By Oliver Peters, March 27, 2008
For a company without an NAB Show booth, APPLE's late-February storage announcements are likely to dominate the discussion of many attendees. Apple quietly dropped Xserve RAID storage arrays from its online store, replaced by a new array from Promise Technology. The Apple Xserve RAID was a breakthrough product when introduced, but it had not kept up in price and performance with other options on the market. Apple has chosen to endorse the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID to complement its video editing and shared storage environments. Each VTrak RAID subsystem configured for the Mac supports up to 16 integrated 3.5-inch SAS or SATA drives, 4Gb Fibre Channel connections to the host, and RAID 5 and RAID 6 data protection.
The bigger news is Apple's introduction of Xsan 2, its newest control software for a storage area network. Xsan 2 sports redesigned administrative tools -- to make it easier to set up a SAN -- and a new feature called MultiSAN that gives users access to multiple SAN volumes from a single workstation. Of course, this feature will be fully integrated with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and takes advantage of such core features as Spotlight, so users can search across multiple SAN volumes.
I think the elephant in the room for Apple is Final Cut Server. This application is an outgrowth of the acquisition of technology from Proximity Group and is based on their Artbox application. It was introduced last NAB for release later in the year but was held back -- most likely a victim of Leopard development. All the signs point to an impending release of Final Cut Server at or near NAB. Apple showed it in various trade show presentations toward the end of 2007, and the app is currently in beta testing at broadcast installations and with motion picture editors including Joel and Ethan Coen.
To refresh your memory, Final Cut Server is an asset management application that promises the ability to track about 100 different file types, offers sophisticated workflow automation and integrates with Final Cut Studio. For example, media captured with Final Cut Pro can be converted to proxies in the background. These files can be searched, viewed and compiled by a producer on a network using just the Final Cut Server interface. Those selects can then be dragged and dropped by the editor directly into Final Cut Pro, which will be able to link to the high-resolution files for editing and output. As one might expect, Final Cut Server, together with Xsan 2, is Apple's counter to Avid's Interplay and Unity.
Asset management promises to be big this year with many new players. For example, GRIDIRON SOFTWARE should attract a lot of attention with Flow. It was first shown at this year's MacWorld in San Francisco and picked up many writers' Best of Show nod. GridIron has been known as the company that enables distributed rendering for After Effects installations, so Flow should fit right in to make the life of designers easier -- or at least more organized. Flow uses a sophisticated system to automatically track workflows by recording all Import/Export, Save/Save As and Copy/Paste actions in a project. It understands the file formats for virtually all creative professional applications, including those from Apple and Adobe, and maintains the relationships between stills, movies, sound clips, fonts, plug-ins and color swatches on all local, network and removable storage devices. Using Real-Time Asset Tracking technology, Flow automatically builds Workflow Maps for every project. A Workflow Map shows the files used in the workflow and how they are connected to one another. Workflow Maps display all related application project files, media assets and internal structures, such as comps and layers.
One company you might not expect to see in asset management is FOCUS ENHANCEMENTS, creator of the FireStore dockable hard drive recorder. Focus Enhancements also manufacturers the ProxSys Media Server, an integrated hardware and software solution. Last NAB, Focus introduced an entry-level product targeted at the typical FireStore customer with fewer than 25 users. This offering was augmented with the Enterprise Edition for configurations with 25 or more users. In a typical operation, media is copied from a FireStore unit to local-attached storage. ProxSys software monitors this transfer and automatically uploads in the background to the network. In doing so, it also creates 320x240 MPEG-4 proxies and embeds native metadata. At NAB 2008, Focus Enhancements will introduce more metadata capabilities, with the intent of preserving information from the NLE. In part, this includes the implementation of Apple's FCP XML interchange format.
Speaking of FireStore, Focus Enhancements will introduce FS-5, the newest member of its direct-to-edit product line. The FS-5 records metadata, such as logging fields, appropriate to the NLE to be used. It comes in a physically smaller package, relying on new drive technology for lower power consumption. The FS-5 will add support for MXF wrappers with HDV content and native Avid file formats, as well as a new color LCD, scroll wheel and features like retro-record and time lapse. Focus has also announced HD File Converter Pro, a Windows-based application for conversion between DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO/DV P2 file types and nonlinear editing file formats including QuickTime, AVI Type 2 and MXF.
