ACADEMIA

Dot Hill Systems announced its award-winning AssuredSAN 3003 Series storage will be featured in three different solutions at NAB Show 2012 at the Las Vegas Convention Center April 14-19. Through these end-to-end video post-production workflow demonstrations, NAB Show attendees will see first-hand why so many experts rely on the richly-featured AssuredSAN storage platform for their media and entertainment applications.

Offering a winning combination of fast, reliable storage which integrates easily into existing post-production environments to support improved collaboration, the AssuredSAN 3003 Series increases productivity across multiple workstations. The blazing speed of Dot Hill storage combined with full support for Windows, OS X and Linux environments, makes Dot Hill AssuredSAN solutions ideal to support workflows using Apple Final Cut Pro, Autodesk Flame and Autodesk Flame Premium software, or any application demanding extreme video streaming performance and proven reliability.

"With a twenty year track record of innovative development, Autodesk's production-proven creative tools help artists build better 3D visual effects," said Benoit Pinsonnault, Autodesk Media & Entertainment, director of operations. "The ability to be configured as either direct-attach storage or as a storage area network, the Dot Hill AssuredSAN platform provides the versatility we need for our turnkey Autodesk Flame and Autodesk Flame Premium post-production solutions."

NAB Show attendees will see a 72 terabyte Dot Hill AssuredSAN storage system powering a StorNext® SAN. Running simultaneous demos on three different platforms, this single storage system will illustrate a true end-to-end dailies / editorial / finishing pipeline:

Colorfront On-Set Dailies- this complete demo sponsored by ALT Systems, a Dot Hill authorized reseller specializing in media and entertainment, will be demonstrating Colorfront On-Set Dailies software in a Windows environment, using AssuredSAN storage. Unparalleled RAID security, battery-free cache backup, and MIL SPEC vibration compliance make Dot Hill the perfect storage for the rigors of on-set data backup and digital dailies creation. This system has been used for fast and secure acquisition of on-set dailies for the upcoming biographical film, Of Men and Mavericks.

Final Cut Pro- Dot Hill will be showcasing its proprietary 8Gb Fibre Channel AssuredSAN storage with a Mac® Pro workstation platform running Final Cut Pro post-production editing software. Located in Booth SL13405 near the Post-production Pit, Dot Hill will demonstrate the performance advantages, with metrics, of AssuredSAN storage with Final Cut Pro.

Autodesk Flame Premium- Autodesk recently selected Dot Hill AssuredSAN storage as part of the turnkey industry-standard Autodesk Flame software. Autodesk and Dot Hill will be demonstrating Autodesk Flame Premium with AssuredSAN storage on a Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 5.7 workstation.

Designed to accelerate streaming, the Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3003 Series is fully optimized for today's advanced HD, 2k and 4k workflows. The AssuredSAN 3003 Series shared-storage solution allows post-production editors to leverage and access the same video assets from multiple editing suites at the same time. Using high-speed 8Gb Fibre Channel, Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3723 and 3733 linear performance models speed up production and rendering, while virtually eliminating dropped frames.

"Through our partnerships with Autodesk and ALT Systems, Dot Hill can offer compelling solutions in the media and entertainment marketplace which is why we are gaining momentum in this space," said Jim Jonez, senior director of marketing, Dot Hill. "With accelerated read-write performance and tremendous versatility, the AssuredSAN 3003 Series supports virtually any post-production environment including Mac OS X, Linux and Windows."

"The post-production schedule does not allow for failures," said Bruno Munger, vice president and chief technology officer at ALT Systems, Inc. "We need fast, flexible, bullet-proof hardware and software solutions that allow our customers to focus on what they do best - creating. Our longstanding relationship with Autodesk and our partnership with Dot Hill allow us to provide turnkey post-production solutions, based on high-performance storage that delivers up to 99.999 percent reliability."

The Dot Hill AssuredSAN storage portfolio offers up to 288 terabyes of capacity in a single system, great ease-of-use and up to 99.999 percent reliability. The AssuredSAN 3000 and 3003 Series feature the latest storage networking technologies such as 8Gb Fibre Channel and 10Gb iSCSI which opens the door to Fibre Channel levels of SAN performance for small- to medium-sized businesses based on standard Ethernet networking technology. AssuredSAN 3000 and 3003 Series arrays are available with Dot Hill AssuredRemote data management software for remote replication, AssuredCopy, Dot Hill's volume copy technology, and AssuredSnap snapshot capability for improved data availability and business continuity.

Additionally, Dot Hill AssuredSAN storage systems feature the company's patented EcoStor "green" battery-free alternative for cache memory, which leverages a combination of super capacitors and flash memory that outlasts traditional batteries nearly fivefold. Business benefits include lower maintenance and disposal costs and reduced server and application down-time due to scheduled battery replacement and maintenance.

NAB Show is the world's largest electronic media show covering filmed entertainment and the development, management and delivery of content across all mediums. With more than 90,000 attendees from 151 countries and 1,500+ exhibitors, NAB Show is the ultimate marketplace for digital media and entertainment. From creation to consumption, across multiple platforms and countless nationalities, NAB Show is home to the solutions that transcend traditional broadcasting and embrace content delivery to new screens in new ways.