Press Release

Aspex Semiconductor, a UK-based fabless semiconductor company,
announced today that Aspex customer da Vinci Systems, a leading
provider of colour enhancement and image restoration products, has
leveraged the “plug and play” scalability of Aspex’s Linedancer
processors to help enable the expansion of its Resolve product line and
introduction of the new PowerGrid acceleration platform. Launched last
year, da Vinci’s PowerPlant image processing accelerator board
implements six Aspex Linedancer extreme processors to address the
specific requirements of varying post production environments. By
taking advantage of the devices’ software-programmable, highly flexible
and scalable nature, da Vinci has developed its PowerGrid acceleration
platform. Composed of multiple PowerPlant accelerator boards, PowerGrid
has dramatically increased the speed and performance available in da
Vinci’s Resolve product line. The inclusion of Aspex Linedancer
processors has played a key role in the expansion of the product line,
enabling da Vinci to address multiple price/performance points without
any significant re-engineering.
da Vinci now offers three new hardware configurations of its Resolve
digital mastering suite designed to address specific user needs, whilst
enabling studios to leverage further processing power and tools as
their business opportunities and requirements grow. Resolve FX uses one
PowerPlant accelerator board to provide an entry-level non-linear
colour enhancement solution with significantly higher performance than
competing products. da Vinci customers can upgrade this system to
Resolve DI ‘ which utilises a pair of PowerPlant boards that deliver a
greater volume of throughput. Resolve RT is da Vinci’s top of the range
digital mastering suite for non-linear, real-time colour grading and
conforming. This system uses PowerGrid3, a set of three PowerPlant
boards, which implements three times as many Aspex Linedancer
processors as the Resolve FX product but without incurring three times
the investment in development.
“One of the key benefits of Linedancer is the software-programmable,
scaleable processing fabric that allows customers to easily address
multiple product price’performance points in their markets,” said
Jeremy Hendy, VP Marketing at Aspex. “da Vinci’s new product lines are
a testament to Linedancer’s unique linear scalability. From a single
product development effort, da Vinci has continued to create and expand
their product line without any major re-engineering, enabling them to
address a broad range of requirements, from low cost, entry-level
products, through to the extreme performance demanded by their most
sophisticated customers. As digital cinema evolves to 4K and beyond,
the scalability of Linedancer will allow straightforward evolution of
the core platform to address future customer needs.”
“One of the major factors in adopting Aspex’s processors as the heart
of our Resolve family was the promise of improved
Return-On-Investment,” said Bill Robertson, General Manager of da
Vinci. “By moving to a common, software-defined core platform, we can
keep our engineering talent focused on high value, creative tasks, such
as adding new features, rather than re-inventing the wheel. We now have
a platform that can be fully scaled to meet the performance needs of
even our most demanding customers, while also allowing us to address a
new market segment with affordable, entry-level products. The
scalability of Linedancer also allows these lower cost systems to be
upgraded as soon as the user’s workload demands more performance.”
www.aspex-semi.com