Competition for students and fundraising dollars is stiff among America's colleges and universities. Given that, institutes of higher learning often rely on polished videos for recruitment and fundraising efforts. For Pepperdine University's production team, working on such projects had become a chore instead of a challenge because of its inability to efficiently share projects and assets across multiple workstations.
"Having a shared storage solution is very important to any production facility with more than one workstation," said Allen Haren, multimedia manager and senior broadcast engineer for Pepperdine University. "It is also imperative that any solution has some form of data security, such as a RAID, or nightly backup. For too many years we were operating outside these criteria and we were at severe risk of data loss and production setbacks."
In addition to improving workflow among multiple editors, the production team's shift to HD cameras and the need for footage to be archived in a format that could be quickly accessed and used predicated the move to a storage solution that was robust and scalable. Featuring four Mac workstations-two PowerMacs and two Intel-based Macs-all running Final Cut, Pepperdine University recently installed a 32TB GraniteSTOR ST-RAID Ethernet-based shared storage system from Small Tree to alleviate its workflow issues.
"Since installing Small Tree's GraniteSTOR, we're operating much faster and more efficiently as our editors can simultaneously work on assets, and with some creativity, on the same project using multiple project files," Haren continued. "I can't imagine going back to how we operated before."
Along with utilizing creative content for recruitment and fundraising, Pepperdine University relies on its production team to develop materials for historical documentation, as well as affinity and reputation building. As on most campuses, budgetary considerations were critical in the search for the ideal solution.
"Once we learned about Small Tree's Gigabit Ethernet technology," Haren concluded, "we were able to clear any budgetary restraints and implement the solution we always needed."
Designer of simple-to-install, affordable Mac-based networking and shared storage products, Small Tree is the premier multi-port Ethernet networking technology provider for OS X customers, enabling cost effective Ethernet shared storage technology. For more information about the company and its products, please call 1-866-STC4MAC (1-866-782-4622), or visit www.small-tree.com or follow Small Tree on Twitter @SmallTreeComm.
