Nice Shoes, a New York City-based post production house, is using Canon USA’s wireless technology to providing GigE connections among its four Manhattan facilities.
The company’s four boutiques include Guava (VFX, design and 3D), Freestyle Collective (3D animation and broadcast design), Nice Spots (Web-based sharing, archiving and collaboration application) and Nice Shoes (color correction, online edit and VFX). When these multiple divisions expanded into new offices on either side of Manhattan’s Park Avenue, they needed a cost effective, reliable means of networking their data. Microwave was not an option in an RF-heavy environment such as Manhattan and fiber loops cost too much. Nice Shoes, instead, chose the Canobeam DT-130 FreeSpace Optics Transceiver, which provides secure, wireless 1.25 Gbps data transmission for GigE networking.
“With the Canobeam DT-130, these two geographically split facilities might as well be in the same building on adjacent floors,” said Blake Cornell, engineer at Freestyle Collective. “In our business, it’s imperative that data transfers are moving at top speed, and the Canobeam makes that happen.”
All Canobeams employ a class 1M laser, which is safe to the naked eye and transmits high-speed data via infrared light. Because they operate using a line-of-sight beam of light, Canobeams are virtually immune from signal interception and provide secure data transmission. All Canobeams are protocol-independent (like fiber) and can be set-up quickly. And since they do not use radio waves, Canobeams do not require RF allocations, permits or licenses. In addition, the Canobeam DT-130 (and models DT-150, DT-120 and DT-110) features Canon’s Auto Tracking function, which automatically adjusts the Canobeam light beam to compensate for vibrations in the installation base due to wind, traffic or other environmental factors, thereby maintaining an optimum FSO connection. The DT-130 delivers a transmission distance of up to one km and also incorporates a 3R function (re-shaping, re-timing and re-generating), which allows the data signal to be relayed without loss of strength or quality.
Prior to setting up the Canobeam system, Nice Shoes hired Systems Support Solutions, an FSO integration and equipment distribution company from Orono, Minn., to conduct a site survey and develop a system spec and installation design. Nice Shoes set up matching Canobeam DT-130 transceivers shooting through closed office windows across Park Avenue South in Manhattan.
“The Canobeam has paid for itself within a few short months,” Cornell said. “The local loop was a monthly expenditure, but the Canobeam’s speed allowed us to cut that cost out entirely.”
