[Duncan Beattie]

Hi Marc

Great question so we hope we can offer some guidance. When ingesting the media the files will be stored on some form of central storage allowing many files stored together for QC of the ingested media.

Once in place the MAM (CatDV) can catalog, record or add additional information or metadata. Assuming there is no editing required this will for a simple workflow to write off to LTO. If editing is required another step can be added simply.

There are however a few things to consider.

Speed of tape writes. LTO-7 for example writes at 300MB/Sec so the storage system need to be able to provide files at that rate to the tape to ensure full speed. If the storage cannot then the tape writes can take a long time. Add in another drive to increase performance and then you need 600MB/Sec and so on. All of course whilst you are writing to the storage with new captures.

Multiple copies. To ensure you have some integrity it is best to write at least two copies of integrate cloud storage to ensure that extra copy.

Tape format. There are many different archive formats however some of these can be propitiatory meaning to restore you need the solution that wrote the file in the first place. Open formats like LTFS (Linear Tape File System) are useful as the tape can be mounted on any OS, with the relevant drivers, as a volume and data copied off. The downside is that each tape is volume so spanning data across tapes can be problematic. TAR or USTar (Uniform Standard Tape Archive) is an established universal format and written in the correct form can be very fast even with mixed file sizes.

MAM integration. Being able to have the MAM solution send files to tape once the QC process is complete is ideal and in this case CatDV can certainly do this for you.

We do have a solution that would fit your requirements and we would be very happy to discuss this with you and show how we tackle some of the hurdles mentioned above.

Look forward to discussing further with you.

Duncan Beattie
VP of Presales
GB Labs Ltd
duncan (@) gblabs.co.uk
http://www.gblabs.co.uk

[Duncan Beattie]

Hi Laurens

I hope you do not think this too forward however we have, we think, exactly what you are looking for in FastNAS.

https://gblabs.co.uk/products/FastNAS_F_8_Nitro/

Happy to give you a remote demo of the software to help you design a workflow.

many thanks

Duncan

Duncan Beattie
VP of Product Management and Sales
GB Labs LLP
duncan (@) gblabs.co.uk
http://www.gblabs.co.uk

[Duncan Beattie]

Hi Marcus.

Just read your post and to be honest the upgrade should be a lot less than the cost you are mentioning.

Would be very happy to show you the new features on the software as V3 is way above V2, if that is what you are on. Features like snapshot replication, FTP, HTTP sharing plus the automation tools. There is so much more than just AFP services. All that plus a performance boost with the new OS as well.

Hopefully we will hear from you.

yours

Duncan

Duncan Beattie
VP of Product Management and Sales
GB Labs LLP
duncan (@) gblabs.co.uk
http://www.gblabs.co.uk

[Duncan Beattie]

Hi Kannan

Many thanks for your interest. The Mini comes with a single 4 port 1GBe card allowing you to connect up to four direct devices or bond to a switch. We can deliver up to 116Mb/Sec over GBe allowing you to pull 4 streams of ProRes 422 HQ 25, for example. We also have options for 10Gbe in the Mini.

A worldwide news agency has over 50 of our systems and they use the Mini for their journalists in the field, to ingest and edit, producing over 700 hours of broadcast for London 2012.

The Mini will deliver over the network, at maximum simultaneous peak, 10 streams of 422 HQ 25. This is 10 streams of independent media being pulled at exactly the same second. If you add in stop start editing and media sharing then real world performance is higher but difficult to quantify. That being said Performance has never been an issue for our systems. This is reason our solutions were developed in 2006. High speed open NAS.

In your environment capturing a stream will normally use the equivalent of 2 write streams however we have technology in our systems that allow switching between Editing and Production modes to prevent cache dumps to disk.

The Mini also has options for Mirrored OS Disk, Dual PSU and DC Power. It fits great in a Peli case so can travel as luggage on airlines.

If you go to this page and click on the tab at the bottom you will see the performance figures for the Mini.
https://www.gblabs.co.uk/products/Mini_Space/

I hope this helps.

yours

Duncan

Duncan Beattie
Global Product Manager
GB Labs LLP
duncan (@) gblabs.co.uk
http://www.gblabs.co.uk

[Duncan Beattie]

Hi David

Glad to hear you are so happy with your 32TB unit. We also do a range of portable solutions which will work in the same way. Also with our new V3 you can use workflow tools to move data back from your field unit to your main storage to keep your files safe.

https://www.gblabs.co.uk/products/Mini_Space/

Very happy to give you a call to discuss.

many thanks

Duncan

Duncan Beattie
Global Product Manager
GB Labs LLP
duncan (@) gblabs.co.uk
http://www.gblabs.co.uk

[Duncan Beattie]

Hi Christopher

We use 1Gbe and 10Gbe distributed via direct connections or via switches. We can saturate 1Gbe (up to 106MB/Sec) so with ProRes 422 HQ 25, for example, we can deliver 4 streams down a 1GBe. Our standard rack system SPACE will deliver 18 streams. This can be direct connect 1Gbe or via 10Gbe to a switch the 1GBe to the clients.

SPACE is a system designed to be edited directly from.

What is your requirement?

Duncan Beattie
European Territory Manager
GB Labs LLP
duncan (@) gblabs.co.uk
http://www.gblabs.co.uk

[Duncan Beattie]

Hi Micha

We have carried out a lot of testing with FCPX and SPACE.

What we have found is the following.

Folders held on the SPACE project shares can be added to FCPX as SAN locations. They can then be used as locations for projects and events. Multiple SAN locations can be added to one FCPX logged in user. There are warnings and option given by FCPX to remove or ignore locations when multiple FCPX’s try to connect to the same location.

Files can then be imported form another shared project on SPACE with the option of copying the media when you do so. Or media files can be copied from other storage to a central location on SPACE so those assets are available to all editors.

It also supports the creation of all the automatic render files that FCPX creates.

From there you can follow and use Apples best practices on using FCPX with XSAN as the same workflow continues from there. https://support.apple.com/kb/HT5084

A mixed FCPX and FCP7 environment is no problem.

There are also other very useful tools to help with FCPX workflow. I have listed them below. GB Labs does not have any financial interest in these companies.

Third party events manager for FCPX
https://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/EventManagerX/

FCP7 to X Project Converter
https://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/7toX/

FCP7 to X Project Converter
https://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/Xto7/

If you have any questions you are very welcome to contact me and I can send you our FCPX with SPACE guide.

Duncan Beattie
European Territory Manager
GB Labs (Europe)
duncan at gblabs.co.uk