DigiLab, FibreStream, RapidEncode Designed to Expand Options on Set

In its 30-year business history, JMR has learned a few things about customization. Working with everyone from military and defense contractors to big-time Hollywood studios, JMR has developed a modular system of storage components that can be mixed and matched to create custom pipelines geared toward all manner of digital workflows. For instance, JMR's BlueStor product line is built specifically for content-creation applications, where a single dropped frame makes 100 percent of the difference between workflow success and failure. "Whether you're a small indie post house or large studio or somewhere in between," says JMR's technical product specialist, Miguel Saldate, "we have different storage building blocks that can fit whatever niche or hole you're trying to fill."
At NAB this year, JMR expanded the BlueStor line-up with high-bandwidth server configurations that enable new production workflows on set, including monitoring and color-correction for RED and other digital-cinema cameras, plus the creation of Blu-ray dailies. For example, the new BlueStor DigiLab has been paired with Assimilate’s SCRATCH color-grading application on an upcoming Disney Channel film, Sixteen Wishes. We asked Saldate to fill us in on the newest products, and what they can bring to your production.
StudioDaily: Tell me about the BlueStor product line.

Miguel Saldate: It’s a variety of products that encompass end-to-end video storage solutions. There are a lot of different things we can do, starting out with small products like our JMR 888 desktop RAID and moving up to intermediate products like our SAS expander or our PCI-E extender products, and then going into more specialized, unique products like our DigiLab server, our RapidEncode server, and our FibreStream box. Every one of those products can be mixed and matched to meet different needs, whether it’s for a studio, a post house, on-set production, or some kind of mobile lab. The BlueStor product line has been out for a couple of years, and it’s constantly changing. As new technologies emerge and new pieces of software and hardware come on the market, we make ourselves available to interact with them, optimizing their performance and enhancing our product line.

And what was new at NAB 2010?

Our DigiLab server and our RapidEncode server. DigiLab is a 4U 16-bay JMR storage server that was adapted for usage in a RED digital cinema environment, but it’s available for other digital production environments, as well – ARRI, Panasonic or other cameras, including DSLR if need be. It supports either SAS or SATA storage, with up to 16 2TB drives, so you can have up to 32TB in a 4U form factor. You have a 19-in-1 card reader. You have multiple FireWire ports. You have e-SATA. And you have the availability of a Blu-ray/DVD burner in the mix. All of the systems are powered by dual Intel Nehalem processors. We will be featuring the new 5600 series of Intel processors when they are actually out and tested. (We like to do some very thorough testing.) Our systems are available with up to 96 GB of memory and are fully customizable based on a product-for-product need.

Our RapidEncode server builds on the DigiLab’s technology and adds in Digital Rapids’ hardware and software solution for encode-transcode environments, where you take a live stream of broadcast via HD SDI and have that formatted in real time to H.264, Avid DNxHD, QuickTime ProRes or some other format for multiple ways of delivery. If you want to go to LTO drive or optical media, you have that ability. That showcases the partnerships we develop here at JMR to give people a solution for their needs – not just a storage box. We want to be an end-to-end provider.

If RapidEncode is an outgrowth of DigiLab, does that mean they can both be configured on a single server?

The DigiLab is its own separate server, with its own motherboard and customizable cards. For our RED set-up, we feature a 4U server that has an Nvidia FX 3800 Quaddro card and a RED Rocket card in there along with some additional e-SATA port and FireWire cards. The RapidEncode server is the Digital Rapids optimized version of that. So it’s two versions of that box.

At the same time, you could take that same platform and swap out components to make, let’s say, a P2 set-up or IRIDAS SpeedGrade or even the new Blackmagic DaVinci product that’s out. If you want to use specialized hardware and software for that, you can do it. It’s a customizable box.

So these are different variations on a framework that’s built for the storage and speed that’s required in this industry.

Exactly – to handle the sustained bandwidth that’s really needed for video in production.

How do you guarantee a sustained transfer rate of over 1400 MB/second?

That’s where our backplane and SAS-expander technology really takes hold. That’s what sets JMR apart. We actually manufacturer our own backplanes and our own SAS expanders. The boxes are all made here in the U.S. Obviously, there are some components we can’t manufacture on our own – motherboards, RAID controller cards and things like that. But for the most part, the stuff we put in is made here in the U.S. at our facility in Chatsworth, CA. We have FUJI SMT machines [component placement systems]. We’re a true manufacturer, unlike other companies who integrate off-the-shelf parts.

So as far as specific on-set applications for these products, we’re talking ingest and transcoding, but also color-correction and HD dailies?

Yes, you can do first-light color-correction. You can do encoding and transcoding. You can add and sync audio and produce Blu-ray dailies. That’s something we’ve done for a couple of productions. It gives you something tangible that’s much closer to what’s being shot, compared to a low-res daily or a proxy file. That’s what some people work with nowadays, but what you want to see is 1080p high-def. The studio executive wants to know that what he’s looking at is as good as what the director and DP are seeing.

Do people edit on location using BlueStor?

Editing is absolutely a possible function. Actually, I wanted to talk about one more product that enables that environment. The JMR FibreStream is built in a 3U form-factor with the same 16-drive SAS SATA backplane as the other boxes. But the difference is the FibreStream is mated to an ATTO fibre RAID controller, which can provide four ports of either 4 Gb fibre or 8 Gb fibre out to the host at a total sustained speed of about 1300 MB/second aggregate bandwidth. When someone wants to do something with Avid, Final Cut, or some other edit suite on set, they have the ability to put this into a truck with workstations set up. Then, in conjunction with a DigiLab box or one of the other BlueStor set-ups, they can get their transcoded DNxHD files or ProRes files and start cutting and assembling. It’s fully capable of doing that. We’re able to achieve so much with only 16 drive bays. You don’t have to go out and buy a huge 48-drive array, or daisy-chain multiple units, to get bandwidth.