NBC plans to use a suite of SGI workstations and software for preproduction and live graphics for the Winter Olympic Games. The suite will include Maya 4 software from Alias|Wavefront, an SGI company, running on four Onyx2 desk-side visualization systems and two Octane2 visual workstations.
The Onyx2 systems will be used for applications including direct-to-air graphics and 3D imagery serving. NBC will run Alias|Wavefront products on the Octane2s, including Maya for rendering, PowerAnimator and compositing applications. Origin 200 servers will be used for the render farm. The Octane2 workstations are built with 128 MB VPro 12 graphics, SGI's best graphics engine with an expanded feature set.
NBC previously used SGI systems at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and decided to expand on its equipment for 2002. NBC cited features such as a configurable graphics memory, ability to work with templates, graphics and 3D animation and digital video applications as reasons for choosing SGI gear.
