EARTH SCIENCES

Ascent Media Creative Services who’s creative talent has won numerous Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Clio Awards, and Monitor Awards in recognition of their role in the creation of feature film, television, and commercial content has selected SGI’s RM660 and Infinite 6700 as the primary storage solution supporting 4K, 2K and HD post production and digital intermediate workflow for their Company 3, Encore Hollywood and RIOT facilities. Artists, filmmakers, ad agencies and major studios have utilized Ascent Media’s innovative and state-of-the-art facilities to create films like Dreamgirls, Pirates of the Caribbean 2; episodic television like CSI NY, House, and Big Love; music videos for Beyonce Knowles and Justin Timberlake; as well as commercials for Dodge, Budweiser, and Boost Mobile. “We measure our success through the successes of our customers and the efficiencies we can bring to the process,” said Phil Mendelson, CTO of Ascent Media Creative Services. “Our passion and ongoing commitment to quality and innovation drives us to provide our customers with more creative flexibility and higher quality delivery options with enabling technologies like SGI’s storage solutions.” SGI’s RM660 and Infinite 6700 systems are based on DataDirect Networks’ (DDN) Silicon Storage Appliance (S2A) technology and is the ideal storage solution for creative environments. The S2A storage solution can help transform high definition post production, digital intermediate, and HD broadcast applications, into all-digital, high-throughput, collaborative production environments streamlined for maximum efficiency and creativity. Until recently, creating an open real-time storage system that could give filmmakers independent and simultaneous access to native HD, 2K (2048x1556) and 4K (4096x3072) high resolution content had been elusive. The S2A technology, with up to 3GB/s of sustained real-time throughput and up to 960TB of storage capacity, can easily scale to handle the bandwidth and capacity intensive requirements needed in the digital intermediate space, empowering true real-time collaborative workflow in digital post-production. “After significant due diligence, we chose SGI’s RM660 and Infinite 6700 storage solutions for several of our facilities including RIOT, Company 3 and Encore,” added Mr. Mendelson. “We found the RM660, based on DDN’s unique S2A technology, could support not only high concurrency but read and write performance equally. This unique capability gives us real-time multi-stream access to 4K, 2K, HD and SD content, a strong enabler for collaborative workflow. Incorporating this distinctive technology into our storage network infrastructure uniquely architected for artists and filmmakers allows our customers to create in real-time regardless of file format.” Ascent Media has installed over 150 Terabytes of shared storage capacity between several facilities supporting real-time access from ARRI Scanners, Thomson Spirit 4K DataCine, Da Vinci color correction system, AutoDesk Fire and Smoke editing system, Flame compositing and Inferno visual effects suites along with many other systems. This allows Ascent Media facilities to easily scale their bandwidth and capacity as their customers’ needs grow, while empowering real-time collaborative workflow throughout Ascent’s digital post-production and digital intermediate processes.