da Vinci Systems was an American digital cinema company founded in 1984 in Coral Springs, Florida[1] as a spinoff of Video Tape Associates.

[citation needed] The company was owned by Dynatech Corporation (Acterna after 2000) for the majority of its lifespan until being bought by JDS Uniphase in 2005 and by Blackmagic Design in 2009.

[2][3][4] In 1982, Video Tape Associates (VTA), a Hollywood, Florida-based production/post-production facility, began developing the Wiz for internal use[4][5] and introduced it to the public the following year.

The Wiz controlled early telecines such as the RCA FR-35 and the Bosch FDL 60 and offered basic primary and secondary color correction.

[5] The American post-production facilities company EDITEL Group asked VTA to build multiple Wiz systems for them.

[citation needed] In 1998, da Vinci Academy was formed to provide training to the growing number of aspiring colorists.

[5] The following year, da Vinci acquired Nevada-based Sierra Design Labs, at that time a worldwide leader in HDTV storage and workstation interface solutions.

[citation needed] In 2000, da Vinci's parent company, Dynatech, became Acterna after a merger with Wavetek, Wandel & Goltermann and TTC.

[8] Acterna then acquired Singaporean company Nirvana Digital[9] to add the Revival film restoration system to its production line.

[citation needed] In 2004, da Vinci had offices in Coral Springs, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Germany, and Singapore.

[citation needed] The da Vinci 2K, which began production in 1998, was an enhanced version of previous color correction systems.

[19][5] Following JDS Uniphase's 2005 acquisition of Acterna's assets, including da Vinci systems, the 2K Plus continued to evolve and the Emerald, Sapphire, and Ruby upgrade packages were released[18][25][2] In 2006, ColorTrace was offered for 2K Plus to track color grades when the edit decision list (EDL) is revised.

[24] Nucleas was launched in 2003, providing server-to-server software interface to existing 2k Plus systems to work from data disks and storage networks.

[19] In 2004, the Nucleas Conform was released, which built a data timeline from an EDL, rendered dissolves, and allowed switching between source and record order.

In addition to color correcting, the Resolve had an advanced toolset that included conforming, network file browsing, scaling, and formatting[28] This system was the first to implement InfiniBand topology.

[1] The first season of the TV show Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and the film The Grand Budapest Hotel were graded on the Resolve.