(Montréal, Canada--April 14, 2009) MaxT Systems Inc., developers of server-based media applications and high-performance storage solutions, today announced that Eclair Laboratoires, a leading digital post production company in France, has purchased and installed three of its Sledgehammer HD!O high-performance network attached storage (NAS)/realtime HD video device systems at the heart of its high-volume film restoration facility.
Installed in early April, the three Sledgehammer systems have been dedicated to the restoration of many films from the Gaumont Film Company's historical film archive, including "Un Taxi pour Tobrouk," "Les Yeux Sans Visage," "Les Tontons Flingueurs" 35mm classics. Founded in 1895, the prestigious, Paris-based Gaumont Film Company has amassed one of the world's most impressive film archives, and Éclair expects to restore over 70 Gaumont motion picture classics this year using the Sledgehammer systems.
"For film restoration and remastering in HD and 2K, Éclair wanted to build an 'industrial' digital cinema workflow from scanning to mastering," said Frantz Delbecque, technical director for Éclair Laboratoires, in Epinay-Sur-Seine, France. "After considerable evaluation, we determined that the Sledgehammer HD!O was uniquely qualified to meet all of our requirements. To merge video and film workflows onto centralized, shared storage, we needed an extremely fast, reliable NAS that would support our scanners, color grading systems, and restoration tools without compromising realtime HD 4:4:4 input/output [I/O] - even when network demand peaks."
At Éclair, the three Sledgehammers-each configured with 24-terabytes of storage for a total capacity of 72TBs-support a high-intensity workflow that encompasses an Arriscan and Northlight film scanners; Spirit telecine for transferring film to digital video; da Vinci Revival color grading/restoration system; and Autodesk Flame visual effects compositing systems, all linked to Sledgehammer via HD-SDI video, or 10-Gigabit Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet data networks. Several film restoration workstations also have direct access to Sledgehammer's contents to perform automated dirt and scratch removal and image enhancement, including the Digital Vision ASC3, MTI system, and three of Éclair's own proprietary, in-house Colorus grading systems.
Designed for such processing-intensive tasks as film restoration, visual effects creation, and digital film mastering, the Sledgehammer HD!O offers simultaneous, high-performance data and realtime video I/O, with sustained throughput of 500-700 megabytes per second; support for full HD 4:4:4 and High-Speed Data Link (HSDL) 2K I/O capabilities; as well as MAXmedia™ feature-rich media processing software all in one system.
"With the Sledgehammers, our workflow is totally tapeless even when images are uncompressed, which saves us money by reducing our use of costly HD VTRs," said Frantz Delbecque. "And our productivity is boosted thanks to our ability to work on several projects at one time, and the elimination of network transfer bottlenecks."
Once content is digitized onto Sledgehammer HD!O, it can be accessed concurrently as video and/or data without any scheduling or system administration, and HD masters can be down-converted on the fly to any video format-saving storage space. Among its many capabilities, the system can output, playback and record uncompressed media in realtime in any standard format, and any resolution from NTSC to 4K, at 8-bit, 10-bit, or 12-bit color depth. With the dual-stream option, Sledgehammer replaces both the source telecine and destination VTR at all HD resolutions, with automated, realtime 2:3 pull down. Linear color correctors can access stored content in a nonlinear manner. And with MAXmedia, Sledgehammer's media management software, image data files become clips that can be browsed, reviewed, assembled, and played as if on a multi-format DDR.
"Sledgehammer is unique as an open, scalable platform that can multi-task to serve the needs of any production pipeline," said Stephen Elliott, sales manager for the EMEA region for MaxT Systems. "And Éclair is a unique installation in that they are using all of Sledgehammer's high-performance features to their fullest-with multiple video I/O's, high-speed 2K HSDL between devices and workstations, and shared, central storage on a 10Gb Ethernet network-as well as MAXmedia software for the preview, manipulation, and management of media."
About Éclair Laboratoires
Éclair Laboratoires is a high-end postproduction facility specializing in film restoration, digital visual effects, editing, and digital cinema mastering. The company has the expertise to preserve the quality of the original filmed image in the digital cinema master. Eclair's fully digital, centralized workflow ranges from high-speed film scanning and telecine to DCP (Digital Cinema Package) Mastering and 35mm film recording. Éclair also offers Éclair Laboratoires and its sister company, Éclair Studios, are located in Epinay-Sur-Seine, Cedex, France. For more information, call 01-49-40-59-00 or visit http://www.eclair.fr.
About MaxT Systems Inc.
MaxT Systems Inc. (http://www.max-t.com) develops applications for media management, preparation and editing, as well as networked media servers and storage infrastructure solutions. Max-T's media-aware storage and server solutions deliver high performance over commodity networks, using smart software that runs on industry-standard hardware. Media management and preparation tools are tightly integrated within the product line, delivering enriched functionality in a single, versatile solution. The company pioneered the development of shared storage solutions that can be simultaneously accessed over both data and video networks and multi-user server-based editing applications deployed over LANs or as a service over the Web. Max-T offers products with unparalleled performance at the lowest total cost-of-ownership in their class.
###
|
| | | |
 Related News:
 Related Article:
 Molecule Fueled Imagination
Film? Television? Production? Post? Visual effects? Animation? Stereoscopic 3D? Interactive design? By answering Yes, all of the above, The Molecule keeps its eyes beyond the horizon.
Read Article Subscribe
more articles » | | | | |
|
