Production Sound & Video

Spring 2021 – LOCAL695.ORG 31 be networked utilizing either the two 1g Ethernet ports or two 10g Ethernet ports, allowing for communication with up to four devices without the need for a network switch. Under the hood, the storage caddies have been tweaked to store the solid-state drives at the front of the unit, allowing all eight to be accessed from the front. This facilitates the ability to scale storage size as larger solid- state media continues to be produced at lower costs in the coming years. Several additional security updates have been added to the networking protocols, ensuring the digital safety of production content. Most importantly, the entire system has been optimized for concurrent throughput. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing productions to decentralize post-production environments, the ability to securely send digital files across a network in bulk has never been more important. This optimization allows Local 695 recordists to write new media to the rNAS while simultaneously allowing media to be read for the purpose of being copied, transcoded, or uploaded. rNAS supports any cloud-based transfer client, allowing recordists to send content directly to editors before the production even wraps. The result is that editors located anywhere in the world can be cutting content within hours or even minutes of it being shot. Though specific production conditions may impact performance, the rNAS.m4 set an impressive benchmark recording up to thirty-two streams of high-definition ProRes 422 footage at 27.97fps or ten streams of ultra high-definition content at 59.94fps. The rTB evolved from the production of the rNAS to meet the growing needs of productions that have not or are unable to migrate to server-based production, including remote and single-camera productions. Nearly identical in design, this direct-attached storage unit boasts the same ruggedized steel and aluminum body but sports two Thunderbolt 3 inputs in lieu of networking ports and an LCD screen. The eight-disk solid-state RAID pool has resulted in write speeds of up to 1469 megabytes per second, bringing rNAS performance to those in need of direct storage solutions such as Digital Media Managers and Video Assist Technicians. These speeds are ideal in production environments where 4K, 8K, and newly emerging 12K video content is being created and requires rapid ingestion. Moreover, the Thunderbolt architecture's bidirectional protocol in conjunction with the customized RAID controller's optimization of concurrent throughput means that rTB is ideally suited for use in conjunction with platforms that require high simultaneous read and write speeds, such as In2Core QTAKE. When paired together, a set of rTB units represents one of the fastest drive-to-drive transfer solutions in its form factor. This can facilitate the rapid creation of redundant media, shrinking the period of vulnerability in which media exists in only a single location. Aroesty adds that "695 members were involved at every stage of production. rNAS and rTB were developed in direct response to members' requests for resilient high- performance storage that can stand up to the rigors of remote production and transportation." In the digital era in which we currently find ourselves, we are inundated with data. For Local 695 data engineers, whose responsibilities can include media playback, projection, on-set chroma keying, off-camera recording, copying files from camera media to external storage devices, backup and redundancy creation, transcoding, and syncing, digital real estate is critical. The rNAS .m4 and rTB were designed by members for members and are ready to meet of the many challenges of our craft. The rNAS .m4 and rTB were designed by members for members and are ready to meet of the many challenges of our craft.

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