With headquarters in Sydney on the Disney Studios Lot and offices in Queensland, Spectrum Films is a full-service post-production house catering to the Australian and International Film and Television industry. For 60 years, Spectrum has used a commitment to quality, strategic alliances, and strong investments in technological partners to expand its footprint.
But growth brought challenges. Manual processes that worked at a smaller scale slowed down workflows. When Spectrum required higher performance from their workstations, especially for client-facing grade sessions and screenings, they partnered with Kalray company pixitmedia to re-design their approach to data management.
Manual Data Transfer Was a Pain
Initially, Spectrum employed local NVMe cache and DAS for their Mac, Linux, and Windows finishing workstations, which played a crucial role in client screenings.
Michael Messih, Technical Operations Manager at Spectrum Films said, “We chose pixitmedia because of their long and proven history in the media and entertainment space. We know they would work with us to develop a solution that would help our team continue to deliver great work for our clients without storage or throughput challenges.”
However, the increasing demand for real-time playback of uncompressed 4K files across the 4K finishing suites and DI theatres presented a data management challenge. As the finishing department expanded, the existing process of synchronizing data between local storage locations across machines became unacceptably inefficient.
Anticipating the expansion of the VFX department and envisioning cloud workflows, including burst rendering and a virtual studio, Spectrum required a scalable solution that could accommodate this growth without causing operational complexities.
Adam Archer, Head of Finishing and VFX at Spectrum said, “One big attraction of NG-Stor for us was the scalability and flexibility to fulfill our needs as our demands and use cases evolve, essentially a storage platform that would grow with us. Having our DI and VFX teams be able to instantly and seamlessly share data, whilst maintaining the high levels of performance required, greatly increases the efficiency in our post-production pipeline. It plays an important part in allowing Spectrum Films to deliver the premium experience for our clients.”
NG-Stor Offered Visibility + Efficiency
Spectrum partnered with pixitmedia to enhance workflow efficiencies with a software-driven storage and data management solution. The backbone of the solution was a scale-out NG-Stor for enterprise-shared storage. Right away, data visibility transformed from siloed and segmented to centrally visible and highly available.
The storage architecture featured a multi-tiered solution, allowing Spectrum to strategically choose suitable storage technology for specific workflows. This approach empowered Spectrum to allocate funds precisely where they would yield the highest return on investment (ROI). The SSD tier, tailored for frame-based media, offered 110TB usable capacity with a guaranteed performance of 18GBps read and 10GBps read/write. Additionally, a NL-SAS tier addressed general data needs, providing 985TB usable capacity, along with 4,000 MB/s read and 3,300 MB/s R/W performance.
This integrated solution created a storage profile tailored to the needs of both NFS/SMB clients and Spectrum’s “hero” workstations. For speedy data transfer and communication, the workstations use LC Fibre to connect to the fast and reliable Mellanox ethernet fabric. To deliver unflinching real-time playback, pixitmedia connected ATTO ThunderLink adaptors and FastFrame network cards in the hero machines to the Mellanox fabric.
Two NG-Stor servers and Lenovo DE6000 dual Controller storage unit ensured maximum data availability and superior performance. Spectrum achieved rapid, reliable access to its data under any circumstances, solidifying its operational continuity.
The Results: Peace of Mind – and Delighted Clients
Spectrum’s team of creators is now more confident delivering final products during live client meetings because nothing stands in the way of real-time 4K playback. By transitioning from a manual process to a streamlined and transparent workflow,
Spectrum Films positioned itself for continued growth and penetration in Australia and beyond. With assured performance and bandwidth tailored for SMB protocols and cross-OS hardware compatibility, Spectrum’s teams can now devote less time to manual workflow steps and focus more on delivering exceptional work to their clients. You can see Spectrum’s expert hand in all aspects of film, television, and documentary within and beyond Australia. Some of their most recent credits include Cannes Film Festival Premieres, The New Boy & Three Thousand Years of Longing, Netflix’s latest epic Australian Drama Series, Boy Swallows Universe, New Line Cinema’s Mortal Kombat, Academy Award Nominated The Power of The Dog & Elvis, just to name a few.
With storage set, data managed, and workflow optimized, growth is theirs for the taking.