This page provides an overview of Pdplayer and its features.
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Overview
Pdplayer is an advanced sequence player capable of playing movie clips and image sequences for the purposes of quality control. Its approach to handling information allows it to play multiple sequences and apply corrections in real time. Even though Pdplayer is a reviewing tool its wide range of capabilities allow it to be used for basic compositing and editing.
Features
As a contemporary sequence player, Pdplayer supports all the industry standard file formats including HDR, EXR, CIN, DPX, SGI, TGA, VRIMG, PIC and more. You can also use Pdplayer to view the different channels of EXR and VRIMG files. However, its most important feature is its layered sequence playback which means that Pdplayer caches each sequence or movie clip independently. This way of handling information allows for multiple layers to be played simultaneously while applying changes in real time. You can fully control the way layers are composed together and how they are set in the timeline. You can also scale each layer independently and change the aspect ratio independently or globally for all layers. Pdplayer allows you to move layers in an infinite workspace.
Pdplayer allows for simple color corrections to be made in real-time. These include gamma, contrast, hue and saturation as well as the exposure and soft-clip for High Dynamic Range Images. Pdplayer also supports several color blending modes which can be applied in real-time. With Pdplayer’s extended alpha support you can assign any channel from a given layer as an alpha channel for another layer. Furthermore, Pdplayer supports the depth channel of EXR, RLA, RPF file formats. For more details on the different blending and alpha modes, please see the Property Panel page.
Pdplayer offers several specific layer types to speed up your work. The Brush Layer and Brush Sequence Layer allow you to put notes on your compositions. You can use the Adjustment Layer to make color corrections to several layers simultaneously. Finally, the Embedded Image Layer allows you to paste the contents of the clipboard directly into your composition.
With Pdplayer you can save your work in several different ways. You can export the whole composition or just a single layer as a sequence of images or as an AVI/Quicktime movie. You can save the composition into Pdplayer’s specific file format or export your composition to either Adobe After Effects JSX script, The Foundry NUKE script, or a Pdplayer Command File.
Pdplayer’s extensive command support allows it to be integrated into any production pipeline. You can also assign single commands as well as series of commands or macros to a short key combination thus speeding up the work process. Another important feature of Pdplayer is that it can play sequences on external devices allowing you to preview your work on a broadcast monitor. Finally, you can use Pdplayer’s built-in HTTP server to easily show your partners or clients the result of your work.
Licensing
Pdplayer is licensed by Chaos Group. During installation, you will be required to register an online license via Chaos Group's licensing service. Please see the Set up your Pdplayer License page for details.