MIDDLEWARE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., -- Spectacular increases in workflow productivity will soon be available to the film mastering and high-definition (HD) production and post-production communities through major SGI allies. In conjunction with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Conference in Las Vegas, April 7-10, SGI (NYSE:SGI) announced its expanded relationship with Discreet Advanced Systems group and new solutions powered by SGI with da Vinci. SGI and Discreet As part of its launch of its new infrastructure strategy, Discreet has chosen the SGI SAN Server(TM) 1000 solution and SGI(R) CXFS(TM) shared filesystem as its initial Film SAN. This offering to the film mastering and digital intermediate market will enable multiple operating system applications from Discreet and other companies to share content with greater efficiencies. When fully implemented, CXFS open-system software running on a SAN powered by SGI will allow Discreet customers instant, shared access to files without costly and time-consuming copying of files. The benefit is clear, by providing a data management solution that is reliable, flexible and scalable, the solution can improve customer workflow and ultimately speed up the completion of projects. By increasing productivity, the solution enables facilities to manage multiple jobs, making the most of their digital infrastructure investment and, most importantly, optimizing the time of their creative talent. Discreet, offering some of the most highly regarded visual effects systems for film and television, is SGI's leading independent software vendor. As part of its newly launched infrastructure sparks(R) program, Discreet is working with SGI to qualify the SGI SAN Server(TM) 1000 system configuration -- a bundled solutions package that includes all of the necessary components to create an SGI CXFS SAN. The package consists of SGI(R) Origin(R) 300 servers, CXFS software, Brocade(R) Fibre Channel switches and SGI(R) TP9500 storage. "SGI is thrilled at the opportunity to work closely with Discreet to develop a new, improved workflow solution for our customers utilizing the SGI OS-agnostic digital infrastructure and Discreet world-class 2K universal mastering, editing, finishing and new color grading products," said Louise Ledeen, director of production, Media Industries, SGI. "This expansion of our long-standing relationship will greatly further our position in the film mastering and digital intermediate market by providing our mutual customers with the data rates they require and the open-system digital infrastructure they demand." "SGI CXFS SAN technology is a key component in Discreet's drive to provide its clients with high-performance, open, infrastructure solutions that provide true benefit to high-end film and HD workflows," said Maurice Patel, product marketing manager, Discreet Systems. "Our clients require storage solutions that stretch beyond traditional video systems to embrace today's ever higher resolutions from HDTV to 2K and above. The high bandwidth of the SGI SAN with CXFS allows multiple client systems to instantly access files, increasing productivity by eliminating file transfers. Another key benefit is the heterogeneity of the CXFS shared filesystem since Discreet's applications run on a variety of operating systems. CXFS provides our mutual customers with the ability to use the best of breed applications on any OS-for instance, combustion on Macintosh, 3ds max software on Windows and our new digital color grading software debuting at NAB-all accessing a high-performance shared filesystem central to the facility." SGI and da Vinci "da Vinci's new enhancement to our 2K and 2K Plus color correction systems will increase productivity by addressing some of the key problems facing the film mastering community," said Matthew Straeb, vice president, Marketing and Product Management, da Vinci. "The combined power of our new Server Interface Option (SIO) for our 2K color correction system coupled with the SGI SAN with CXFS is the increased performance and productivity. Customers now have the ability to handle large amounts of data, be heterogeneous in terms of clients and speed up the workflow of a single project and, by doing so, enable a facility to have more jobs running. Da Vinci is pleased to hold a prominent position of the film mastering workflow being demonstrated in the SGI booth at NAB 2003." Digital Infrastructure for Production at SGI NAB Booth SL3868 A complete workflow utilizing products from SGI allies Discreet and da Vinci connected to the SGI CXFS SAN will be demonstrated in the SGI booth. Content will come from a Thomson/Grass Valley Viper Filmstream(TM) camera and be fed into the da Vinci 2K color correction system with Server Interface. A combination of a transfer manager and data monitoring application, da Vinci's newest solution runs on an SGI(R) Onyx(R) family visualization system that takes in the data from any source and performs color correction on that data. As an added plus, the same Server Interface solution or part of the solution can also be used to run other applications. At the NAB 2003 production workflow demonstration, content provided by Eastman Kodak Company and GVG/Thomson will be visualized as if it came directly from a telecine or a Viper camera into the da Vinci system, which allows visual reference of the data analogous to a waveform or vectorscope used in video broadcasting environments. Once data is ingested, da Vinci's 2K Plus color corrector will be used. The color-graded data will then be returned to the SGI CXFS SAN where other applications will manipulate the shared content, including Discreet(R) combustion(R), which will create mattes for rotoscoping. To demonstrate the heterogeneity of SGI CXFS SAN, Alias|Wavefront9(TM) Maya(R) will be running on Linux(R), and Apple(R) Final Cut Pro(R) and Pinnacle CineWave(TM) will be running on Mac OS(R) X, all being file served. Finally, the elements created on the gamut of applications will be put together using Interactive Effects' Piranha(TM), running on an SGI Onyx visualization system, as a compositing and conforming application. A Lasergraphics Producer 2 film recorder, also a direct client on the SAN, will complete the process, showing how data can be output back to film, back to HD or to whatever medium is desired. Other key production solution demonstrations by SGI(R) IRIX(R) OS developers can be seen at the following booths: Mathematical Technologies, Inc. (SL3823), GVG/Thomson (SU7059), Cintel (C2225), Filmlight (SL2050) and Photron USA (SL2256). Further SGI CXFS SAN Announcements SGI is also announcing additional clients for CXFS SAN including Mac OS X later this year as well as a Linux 32-bit client in May and Linux 64-bit client support for the new SGI(R) Altix(TM) 3000 family server this summer. Critical to Discreet, da Vinci and the industry at large is the announcement that a new generation of Guaranteed Rate I/O (GRIO) currently on the SGI(R) XFS(TM) standard filesystem will be available on the SGI CXFS shared filesystem later this year as GRIO V2. With GRIO V2, editors, colorists and artists requiring guaranteed real-time performance will be able to reserve the bandwidth required for the resolution they are currently working in, allowing the facility to optimize the use of available resources. Unreserved capacity will be available for background tasks and non-real-time users. "The next-generation GRIO architecture, which supports the SGI CXFS SAN environment, is an innovation that will have a direct impact on SGI's continuing leadership in digital infrastructure for high-end film mastering and digital intermediaries, as well as HD and SD production and post," Ledeen concluded.