Mar
After a year of waiting since it was announced at NAB 2011, Divergent Media has now released ScopeBox 3.0, an update to its video analytics, capture and monitoring software.
Probably the most remarkable novelty is its price, only $99. When the first version came out in 2007 it cost around $700 (similar to the current price of Blackmagic UltraScope); five years later we have a very useful software for both shooting and postproduction practically for free.
One of the functions of this software is the capture (from DV to 4K) through a compatible video card. The camera is connected to the computer and the recording settings are configured (in ScopeBox). For this there are two options, to do it with the native codecs, or with others that come better to work later in postproduction. This is one of the great advantages, it has the ability to encode in codecs such as Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD (and others) in real time.
It can also be used to monitor on set, and there are a number of tools that allow us to be sure that everything is correct. For example, you can activate different safety margins, zebra, or select the “focus assist”.
The interface is replete with a set of scopes: waveform, vectorscope, YUV and RGB parade, RGB and luma histogram, channel plot and sound meter. All these metering tools help us to keep factors such as exposure or image dominance under control at all times.
Videoscopes can be added from the menu or quickly from the palette you are working on and can be rearranged on the screen and later saved as templates that can be used at any time.
If for example we are going to make an output for television, there are some very useful features that allow us to see if the material is within the “legal limits”, such as the ability to display and keep the peaks in several scopes.
It also has a number of other options such as scales that measure in millivolts or IRE settings.
ScopeBox 3.0 is only available for Mac. Here is the link to the free trial version, and on this page are all its features.
