Buddha Jones is the entertainment-marketing heavyweight behind several film, television and game trailers for major studios like Paramount, Warner Brothers, NBC, Fox, EA and Ubisoft. With an impressive list of credits to its name and a reputation for delivering the highest-quality content, the company's services are in high demand in Hollywood. Each month Buddha Jones' creative team manages thousands of hours of HD and 4K footage. As its project load continues to grow, the team is banking on a Facilis TerraBlock Shared Storage System to handle the influx.
Last year, I.T. Director Kyle Gascho began looking for a new storage solution that would provide enough speed to handle a massive volume of high-resolution content for coloring and final output, as well one that would offer a more efficient method for team members to connect with one another across projects. Upon recommendation from reseller Melrose Mac, Gascho investigated Facilis’ TerraBlock. Impressed with his findings, he opted to integrate a TerraBlock 24D into Buddha Jones’ post production workflow. He said, “We were looking for a cost-efficient solution with stability, speed and scalability, and we found it all in TerraBlock.”
Prior to deploying TerraBlock, Gascho’s team relied on a single computer with locally attached drives to store all media, which proved cumbersome. The collaborative power and speed of TerraBlock have since accelerated the efficiency of the Buddha Jones team. “We used to have to wait for one person to finish a project before another could touch it, but with Multi-User Write functionality, that’s no longer the case,” Gascho explained. “TerraBlock allows us to work on multiple projects simultaneously -- significantly reducing ingest time. We can copy files to the server faster, and our colorists can playback HD and 4K files in real-time, which is amazing. It’s allowed us to work faster and has definitely freed up more of our time for the creative.”
Buddha Jones installed the TerraBlock last November, and it is now connected via 16Gb Fibre Channel through a 16Gb ATTO Switch to two Mac Pro workstations that run Avid® Symphony® and Avid® Media Composer® -- one of which also runs Blackmagic Design® DaVinci Resolve 10. An additional Mac Pro workstation is connected to the system via 10Gb Ethernet over Fibre Channel via a Myricom card for backup syncing. Four additional clients running Avid Media Composer are also linked to TerraBlock via 1Gb Ethernet.
With the wide array of connectivity methods that TerraBlock delivers, Gascho and his team have experienced added flexibility. He shared, “We have so many more options now; it’s awesome. If we just need just 1Gb Ethernet to run a small task, we can, or if we need to invest in 16Gb Fibre Channel for a massive project, it’s not a problem. Our entire team can talk to the same media even through different types of clients.”
Touching more than a third of the team’s projects a day, TerraBlock has proven a huge boon to Buddha Jones’ workflow. Gascho concluded, “Without a shared storage solution like TerraBlock, we wouldn’t be able to keep pace with the volume of work we’re currently outputting. The stability and speed of the system have been so great; it’s solid and absolutely essential to all we do.”
About TerraBlock
Facilis TerraBlock is a high-capacity, multiplatform, shared storage system for post-production and content creation. It fosters collaboration, supporting Fiber channel and Ethernet, volume and file-level control.
About Facilis Technology
Founded in 2003, Massachusetts-based Facilis Technology, Inc. designs and builds affordable, high-capacity, turnkey shared storage and archiving solutions for post production and content creation professionals working in the film, television, education and audiovisual markets. Its production-proven solutions are fast and intuitive -- making it easier for creative professionals to collaborate and work more efficiently. Flexible, scalable and compatible with industry-standard creative solutions, Facilis’ products blend seamlessly into any studio environment -- boutique, mid-size or large -- and have been installed in more than 2000 facilities worldwide to date. http://facilis.com/
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