Nathaniel Cooper
Forum Replies Created
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Bob,
Thanks for posting this, this is critical info.
Just a heads up to ProMAX Platform customers who are reading this post. This issue does not affect ProMAX Platform users who wish to update their systems to 10.11.5.
The joys of networking!
Nathaniel Cooper
ProMAX Systems -
Hey Clayton,
Editshare and EVO are both good options from good companies that have been doing this a while.
Editshare is pretty comprehensive and offers Flow with their storage, Flow is very feature rich MAM software; not quite a CatDV but close. The downside (in my opinion) on Editshare is that there is no succinct interface between the shared storage and the asset management, they are more or less two separate products rolled into one server. They do offer some transcoding.
EVO is (again in my opinion) a much nicer interface than Editshare, their sharebrowser integrates the storage and MAM into a single interface. Ease of use is higher here, but capabilities will be lower compared to an Editshare. There is no transcoding on EVO. The other thing to keep in mind is EVO still uses SANmp volume locking software for most users, which only allows 1 user to write to a volume at a time, pretty much every other option on the market allows all users to read and write at the same time.
As far as other products, I’m partial to ProMAX Platform (as I do work there!), we do the single interface for Shared Storage and MAM, all file locking, with Transcoding. We also acquired Cache-A corporation and integrated their LTO software into Platform. ProMAX is the only company out there that offers Shared Storage, MAM & Backup/Archive in a single interface. If you want to check it out below is a quick link to the interface.
Good luck in your searching!
Nathaniel Cooper
nathaniel@promax.comhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqlSzlg0iUc&feature=youtu.be
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It’s hard to say generically what performance you need. However, if what you have is working fine from that standpoint; you could bench mark your local drives with a tool like the Blackmagic speed test. That at least gives you a baseline for what you are looking for.
1GbE vs 10GbE, somewhat depends on that baseline. If your current set up is pushing substantially more than 90MB/s you may want to go 10GbE otherwise, you’ll probably see a drop in performance (I know that’s not your need, but you don’t want to change 1 problem for another).
It’s pretty rare I have clients working in the applications you mentioned that don’t want to go 10GbE, so without any benchmarks that is definitely safe. The cost has also come down quite a bit on the 10GbE hardware.
If you want to discuss further or chat with one of our dealers they may be able to help as well (with our product or other options).
Just shoot me at note at nathaniel@promax.com if you’re interested in chatting more.
Best Regards,
N
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Hi Andres – Good information to start out. A few additional questions.
– Are AE & Maya the only two applications you are using, or are there any other applications?
– Can you give more details on your local RAID0 HDD set up? Are those internal or external? What type/size of drives are those? Any specifics would help.
– You didn’t mention anything about improving performance, is the performance on local workstations enough for you? Or is that something you need to improve as well?Best,
Nathaniel Cooper
ProMAX Systems
nathaniel@promax.com -
Hey Marty, thanks for posting your question.
It sounds like you already have everything you need on the users/switch. What storage are you connecting to? Is that connecting through one of the Macs? Have you set up and tested it yet?
With 10GbE your pipe will be plenty for video, latency can still be problematic, which is addressed by the off the shelf manufactures. That said, for 3 users depending on your storage speed and how much you like to mess with set up. You should be able to get 3 users editing simultaneously.
The value of doing it yourself is that you should be able to save a few thousand dollars. The downside is you will generally have more random performance issues and and likely from time to time end up copying files locally, but overall (depending on formats/codecs) will work.
The value of an ‘off the shelf’ is guaranteed performance, user interface and a lot of feature sets that go beyond shared storage by itself. The downside is you will pay more. If you go this route, avoid getting shot by making sure you’re getting a product that does more than what you can build yourself. Most of them do at this point, some more than other; but any of the main servers should do way more than just sharing video files.
Again, if you already have the hardware, set it up and test it. Do a round of demos with all the main vendors and see where you land.
Good luck!
Nathaniel Cooper
ProMAX -
Yehoshua,
If it’s all internal and all creative department I would emphasize keeping it simple. Let your creative team stay focused on creative, if you try forcing them into spending 10 minutes entering metadata a couple of times a day, you’ll have difficulty with adoption. There are a few systems out there, ProMAX (which I am partial to ;), Axel and CatDV are probably the most ‘simple’ that are media focused in our space.
If you decide you want to get into a lot of automation, complex metadata options and integration with whatever signage/delivery workflows you have, you can also look into something like a Dalet. However, the level of complexity with skyrocket.
I hope this helps.
Best Regards,
Nathaniel Cooper – ProMAX Systems
nathaniel@promax.com -
Can you give specifics on
– What are 3 or 4 examples of information would someone want to search by to find a video?
– How will the video be used once they find it?
– Will it only be internal staff (editors/artists) that needs to search?Also, I’m curious, if you are a small team (assuming that means 3-6 in the team) why/how would you be expanding to 100 users in a 3 year period? Would all of these users be creative staff? Also, would everyone be in a single location or will these users be spread out geographically?
Kind Regards,
Nathaniel Cooper
nathaniel@promax.com
(949) 861-2725 -
Hi Yehoshua,
A few things to keep in mind…
There are two types of Metadata
1. Structural
2. DescriptiveThink about these and be aware of them. Structural would be details on the file (extension, size, frame rate, aspect ratio, etc.); descriptive is well… descriptive (customer, red shirt, bike, etc.)
How you organize it will depend on many many factors, including everything from how many users will access it, to how much training and management you plan on putting into the system.
Unless you are a larger organization, with MAM I urge you to keep it simple. More often than note I recommend you force yourself to 2 Structural Fields and 3 Descriptive Fields. Beyond that is where I see user adoption drop off quickly.
Hope this helps.
Nathaniel Cooper
nate.cooper@promax.com
(949) 861-2725 -
Hey Craig,
You’re looking at the right group of products. I’m glad you mentioned ProMAX, as that is my company, that said…
Us (ProMAX) and Editshare are the only ones that actually make all of what you mentioned as a single vendor eco systems (Storage, MAM, LTO, etc.) both are solid systems, albeit, I do think ours is better 😉 Both additionally have options for transcoding, ours is built in, I believe with Editshare transcoding is an add on. We (ProMAX) also have AE/C4D rendering built in.
The two others that will come up are Facilis and SNS. Facilis is shared storage only, SNS offers shared storage and MAM. Facilis use P5 software for LTO and SNS I think usually teams up with XenData.
If you want to dig into the details on ProMAX Platform, hit me up and I’ll be happy to dig in with you.
Best,
Nathaniel Cooper
ProMAX
nate.cooper@promax.com
(949) 861-2725 -
Hey Matt,
I don’t think you and I have connected yet, I see you already got your dose of bob’s sophomoric berating. It’s apparently a required tax on this forum…
That said, is there a specific reason you would move away from Small Tree? If you already have that in place, I’m wondering what would be the hesitation in just growing that system, as that is usually what people do when all is well.
If you want specific users to chime in, honestly, a LOT more vendors hang out on here than end users. It’s few and far between that I’ve seen an end user chime in.
That said, if you want to talk to any ProMAX Platform users, I’m happy to connect you. If you want to talk technical differences between those solutions, feel free to hit me up as well.
Either way, let us know why you ‘might’ move off of small tree and depending on why, you may get some good info on your best options.
Good luck!
Nate Cooper – ProMAX
nate.cooper@promax.com