StorageDNA

“By employing LTO-5 media instead of conventional Sony
HDCAM-SR tape, producers can reduce media costs and tape
deck costs by thousands of dollars,” reveals Chakravarty.
“With LTFS technology, LTO users can rapidly nd content
throughout the production and post-production processes,
and they are quickly recognizing it as a nearline solution for
media workows rather than just an archive medium.”
Digital Pictures, StorageDNA
and James Cameron’s
DEEPSEA CHALLENGE
With over 35 years’ experience, Digital Pictures is Australia’s
premier lm and television post-production specialist.
Director James Cameron’s DEEPSEA CHALLENGE from
Great Wight Expedition Films involved handling massive
amounts of content for a new project. To satisfy the project’s
needs, Digital Pictures proposed producing an ecient and
cost-eective post-production pipeline comprising of a
high-performance archive and retrieval workow solution.
The solution had to reduce post-production processing
times by eliminating time-consuming manual processes,
ingest and digitize lm or tape to Digital Picture Exchange,
and lower stock media and SAN storage costs. It also had to
minimize form factor, maximize performance and deliver
format exibility. Furthermore, it had to t a RANGER Data
Cart, a streamlined content management system designed to
satisfy the data demands of a production in mobile or remote
locations. The cart would be positioned on the Mermaid
Sapphire, the ship from which Cameron would launch his
underwater dives.
Digital Pictures approached StorageDNA after recognizing
the performance and speed benets of its DNA Evolution™
archive and retrieval workow solution. StorageDNA’s
sophisticated and reliable solutions help lm, video and
broadcast professionals to optimize the management and
delivery of their le-based digital workows, boosting
eciency and decreasing costs.
“Our relationship with Digital Pictures blossomed after we’d
successfully deployed LTO as nearline and archival storage
for several projects under dicult lming conditions such as
on-vehicle and jungle shoots,” explains Chakravarty. “They
then came back with Cameron’s DEEPSEA CHALLENGE, which
involved switching from video tape to tapeless workows for
the lming of a documentary. Although going tapeless and
storing content on LTO media are popular, an ecient way to
retrieve content is absolutely essential.
“Our DNA Evolution™ solution is ideal for this purpose as an
edit list of the low-resolution sequences quickly nds the
frames across all LTO tapes, regardless of number, and the
software only brings back the correct content to conform,”
continues Chakravarty. “By keeping the high-resolution
media live on LTO tape as opposed to online disk storage,
our solution provides a huge cost saving. We estimate users
may reduce their storage requirements by 33 percent and
everything is much faster because it eliminates manual
frame and sequence searches.”
StorageDNA now had to identify suitable hardware for the
cart and Digital Pictures’ post-production facility. “We liked
how HP quickly recognized the potential of our LTFS solution
and delivered helpful technical and business support while
we moved to market,” states Chakravarty. “Choosing HP as
our LTO hardware partner proved a wise decision. With 150
solutions deployed, we nd the HP hardware oers excellent
performance and reliability.”
3
DEEPSEA
CHALLENGE from
Great Wight
Expedition Films
Although best known for
directing lms such as
Titanic and Avatar,
James Cameron is an avid
oceanic explorer with
72 submersible dives
including 33 to the wreck
of RMS Titanic.
To advance understanding
of the oceans’ biological
and geological
phenomena, he secretly
formed the DEEPSEA
CHALLENGE team. Its
objective was to construct
a customized submersible
and send the manned
vehicle to the deepest
place on Earth, the
Challenger Deep, which lies
6.83 miles (36,062 feet)
below the ocean surface
in the Mariana Trench. At
this depth, the conditions
are daunting. Sunlight
is absent, temperatures
approach freezing and
pressure exceeds a
thousand times that
experienced at the surface.
On March 26, 2012,
Cameron successfully
piloted “Deepsea
Challenger” to the Pacic
Ocean’s deepest point. As
he maneuvered the vessel
across the unexplored
terrain amidst strange new
animals for several hours,
he collected samples for
research and lmed a
feature-length, 3D high-
resolution documentary.
The content forms part of
an untitled lm comprising
footage from nine dives
at various depths and at
dierent locations.