Hi Ty
How it came about
Yes Virtual Katy was named after a real girl called Katy, who worked on the Lord of the rings films with the softwares designer. Her job was to re conform the on going audio tracklay to the amended picture cuts. Im told there were hundreds of revisions each with many many offsets and this became a massive and troublesome task. So after the film, they went of and designed the software.
What it does.
VK takes a timeline in an audio workstation (Pro Tools in my case) but its also designed to work on a number of platforms.
When the pictures are re cut (either by 1 offset or by thousands of offsets) the editor generates 2 EDL's (Edit decision Lists). List 1 is of the timeline before the changes (when it married up to the audio timeline ) and EDL 2 is after the changes. VK then imports the 2 edls, and analyses (really fast) what has gone on, and applies these changes to the Pro tools timeline, faster than you can see.
Its really just number crunching the offsets. A few cuts - its probably best just slicing the timeline up yourself with the edl from the editor, but 100 , or 1000, or more. Thats when it saves your bacon.
Is it reliable
It hasnt failed me yet!
Is it costly
Yes quite (I cant remember but i think I paid about £1000. In the context of lost studio hours and a commercial facility its quickly paid for its self.
What next
Well after it chop livered up the timeline to re sync with the new picture cuts, you have to go through the cut points and smooth etc, sort out music transitions etc ane remix the joints, but it does save a LOT of time.
Have a look at the website.
http://www.virtualkaty.com. It has videos etc etc, and you can take part in a live webinar to ask your own questions with John Mckay (the designer)
Cheers
Peter
Dubbing mixer
Peter
