Digital Productions Facilities
The Cray XMP and Digital Film Printer, 1986
Even though Omnibus bought the company from Control Data, and renamed
it Omnibus Simulation, I have always thought of it as Digital Productions,
and have had a lot of respect for the people who built and ran the facilities.
A Cray is a real headache.
This one had like a $12,000 a month electric bill, and the maintenance
and support bill for the "Crayons", the people who attended to it and kept it working
came to like $50,000 a month.
Its like a 747 jetliner.
If its not in the air with seats full, you're losing money!
David Keller is shown here with the Digital Film Printer, developed
by Gary Demos while at Triple-I.
Digital Productions leased the DFP bays from Triple-I.
(Here is a sample of the beautiful film output these
beasts were capable of.)
This system could print and scan, and there were three bays, all
interfaced through the 100Mb/sec Hyperchannel to the Cray XMP.
These systems scanned and printed all the "Hard Woman" video with
Mick Jagger, as well as "The Last Starfighter", "2010" and hundreds
of top TV spots.
All images Copyright © Dave Sieg
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Please email me for more info: dave@zfxinc.net