An overview of software based signal analysis monitoring for video

Here are the supported file formats for Drastic products that support file based workflows. These include: videoQC, Net-X-Code Server, MediaReactor, Net-X-Convert, and Net-X-Proxy.

 This page provides Drastic documentation downloads, and links to access the demo download forms for our software products.

This page was created to provide links to the (Legacy) Version 4 installs that included the Assimilate, QuickTime, Final Cut Pro, DirectShow and Adobe Plugins.

These versions are ancient and the links have been removed. If for some reason you need to reinstall MediaReactor prior to the current version, please contact us with details.

These are direct links to the documentation for Drastic's software.  Near each link is a link to the information page for that product.

This area used to provide test files for Drastic software, but the links have all been removed, since the files were ancient and hence not particularly useful.

Drastic Digital Disk Recorders that include more than one channel of HD or SD I/O (VVW 5002/3/4, VVW 7002, Typhon 2) may be used to combine some or all of the inputs and outputs into a single control channel. In this state only one channel appears to the RS-422, GUI or network control system, but when media is recorded or played, two or more channels of I/O are run locked together.  Please note:  This article has been superseded and it is here for reference only.

FlowCaster can send the following IP stream types: SRT, RTP, UDP, RTMP, NDI, CDI, WebRTC, WHIP, RIST, HLS Live, BLS, and ST-2110. FlowCaster's VirtualCam output can also emulate a webcam so it can appear as a guest in meeting sites like Zoom and Skype. There are many ways to monitor and distribute these streams. This article describes some of the available monitoring solutions and their features.

Drastic Technologies' exclusive H/S Scope allows easy calibration of lighting or cameras to a standard DSC ChromaDuMonde chart. The H/S Scope lets you use chroma values to evaluate a light source's ability to render colors accurately based on the camera's electronic response to the color of the light source.

Flowcaster.live integration with Google Chrome - start, schedule, and invite participants to a new FlowCaster session from within your Google Calendar or Gmail! A lightweight download from the Chrome Store provides quick access to FlowCaster sessions integrated directly into the apps you use every day. Here are details:

Drastic Technologies has created two OpenFX plugins to view the output of Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve editors; the FlowCaster Remote Monitoring plugin, and the DrasticScope Signal Analysis Tools plugin. FlowCaster provides a comprehensive set of collaboration, review and approval tools for editors, and can create and export session markers to/from Resolve. Drastic's signal analysis tools are professional vectorscope/waveform/histogram scopes for audio and video signals.

Is your company already using Webex for remote conferencing? Do you need to share high quality video in real time with your stakeholders? FlowCaster has added a VirtualCam setting that lets it show up as a webcam in meeting sites like Webex. Here are details on how to set this up.

Is your company already using Microsoft Teams for remote conferencing? Do you need to share high quality video in real time with your stakeholders? FlowCaster has added a VirtualCam setting that lets it show up as a webcam in meeting sites like Microsoft Teams. Here are details on how to set this up.

Is your company already using Zoom for remote conferencing? Do you need to share high quality video in real time with your stakeholders? FlowCaster has added a VirtualCam setting that lets it show up as a webcam in meeting sites like Zoom. Here are details on how to set this up.

Is your company already using Meet.Google.com for remote conferencing? Do you need to share high quality video in real time with your stakeholders? FlowCaster has added a VirtualCam setting that lets it show up as a webcam in meeting sites like Meet.Google.com. Here are details on how to set this up.

Is your company already using Skype for remote conferencing? Do you need to share high quality video in real time with your stakeholders? FlowCaster has added a VirtualCam setting that lets it show up as a webcam in meeting sites like Skype. Here are details on how to set this up.

Is your company already using GoTo for remote conferencing? Do you need to share high quality video in real time with your stakeholders? FlowCaster has added a VirtualCam setting that lets it show up as a webcam in meeting sites like GoTo. Here are details on how to set this up.

