The Complex and often arcane world of digital cinema mastering just became a bit more accessible as QuVis Corp. of Topeka, Kansas has announced the availability of a $699 digital cinema mastering plug-in for Final Cut Studio. The QuVis “Wraptor” enables FCS users to create professional-quality DCP’s or Digital Cinema Packages, the digital equivalent of a traditional film based “release print”, directly from a Final Cut Pro project. The plug-in uses the same QPJ™ encoding technology available in the company’s high-end, real-time mastering servers. QuVis developed the product in conjunction with Apple, who strongly supports the product.

Wraptor is actually a plug-in for Final Cut Studio’s Compressor. Considering Compressor’s distributed rendering capabilities, producers looking to take advantage of the plug-in’s low cost, will be able to do so without having to deal with endless render times.

The significance of this product should not be underestimated. To this point digital cinema mastering was one of the few areas of the digital filmmaking process that was not only difficult to decipher, but it was also very expensive. The cost of mastering a feature length film to a DCP typically runs in the 20K range, a stretch for the majority of aspiring and independent filmmakers. The Wraptor plug-in from QuVis seems like it has the ability to change all that and be another paradigm shifting tool that will help usher in a new era of digital cinema.