CONVERGENT DESIGN is getting ready to give Focus a little competition with the introduction of its own Flash XDR ultra-portable HD recorder. It takes in HD-SDI video and records MPEG-2 compressed video (using a Sony codec) at 18, 19.7, 25 or 35Mb/s 4:2:0, or 50, 100 or 160Mb/s 4:2:2. This unit will use 32GB Compact Flash cards. Four cards will provide 284 minutes of recording time at 50Mb/s.
There's also plenty to see in the world of local and networked storage. If you're in the market to install a robust shared storage environment, then the big contenders are Facilis Technology, EditShare and Studio Network Solutions. Each offers popular solutions for Avid, Apple and/or Adobe editors. FACILIS TECHNOLOGY is updating its TerraBlock units to use the new 1TB drives. The 1TB drives mark the largest capacity available today within a postproduction environment. Other TerraBlock advances include support for iSCSI Ethernet connectivity and the new 24EX model for easier expansion of server capacity.
EDITSHARE will be demonstrating its unique Avid and Apple Final Cut Pro project sharing capabilities. Although plenty of companies offer networking solutions to access shared media files, EditShare is the only company to also offer editorial project sharing in a proprietary workflow similar to Avid Unity MediaNet. Another unique EditShare product to check out is EditShare Field--the only shared storage device that I know of specifically geared for film or TV location production. Three editors can be plugged directly into it over Gig-E, and its cube shape ideally fits into airline overhead compartments. EditShare plans to introduce two dedicated archiving solutions: a less expensive, commodity server with storage that would be designed strictly for nearline archiving, as well as a higher-performance server that could be turned into a full-fledged EditShare system by purchasing a dongle upgrade.
STUDIO NETWORK SOLUTIONS will showcase the newest extension to its product family, the Ellipse Enterprise Fibre Channel HBA for Mac OS X. According to SNS, the Ellipse Enterprise Fibre Channel HBA (host bus adapter) delivers an industry breakthrough: the ability for Mac servers and workstations to reliably use the high-availability multipathing features in enterprise-class storage systems from IBM, EMC, LSI, Sun and others.
Along with Ellipse Enterprise, SNS will be showcasing Evo, a shared storage solution that includes 10Gb iSCSI SAN and NAS, multiple 4Gb Fibre Channel and the ability to bridge existing storage all in one box. There will also be demonstrations of the Postmap Operating Environment, the company's established search and asset management software for creative workgroups that has complete integration with SANmp (Studio Network Solutions' SAN management software).
Local storage options are no less important for high-performance edit stations. CIPRICO's MediaVault 5100 is the first storage solution in the digital media technology industry to utilize PCIe, delivering four times the data rate of 4Gb Fibre Channel solutions. The MediaVault 5116 (16-drive enclosure) is able to utilize the latest SAS disk drives and has been demonstrated in the lab to offer 1.4GB/s streaming performance, making it one of the first products in the industry to support two 2K video streams simultaneously.
Additional high-performance storage options include the 1st Design IntelliRaid units offered by 1 BEYOND. These arrays come in a variety of SCSI and Fibre Channel configurations in sizes up to 12TB. 1 Beyond is an experienced systems integrator also known for its high-performance workstations and laptops, so be sure to check out the HD OctoFlex (an eight-processor pro video workstation) and the GoFlex317 HD, the industry's first laptop capable of hardware RAID 5 protection with high-definition-level performance.
One company that has always bridged the gap between VTR and server is DOREMI LABS. Though Doremi's products can be found in many broadcast operations, they are especially favored in audio postproduction, mix-to-picture environments. Two of the new products for NAB are the NuggetPost HD video player and the V1-HD-2K High-Definition Video Server. The NuggetPost player is a standalone Sony 9-pin-compatible device that provides variable speed and frame-accurate playback of HD or SD video, including jog and shuttle capability. It features visual cue for use in ADR, foley and mix stages and can be used in video post as a VTR replacement device that provides comprehensive file playback support and instant access. The V1-HD-2K features Dual Link HD-SDI and synchronized two-channel playback for 3D, video-plus-key and super-widescreen applications. It records and plays SD and HD-SDI video and features high-quality JPEG 2000 video compression. The unit includes hot-swappable drives providing up to six hours of storage.
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