Drastic Technologies has provided tools and solutions for Adobe editor workflows for decades, and expands on this relationship with the release of the FlowCaster Live Review Panel. The panel is available for free, and provides additional Drastic related features in a dockable panel within Adobe creative software such as Premiere Pro. This page provides details on how to install and use the FlowCaster Live Review Panel.

videoQC can  analyze a video file, and produce PDF, CSV, XML, and HTML reports, and additionally can create marker files for editors, and proxy files for viewing. Here are details on the process.

Would you like to use Drastic software in a language other than English? We can provide you with an alternate language interface for most Drastic software. This page explains how.

Using FlowCaster with the www.flowcaster.live site may require some setup for your corporate firewall.  This is especially true if your system is running in a cloud environment like Amazon, Google or Azure.  By default these, and many other environments, completely lock down the internet access.  To use www.flowcaster.live, some standard ports must be opened up. 

Asynchronous review lets anyone open a www.flowcaster.live session and add feedack via text, telestration, and emoji, and save the session to send off to the next stage of production.  It is similar to synchronous review, but only requires one person at a time, and may be done by each participant at any time in any time zone.

Different IP video protocols require different firewall setups.  This article covers the most common ports / firewall access that different IP video protocols require.  

The synchronous collaborative review workflow lets an operator select a proxy file/timeline from any network storage that is available to all participants and share it with a group of participants so their input and feedback can be saved for later review and implementation.

FlowCaster Live Event Review captures SDI or IP signals simultaneously as high quality MXF files and as time code matched proxy MP4s. This way the creative team can get started working right away with the proxy MP4s from anywhere in the world, and use the decisions to create deliverable assets as the stream is being captured.

Use FlowCaster on the www.flowcaster.live site for real time group review of edit sessions anywhere in the world, without rendering or uploading your media to a server!  FlowCaster.live receives audio/video/captions/time code from the editor's output in real time, while providing a shared area of talk, webcam, commenting, and collaborative drawing (telestration), all time code locked to your edit. 

A comparison of www.flowcaster.live's real time video collaboration tool with other tools in the industry.  FlowCaster.live is the only live edit review workflow that allows for instaneous feedback of edits, high quality over the sholder monitoring, deep integration into Adobe and Avid editors, along with a secure set of web based and local tools to allow time code locked, instantaneous review of all your video assets and sequences.

Drastic's 2110Scope, HDRScope, and 4KScope products provide a ScopeDirect Transmitter for Adobe that allows users to monitor the main output directly from the Adobe creative software such as Premiere Pro without SDI/HDMI or IP Video being used to connect them.  You can take advantage of this feature to analyze the signal through the wide range of signal analysis tools. This article describes how to set up the ScopeDirect Transmitter output though our scopes.

Drastic's 2110Scope, HDRScope, and 4KScope products provide a ScopeDirect OpenIO plugin for Avid that allows users to monitor the main output directly from Avid Media Composer software without SDI/HDMI or IP Video being used to connect them. You can take advantage of this feature to analyze the signal through the wide range of signal analysis tools. This article describes how to set up the ScopeDirect OpenIO plugin output though our scopes.

False Color display mode

Version 7 and greater of videoQC, sdiScope, 4KScope, HDRScope, and 2110Scope all feature various display modes, including false color mode. False color mode looks at the IRE values in the signal, and assigns a color to each range. Here is a chart describing which color is assigned to which range(s).

Avid's Media Composer, Symphony and NewsCutter software are efficient, powerful industry standard editing systems.  Drastic's MediaReactor Workstation integration allows you to extend and expand the functionality of all three of these products.  The Drastic DDR servers provide extensive content capture options with full DNxHD support and including real time editing while recording without interrupting or breaking up the record file.

This article lists the locations where Drastic software components may be installed, in case the software needs to be removed manually.

Version 6 and greater of Net-X-Code and MediaReactor both support native editing while ingesting for MXF files in Adobe Premiere.  

Version 6 and greater of Net-X-Code and MediaReactor both support native editing while ingesting for MXF files in Final Cut Pro X.  

