Storage & networking for editors; these solutions are an integral part of the editing environment today, but they weren't so commonplace even just a few years ago - Technology

Post, Feb, 2004 by Christine Bunish

FilmCore (www.filmcore.com) in Santa Monica has been using a network since 1998--early for a creative editing company. Technical director Richard Breniser came to the company from Encore Video, where he had been supporting networked post production systems for feature films. "Some commercial editing houses tried using SANs [Storage Area Networks] for centralized media storage," he recalls. "An early version was based on the SCSI system used on features, but those systems had limited expendability. You couldn't continue to grow."

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Then came Fibre Channel-based SANs, "the technology that most post companies use now," Breniser says. FilmCore had been using a Fibre Channel-based form of Avid MediaShare for about a year when Avid approached with an early version of its Unity MediaNetwork solution. FilmCore was impressed with Unity's expandability and potential for future growth.

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"Unity has been very good to us," reports Breniser. "It's totally expandable and flexible. We have a couple of terabytes of storage now and are planning to add more to accommodate our increasing need for space." FilmCore is also using MediaManager, Avid's file management system with a browser-based user interface.

It's essential that FilmCore's editors and assistants have simultaneous access to media assets. "With Unity, assistants work at the same time on the same material--even the same cut--as the editors, pulling and cutting sound effects, doing compositing or visual effects," Breniser notes. "They can send their version to drop into the sequence with no copying, no moving material." A big MSN campaign, out of McCann-Erickson/SF, required five editors to pull from the same source material at the same time, he adds. It consisted of four :30s and five :60s, each of which had 24 versions tailored for different markets.

FilmCore installed Avid's LANShare EX in its San Francisco office. The cost-effective system accommodates up to six Fibre Channel-based workstations (the office currently has five Avid Meridien Media Composers attached via Fibre) but "works and feels like the Unity we have in Santa Monica" where there are nine Meridien Media Composers.

"Tony Cox, my counterpart in San Francisco, and I try to make the two offices appear as one," notes Breniser. "When Doug Walker, who's based in San Francisco, works down here, he logs in as if he were in his home office. Everything he's used to having there, he has here and vice versa."

FilmCore complements its MediaNetwork with a parallel Ethernet infrastructure to maximize workflow. The Ethernet ties in an Apple Xserve rack-optimized server and Xserve RAID data storage, enabling FilmCore editors in Santa Monica or San Francisco to easily mirror and sync up material. "It's a very robust, high-end networking infrastructure that provides support, reliability, ease of configuration and remote access," Breniser says.

Today FilmCore can digitize dailies on the network and copy the media to FireWire so editors can plug into Avid Xpress Pro systems for on-location cutting. Finished sequences can be sent back to the office for further finessing. "Doug Walker took Xpress on a laptop home for the holidays to prep a job for January," he notes.

Editors like Walker can also log on remotely to FilmCore's Internet to access the sound effects library, graphics, titles, and cuts and dailies bins that are stored on the Ethernet. They can also send EDLs and OMF files back to the office. "We're trying to create a facility without walls," says Breniser."Before, editors were always tied to a building. But we don't want to confine them. We want them to have the same functionality they have here anywhere they go."

Breniser, too, can take advantage of networking. He can remain at home with his newborn while remotely logging and fixing FilmCore systems. Using a DSL connection, he accesses a Virtual Private Network (VPN) through which he can take virtual control of machines. "I can get into Unity, troubleshoot and do drive maintenance, all from home," he explains.

"Early on, and wholeheartedly, FilmCore embraced networking technology," Breniser says. "We haven't been afraid to step out into uncharted territory and break down the physical walls of the facility. We've creatively applied the tools of the trade to make the post process faster, easier and more transparent."

MAXIMIZING PRODUCTIVITY

Producing the half-hour weekly show California Dream Homes, which airs on KGTV/San Diego, is not only time consuming for multimedia production company Groovy Like a Movie, it's also "very processor and personnel consuming," says executive producer Brent Altomare.

To maximize its productivity, Groovy Like a Movie (www.groovylikeamovie.com) has tied together three suites featuring Apple Final Cut Pro, outfitted with AJA Kona capture cards, with a 2GB Fibre Channel SAN controlled by Rorke Data's Image-SAN OS X software.

"With the SAN we can continue to do other business," such as commercials and corporate videos, while cutting the magazinestyle real estate series, Altomare reveals. "And if we need more than one suite working on a project, we now have that capability. Without ImageSAN we couldn't be that productive."