User Manual

Using AMA Plug-Ins
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Example of a Source Settings histogram. The histogram plots color values on the horizontal axis and the
percentage or proportional number of pixels on the vertical axis. The vertical lines represent the black point (left)
and the white point (right), so the area between them is the safe color range.
The histogram plots color values that can be represented by the image bit-depth on the horizontal
axis. Therefore, the width of the histogram is the same as the width of the image. The histogram
plots the percentage, or proportional number of pixels in the image, with each particular color
value on the vertical axis. The vertical axis is scaled according to the height of the maximum
value in the plot. Whenever the histogram changes, the vertical axis rescales according to the
new maximum.
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Pixels with color values that are out of range are grouped into either the maximum or minimum
color values on the plot. Spikes in either the highest or lowest color values might indicate loss of
color information due to clipping.
Using the MXF AMA Plug-In
Material Exchange Format (MXF) is a wrapper or container format which encapsulates media
and rich production metadata into a single file, which is useful for media storage and exchange.
It is an open technology that can is implemented by different manufacturers.
MXF is designed to be flexible enough for use in all stages of content creation, from acquisition,
to authoring, to distribution. The primary benefit of MXF is that it provides greater workflow
efficiency by preserving useful metadata as media files make their way through the content
creation process. The MXF format is independent of the type of content that it contains, so an
MXF file can contain video and/or audio at any resolution or compression. In many instances
MXF files encapsulate media which is already formatted to one of the existing industry
standards.