Drastic software has a few requirements that are not included in the standard install of Ubuntu 14.04.  This article describes how to add them

Most Drastic software is available on Linux x86_64 as well as Windows (32/64) and macOS (32/64).   This article outlines the minimum packages required to run Drastic software. Note: some of the external resources this article had referenced are no longer available, and their links have been removed. For the latest setup information, please contact Drastic.

One of the file format plugins (dtx_aWMFDirect.d1x) for Windows 32 and 64 relies on Microsoft Windows' media components.  With some versions of Windows, Microsoft does not include these components by default.  To fix this error, you can either delete the dtx_aWMFDirect.d1x and dt_WinMedia.d1x from the installation folder, which will disable WMV/ASF read/write, or install the missing components from Microsoft.  

4KScope supports both command line parameters and keyboard control.  This command line parameters can be used to allow 4KScope to open automatically on startup in the mode and size required. The keyboard commands can be used to capture compressed and uncompressed frames directly from the incoming signal.

When using Drastic software on Windows, for some operations system settings must be altered to allow for the performance necessary for the workflow. This includes Net-X-Code  videoQC, sdiScope, 4KScope, HDRScope, FlowCaster and 2110Scope.  By default, Windows is designed for multiple, low performance loads and UI experience.  The suggested changes allow Drastic software to get the required resources and performance required for consistent operation.

When using Media File Scanner, many sources will have directories and file names that exceed Windows' 260 character default limit.  If you are targetting an NTFS, or other Windows drive, you will need to enable long directory and file name paths in the Windows permissions.  This limit is to preserve compatibility with older, and MS-DOS, programs.  If you need that compatibility, you may want to target a NAS as the Media File Scanner output, which will support long directory/file names natively.

Avid tools support MPEG-4 using QuickTime as well as using MediaReactor Workstation. QuickTime cannot handle newer MP4 formats like XAVC-S and MPEG-2 from Sony and other manufacturers' cameras. MediaReactor can, but when adding them to Media Composer/NewsCutter/etc, you must specify which reader you want to use.  

FlowCaster creates an Open I/O board in Avid creative software like Media Composer.  As a virtual video board, it can send the same high quality audio, video and captions from a real or virtual machine to wherever you are doing your creative work for output on a 'third monitor'.  This article demonstrates configuring FlowCaster in Avid Media Composer.

This area contains legacy material from previous Drastic Technologies websites. It is provided for reference only, and contains information, products and links that may no longer exist and which are no longer supported by Drastic.

DrasticPreview and DrasticPreview Pro can be called by external applications with command line parameters.  If there is already an instance of the application running, the parameters will be transferred to the running instance, and the called one will exit.  This is especially useful where the workflow requires the system to display particular aspects of a clip in an automated fashion.

FlowCaster creates a virtual I/O board as a transmitter for Adobe creative software like Premiere and After Effects.  As a virtual video board, it can send the same high quality audio, video and captions from a real or virtual machine to wherever you are doing your creative work for output on a 'third monitor'.  This article demonstrates configuring FlowCaster in Adobe creative software.

Amazon (as of 2023) does not have a direct driver for EFS volumes for Windows.  If you are using Net-X-Code in a cloud environment we recommend running the Linux version for direct access to the EFS volumes.  For other software [like Adobe/Avid]  that does not run on Linux, you can still access the files on the EFS volume by resharing the mount, internally or externally.  This article explains how to do that.

FlowCaster creates a virtual I/O board for your creative software, desktop, SDI I/O board, or NDI source that sends a high quality video signal through the network for display on a local monitor.  This article covers controlling and configuring FlowCaster through command line, its settings, and via remote control.

The DTMediaRead SDK now includes a utility called dtmrpipe. This utility allows the user to 'pipe' out uncompressed YUV2 or BGRA video data to another application. It can also be used to pipe an uncompressed stereo audio stream in 16 or 32 bit little endian. This is useful for feeding other applications, such as ffmpeg, with the output of file formats, types or codecs it doesn't support.