Framestore processes the finished shooting material using the solutions Pixit Media and Netapp

The Netapp company announced on September 12, 2017 that it together with Pixit Media delivered to creative studio Framestore of the solution, the providing high performance and scalability during the work with the finished shooting material and creation of special effects.

Choice of solutions

The British company the solution for data storage with a possibility of scalability in process of business growth was required. The solution had to provide such level of high-speed performance that the staff of studio working in processing of material after shootings and creation of visual special effects with enormous amounts of data could solve assigned tasks without delays and idle times.

The British company Framestore ruen was engaged in development of special effects for the picture "Gravitation"

As a result of Framestore made a choice for benefit of solution deployment from Pixit Media and NetApp in the integrated advertizing division including visual effects (200 specialists in 2D - and 3D - to effects), final processing (19 sets) and rendering (rendering farm with 7,200 cores).

Project Progress

Framestore integrated a software-defined scalable solution for data storage from Pixit Media with NetApp E-Series, storage system to which the large companies which are specializing in processing of video content after shootings and also engaged production the working groups of large radio broadcasters and niche 4K-studios give preferences. Such combination allowed Framestore to unroll the high-speed and deeply integrated platform for data storage.

Framestore implemented solutions PixStor and NetApp E-Series in London New York Los Angeles, Monreale and Chicago. Solutions guarantee to Framestore the necessary performance and coordination of transactions in all five centers. It gives the chance to implement the simplified low-cost approach to disaster recovery of data, and the modular framework allows to start several workflows at the same time.

Project Results

We need often to have an opportunity to adapt quickly to processing of large volumes of data in formats for 4K and VR — Beren Lewis, the global head of the integrated advertizing Framestore technologies told. — PixStor and NetApp provided us necessary balance of everything that is required to us: an opportunity to control equipment costs and confidence that we have partners who are really understanding specifics of our workflows. Pixit guarantees performance of mounting stations within model which we can reproduce with ease worldwide.

System performance both on video signal bandwidth, and on IOPS allows to start at the same time all three groups of processes (visual effects, final processing and rendering) with an overall load without any limit for work of editors or graphics specialists.

So, the high-performance single name space allowed the Los Angeles office Framestore to conduct at the same time work on two projects of ultrahigh permission. In studio within several months 60 VFX specialists creating the advertizing 4K-video with a frequency of 60 frames per second for an attraction in one large theme park worked.

Work was in full swing — David Bice, the lead system engineer in Los Angeles told — when Framestore undertook the separate VR project which one would create an array of problems for our former infrastructure of data storage. The PixStor system on the basis of NetApp helped to carry out preprocessing — unpacking, deformation, imposing and sewing together — shootings from several foreshortenings to a panoramic space image for VR reproduction in real time.

20 terabyte of initial content when unpacking turned into the 70th terabyte. During the most intensive periods of work the PixStor component functioned in mode 270,000 IOPS that at least several times exceeded possibilities of former infrastructure of Framestore in one namespace. At the same time work on a roller for theme park was continued without any delays and interruptions connected with involvement of resources of a system for VR предпроцессинга.

Having deployed the solution of PixStor and NetApp, Framestore had an opportunity to apply surely for larger projects — Beren Lewis added. — Backup copies of data from remote objects of joint placement are synchronized each two hours without any losses or inconveniences for actors, rendering and final processing. Considering that this solution is easily replicated, Framestore can start implementation of the ambitious development plans for business.