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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, Nev., April 7-10, SGI will be demonstrating powerful solutions in booth SL3868 that put information technology (IT) to work for broadcasters, post-production professionals and broadband businesses. SGI(R) data management solutions transform a slow, video-based workflow into an effective dataflow. This dataflow unites a facility's entire operations through the SGI(R) CXFS(TM) shared filesystem with a storage area network (SAN) -- enabling the secure sharing of video as data files across high-speed networks. For broadcasters, that means getting news to air faster. For post-production professionals, it means moving multiple film or video resolution projects through their facilities simultaneously. Overall, the SGI digital data IT infrastructure can improve a staff's productivity and profitability. Broadcasters and post-production professionals are just beginning to see the advantages of IT, of a digital data infrastructure. They're finding that just transitioning from analog to digital video is not enough," said Chris Golson, senior director of Media Industries, SGI. "As a computing company, what sets SGI apart from our competitors is that we also understand the world of video. We're able to develop interoperability between the worlds of data and video that is of great benefit to our customers." SGI has digital infrastructure installations for broadcasters in Denmark, France, Germany, the United States and the Czech Republic, and production and film mastering facilities such as EFILM, Laboratoire Eclair and Weta Digital. At NAB, SGI is demonstrating the ROI -- return on investment, return on interoperability and return on IT -- that the SGI digital infrastructure delivers to customers. "The infrastructure is so scalable and flexible -- integrating Windows and Mac clients -- that we like to call it 'infinite structure,'" said Golson. "SGI will offer hands-on demonstrations of the digital workflows of Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) and the revolutionary film mastering and digital intermediates process that showcases the interoperability of SGI SAN solution with best-of-breed partners' hardware and software solutions running on a variety of operating systems." Infinite Structure SGI has developed a data infrastructure that: -- Simplifies and integrates the use of multiple computer operating systems and video and film formats -- Transparently lets all the digital media stored in the facility appear as local storage to all applications; users no longer need to be concerned with where the material is because their access speed and usage rights will be as if the material is stored on their local systems -- Scales throughput effectively without limits for maximum utilization -- Supports hundreds of clients and millions of terabytes of storage This infinite structure is based on the SGI(R) XFS(TM) filesystem, a robust, high-performance, 64-bit filesystem able to scale up to 18 million terabytes. That's thousands of years of 50Mb broadcast material or nine million uncompressed movies at full 2K resolution. Although filesystems routinely impose limitations on broadcasters and post facilities, the SGI filesystem provides an essentially limitless growth path. File transfer speed will not be an issue either. Multiple Fibre Channel connections have already allowed SGI users to achieve 12GB per second of aggregate throughput. That kind of bandwidth will allow broadcasters and post-production facilities to expand, secure in the knowledge that they won't be outgrowing their data infrastructure for years to come. The XFS file-journaling technology guarantees high reliability and restarts in less than one second after an unexpected interruption, regardless of the number of files it manages. SGI CXFS adds to XFS the capability of sharing the filesystem and storage directly with other SGI servers and with other operating systems, including Windows NT(R), Windows(R) 2000, Linux(R) 64-bit support for the SGI(R) Altix(TM) family and Linux(R)32-bit client, with Mac OS(R) X available in late 2003. A proven shared filesystem developed by SGI for government and defense applications six years ago, CXFS is now being applied to other SGI industries. CXFS has been installed at more than 300 customer sites worldwide and on more than 1,100 clients. It enables true file sharing, which means unnecessary data motion and replication is eliminated, thus reducing network traffic, congestion and storage needs. It makes storage transparent to all clients on a SAN. Another key option to the solution is SGI(R) Data Migration Facility (DMF), a hierarchical data management tool that seamlessly moves content from deep archives to near-line and online storage, making it ideal for media customers needing fast and reliable access to archived material. Infinite Structure for Broadcast SGI will feature its broadcast system solution, demonstrating the innovative approach presently being built at Georgia Public Broadcasting. Based on the SGI CXFS shared filesystem, broadcast assets are seamlessly shared from ingest to editing and playout. SGI will introduce several new capabilities for its open-architecture SGI Media Server(TM) for broadcast system, including support for D10/IMX MPEG-2 compression, DVCPRO 25 and DVCPRO 50 compression and support for the MXF file format. This model news workflow consists of interoperability with best-of-breed applications including: -- Quality control review of ingested content using Harris Media Client and SGI Media Server for broadcast playout channel -- Transfer of ingested content from SGI Media Server to the SGI SAN Server(TM) 1000 system with CXFS archive via Masstech MassStore system -- Automatic MPEG-4 proxy generation, review and cuts only edit via Masstech MassProxy and MassBrowse systems -- Editing of ingested content on SGI SAN Server 1000 by Pinnacle Liquid blue(TM) nonlinear editor (NLE) -- Transfer of edited content from NLE to SGI Media Server for broadcast for playout via Harris Louth automation system -- Automatic transfer of edited content from Pinnacle Systems NLE into MassStore archive system and simultaneous proxy via MassProxy -- Generation of real-time broadcast graphics overlay by vizrt(TM) command pilot At NAB, SGI will also be demonstrating interoperability between SGI Media Server for broadcast and Sony(R) e-VTR based on Sony(R) MPEG IMX(TM) at the Pro-MPEG Forum in Meeting Room S230. Infinite Structure for Production SGI will also showcase its digital infrastructure for production, demonstrating high-speed sharing of media assets between IRIX(R), Linux and Windows 2000 OS-based workstations connected directly to the SGI SAN Server 1000 system. The demonstration features data from film transfer and digital camera acquisition being edited, composited and color graded without the time-consuming copying of files. With the newly announced Linux 32-bit client and Linux 64-bit support for the SGI Altix 3000 family, CXFS enables IRIX, Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Solaris(TM) clients. Mac OS X clients are currently supported via file serving, with a direct Fibre Channel access option available later this year. [Editor's note: For more information, see the news release dated April 4, 2003, titled "Major SGI Allies in Film Mastering Promote SGI Digital Infrastructure and Visualization Solutions at NAB"] Broadband SGI will be launching both VOD and network digital video recording architectures for cable television and telco operators. The solution consists of Kasenna(TM) MediaBase(TM) XMP Cable Edition, the CXFS shared filesystem, storage area networks and SGI(R) Origin(R) 300 servers. This VOD architecture gives tens of thousands of households real-time access to as many as 50,000 hours of television content.