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SGI and DVS enhance HD and 2K production workflow (5/10/2005)

SGI and DVS enhance production workflow for film studios and Digital Intermediate facilities with integrated HD and data management products.

To satisfy the integrated storage and networking demands of major motion picture studios and high-definition (HD) production and post-production facilities, Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) and DVS Digital Video Systems GmbH today announced two major breakthroughs. Through their joint research and development efforts, HD and 2K film I/O are now available on the Silicon Graphics Prism(tm) visualization system. In addition, the DVS CLIPSTER(tm) real-time HD and digital intermediate (DI) workstation is now optimized for SGI(r) InfiniteStorage RM660 SAN systems with SGI(r) InfiniteStorage Shared Filesystem CXFS(tm) Furthermore, SGI and DVS (IBC Stand 7.421) are collaborating on adding SGI(r) GRIO V2 quality of service (QoS) reservation capabilities that will allow the shared architecture of SGI InfiniteStorage systems to effortlessly allocate network bandwidth for the DVS CLIPSTER as the production workflow requires.

The DVS Centaurus(r) SD/HD/2K video board supports the 64-bit Linux(r) operating system. The Centaurus board will be available as the SGI(r) DMediaPro(tm) DM12 digital media option to the Silicon Graphics Prism visualization system. DM12 will provide the professional digital media interface for up to 2K (8-bit or 10-bit) input and output, with single and dual link HD-SDI capabilities including dual-link output for RGBA (4:4:4:4) or YUVA (4:2:2:4). The DM12 card will have eight channels of digital audio, which can either be embedded or configured with AES/EBU interfaces. The DM12 board will facilitate greatly increased processing speeds, offering application developers of digital video solutions significantly more performance for their products on the Silicon Graphics Prism system.

"As part of a continuing effort with DVS, the Open ML drivers were written, the Centaurus card was tested, the integration was verified for the DM12 digital media HD board on the Silicon Graphics Prism system," said Chris Golson, senior director, Media Industries, SGI. "Silicon Graphics Prism has been delivering awesome visualization for energy, scientific and manufacturing processes and now, after having looked around the entire media industry and taken the highest quality product, SGI can once again offer DVS digital media options that harness the power and superior visualization performance of the Prism to the entertainment industry and media ISVs. It's what our media customers have been waiting for: incredible quality from DVS and I/O and open systems from SGI."

DVS CLIPSTER is a Windows(r) OS-based online workstation for real-time editing, conforming and finishing of 2K film, HD and SD. The system's real-time functions include transitions, pan-and-scan and cropping, color grading and a 3D-LUT for color management and film-look preview. CLIPSTER also provides a complete workflow for 4K film material. SGI and DVS have just completed the optimization of the SGI InfiniteStorage RM660 SAN system with CXFS shared file system for the CLIPSTER to enable a networked storage environment where different clients can access shared storage simultaneously. SGI InfiniteStorage RM660 SAN is a storage system designed specifically for data-intensive requirements of digital intermediates. The SGI RM660 offers the ability to scale to many terabytes of storage as a facility's requirements grow. SGI SAN systems with SGI CXFS shared file system support all popular operating systems including IRIX(r), Windows(r) XP, Windows(r) 2000, 32-bit Linux(r), 64-bit Linux, and Mac OS(r) X. The DVS CLIPSTER and SGI RM660 SAN solution have been already been implemented in several Hollywood studios.

"We are very happy to work with SGI and to provide with Centaurus a high-end digital media solution for HD and 2K film on the Silicon Graphics Prism system," said Peter Spoer, managing director of DVS Digital Video Systems GmbH. "And we are pleased to expand our DVS CLIPSTER real-time DI workstation line by embracing SGI's RM660 and CXFS system as high-end solution for facilities sharing digital media content on centralized networked disk storage. Our joint efforts and the upcoming integration of GRIO to support QoS will enable our customers to operate their facilities in an extremely efficient collaborative workflow environment."

SGI and DVS are also working hand in hand to integrate and optimize SGI GRIO V2 for the CLIPSTER-RM660 solution. The SGI GRIO QoS option is a bandwidth-reservation enhancement to SGI CXFS shared file system that ensures applications accessibility to a certain amount of storage network bandwidth, allowing facilities to utilize their storage very efficiently while making certain that high-bandwidth applications have the level of network performance required for highly interactive sessions or flawless film scanning.

DVS is writing their application software to utilize GRIO by making CLIPSTER applications GRIO-aware and GRIO-friendly. This will ensure the quality of service that CLIPSTER requires from the SGI RM660 SAN. The effect is, for example, if a 2K stream is required, SGI GRIO will guarantee that it's always 2K at 24 FPS. Complete integration of SGI GRIO on SGI CXFS and CLIPSTER will be available in the near future.

"SGI has championed interoperability, open standards and open systems with our partners. DVS is a first-class company offering products to Hollywood and the digital intermediate community and we're very happy to work together in this collaborative fashion," added Golson. "Our products work together using open standards, further enhancing the Broadcast and Film Production community's workflow requirements. As a result, our customers seem to be extremely happy that we're working well together."

www.dvs.de
www.sgi.com

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