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Fifteen months of work culminated in October 1987 with the launch of Digital F/X’s first shipping product. Jason Danielson recalls the technical preview of the DF/X 200 Production System at SMPTE in Los Angeles:

We were scrambling to get all the code written and complete before we opened the booth which had a banner that said we were “A Paintbox and ADO but in a single box". The trouble was then that the system kept bugging out so we decided to take the banner down.

With its modern GUI and digital throughput the DF/X 200 signalled where the online postproduction industry was going. Here was a single unit capable of compositing and special effects without any image degradation. Danielson recalls:

It was different from anything you had ever seen but as a brand new company trying to persuade people to ‘bet their whole farm on us‘ we needed to get back to the lab after SMPTE and get it right. Many of our first customers were critical in helping us grow the product incrementally and turning it into a real workhorse.

While most of the attendees flew home from the SMPTE show, the Digital F/X team had chosen to have their only prototype driven home by an employee in a rented truck.

We couldn’t risk having it packed in a commercial container and the time delay that would happen. Our deadline, that we thought at the time, was very tight and we figured it was quicker to do it ourselves and recommence work in the morning at Mountain View.

The DF/X 200 prototype and spare boards were stolen from the rental truck overnight. Clarke recalls the blow.

The police were involved. We posted rewards but it was never recovered and we always wondered why someone would have stolen it but the theft set us back at least two or three months. We had to acquire parts and rebuild the whole unit from scratch at the same time as we were preparing for the launch of the next software release. Heck of a hurdle and we still need to make NAB 1988.