A leading producer of the direct response infomercials we all know and love – Swivel Sweeper, OxiClean and Smart Chopper – as well as the subject of Discovery Channel’s popular “Pitchmen” series, Sullivan Productions recently took the Small Tree challenge to see if Small Tree’s scalable, cost-efficient shared storage technology was the right solution for their workflow needs. After struggling with its workflow for months, Sullivan Productions is completing projects much more easily thanks to Small Tree’s Edge-corE ES4524D, a 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, along with its PEG6 6-port Ethernet card – both of which are a part of Small Tree’s new GraniteSTOR product line.
Prior to installing Small Tree’s technology, Sullivan Productions had a separate RAID for two of its three Final Cut Pro editing suites. Its third room was used to digitize onto a portable RAID, which would then have to be moved manually to one of the other suites. This slowed down the production team because it couldn’t share anything and didn’t have access to any footage. By installing Small Tree’s GraniteSTOR products, Sullivan Productions is now running in two rooms concurrently for 10 hours every day, and three rooms for 10 hours at least three days a week with real-time editing and no dropped frames.
“The difference in workflow since installation [of the Small Tree equipment] is night and day,” said Stephen Cain, post-production editor at Sullivan Productions. “Just the other day I was working in Suite 1 and needed b-roll footage for another project with a tight deadline. I was able to digitize the b-roll in Suite 3 so that when I was finished with the project I was working on in Suite 1 I could pull up the footage and immediately begin working on the next project. It’s incredible that we don’t have to stop, transfer materials onto a portable drive and then move it over. The seamless, real-time editing has made life so much easier for everyone on our team.”
Improved workflow? Check. Happier production and post-production teams? Check. But wait, there’s more.
Not only did Small Tree’s shared storage make life easier for Sullivan Productions, it did so at a fraction of the cost of a typical storage solution. “It was absolutely more cost-efficient than the system we were currently running and far less expensive than SAN solutions on the market today,” Cain continued. “Cutting the cost of our storage technology allowed us to address other pressing technology needs in our facility, such as adding more computers and software to maximize our services. I can’t think of a reason why a post-production facility wouldn’t go with this solution.”
Small Tree is the Mac Networking Expert, making networking child’s play. Small Tree provides a complete portfolio of Ethernet-based networking and storage solutions for Apple Mac OS X customers. Small Tree’s team of networking developers has extensive experience in high performance computing, and knows how to achieve the demanding application requirements of Mac customers. Small Tree also provides contracted programming services for the Department of Defense. For more information about the company and its products, please call 1-866-STC4MAC (1-866-782-4622), or visit www.small-tree.com.
