Digital Color Grading and Finishing Solution For Postproduction

Trade Agreement: Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) Tendering Procedures: Generally only one firm has been invited to bid Attachment: None Non-Competitive Procurement Strategy: Interchangeable Parts Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No Vendor Name and Address: Applied Electronics Ltée 7715 BOUL HENRI-BOURASSA OUEST MONTREAL Quebec Canada H4S1P7 Nature of Requirements: Digital Color Grading and Finishing Solution For Postproduction

1. An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.

2. Definition of requirement

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has a requirement for the supply of a (1) Digital Color Grading and Finishing Solution unit, including installation, in support of the NFB Digitization Plan. The NFB Digitization Plan will improve current and future accessibility of the NFB works in digital formats, store and preserve the NFB's works on new media and restore works that have deteriorated.

Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master Digital has been established as the standard for the NFB's Digital Colour Grading. All the data (images, sequences, metadata) that is forwarded to the Nucoda from the digitization process of images prior to color grading and, the data generated while grading images required the implementation of specific workflows and the development of automation applications.

As such, the equipment purchased and installed must have interoperability with the other units already installed in the NFB's facility, and it must integrate seamlessly into the NFB's existing digital workflow (plug and play). The unit must have the inherent capabilities of backward compatibility with the existing Nucoda Film Master, and the unit must be totally compatible with existing units in the digital workflow, such as the NFB's Turbine & Phoenix.

To respect the high standards required by the NFB's operations, the system must provide reliable, accurate and sophisticated grading tools. The system must provide the following:

- Flexible colour tools including Hue Curves, Colour Balance, Colour Curves, Brightness Regions, Soft Clip (White and Black), S-Gamma, RGB, HLS, Brightness and Contrast; - Unlimited layers of colour enhancements; - Adjustable soft-clipping parameters with precise control of black and white clipping and reference points; - Separate control of shadows, midtones and highlights; - Multiple real time colour correction tools including isolation; - Advanced colour functions including hue curves and colour picking; - Unlimited secondary colour correction layers each of which can contain; Shapes, Keys and Mattes; - Incorporation of colour management of our choice to generate accurate representation both for film print and video colour space; - Printer light controls for colour correction and density; - Real-time down-convert from HD to SD including 3:2 insertion using video interface card; - Real-time Pan and Scan, format conversion and blanking; - Unlimited output formats and deliverables from a single timeline with spatial and colour space conversion; - Render out of full resolution frames even when working with Proxies; - Still and dynamic still store with compare tools, wipes and pixel probe; - User definable grids, overlays, masks and blanking; - Calibrated monitoring and export through Colour Management System; - Playback from non-DPX file formats (Cineon, TIFF, JPEG, SGI and Softimage PIC); - Full SD, HD, Progressive and Interlaced Video, 2K data formats.

The system must support: - Feature rich multi-track timeline editing with drag, drop, splice, overwrite, lift, extract, ripple, trim, slip and slide; - Segment editing; - Variable speed playback with jog and shuttle control; - Versioning of timeline and segments; - WAV (44.1 KHz/48 KHz 16 bit) or AIFF stereo audio reference track.

3. Trade Agreement(s) This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement:

Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)

4. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier To the knowledge of the NFB, Digital Vision is the only manufacturer of a Digital Color Grading and Finishing Solution unit that meets the mandatory requirements and can be integrated seamlessly (plug and play) into the NFB's existing digital workflow. Applied Electronics Limited is the only known Canadian supplier of Digital Vision products in the Montreal, Quebec Region.

5. Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s) The following exception to the Government Contracts Regulations is invoked for this procurement under subsection 6(d) - "only one person is capable of performing the work.

6. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked under the section of the trade agreement(s) specified:

Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) - Article 506, paragraph 12(a)

7. Delivery The equipment must be delivered as soon as possible.

8. Estimated cost of the proposed contract The estimated value of the contract is $ 149,000.00 (GST/HST extra).

9. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:

Jenny Yee Spécialiste d'approvisionnement / Supply Specialist 800 rue de la Gauchetière ouest, local 7300, Montréal, Qc H5A 1L6 Téléphone/Telephone (514) 496-3870 Télécopieur/ Facsimile: (514) 496-3822 jenny.yee@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca

Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

You are hereby notified that the government intends to negotiate with one firm only as identified above. Should you have any questions concerning this requirement, contact the contracting officer identified above.

An Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) allows departments and agencies to post a notice, for no less than fifteen (15) calendar days, indicating to the supplier community that it intends to award a good, service or construction contract to a pre-identified contractor. If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a Statement of Capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, the contracting authority may then proceed with the award. However, should a Statement of Capabilities be found to meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, then the contracting authority will proceed to a full tendering process.

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services/goods described herein, may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this Notice on or before the closing date of this Notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

The PWGSC file number, the contracting officer's name and the closing date of the ACAN must appear on the outside of the envelope in block letters or, in the case of a facsimile transmission, on the covering page.

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.