodic, film, live event and commercial production to creative, editorial and finishing studios, and we’re thrilled to bring it to market.”