Product category:
Manufacturing communication infrastructure
News Release from: QLogic | Subject: Sanbox 5200
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 04 October 2005
Live from New York with QLogic
Prime-time television broadcasts through a Fibre Channel SAN and QLogic Sanbox 5200 switches
Headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan, Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American comedy institution that is fast approaching its thirtieth anniversary, having made its debut on NBC on 11 October 1975 The challenge of mixing, editing and archiving shows for repeats and syndication packages, in addition to ongoing live broadcasts, required a SAN solution that would allow for simultaneous execution of tasks and the sharing of resources between production rooms on the 8th and 17th Floors
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 20 Oct 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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"After being on an IP network before, we decided we had to have a shared hard disk system - in order to implement this, we started 7 years ago with a Brocade system at 1Gb to share all the audio editing and mixing stations.
At that time, the data rate wasn't high enough to do what we needed to do with video," observed Chris Seeger, New Technology Analyst for Saturday Night Live.
Making the show involves recording 48 tracks live to disk for three-and-half hours of music sources in one room, plus another 24 tracks of the production sources in another.
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These sources include up to 48 tracks of audio information each for the house band and the guest bands that play on the show, plus 24 tracks on the production side, including 10 tracks of dialogue and separate tracks for music scoring, sound effects, the audience and video tape playback.
All audio and video sources are recorded direct to Fibre Channel discs through the production tracking system onto the Apple Xserve RAID.
"To record the live show as its happening, we use a customised application (VirtualVTR) as an ingest engine to gang-record 7 machines and 5 cameras, stopping in the commercials to break up the media files and name them individually," Seeger explained.
"The show is absolutely live.
However, repeats syndication needs require us to reorder the show, and that's why all tracks are isolated to improve mixes and provide four stereo mix stems." In addition, censorship issues occasionally come into play.
"Sometimes a show will use a phone number or website address that turns out to be real years later when the show is in repeats," Seeger revealed.
"We never expected that, so when that happens we have to edit it out." "Most recently we have added our Photography and Music Departments to the SAN, and this will allow us to construct, share and archive sources that need to be built prior to the live show," added Seeger.
SNL's fast-paced environment and high volume production needs demanded a solution that would link up disparate audio and video components and individual production rooms in a truly seamless and easy-to-manage way.
After deciding to move away from the Brocade system, Seeger arrived at the choice of three QLogic SANbox 5200s and actually implemented the solution personally.
Arriving at the perfect 2Gb Fibre Channel SAN solution was the goal, and Seeger explained what led to the choice of three QLogic 5200 switches: "We did it the simple way to start - basically just making a count of what's on what port, and leaving a few extra ports for expandability." Another piece of the puzzle when considering strategy was SNL's effort to archive previous shows into storage with high availability, and upgrading the audio and video files where needed to bring the quality of the older programmes in line with the standards currently adhered to.
"At the present time, storage of old shows goes back 22 years with multi track audio, and we want to do that with video as well.
We back-up shows on sAIT, which natively stores 500Gb per tape.
Each live show requires 1.5 terabytes of storage (5 cameras and production switch, audio elements).
Each repeat requires about 100Gb," Seeger said.
"We have three FinalCut video stations as well as DVD authoring stations, and the entire repeat/syndication catalogue of shows is built through our SAN with Final Cut Pro and ProTools." Tailoring shows for repeats and syndication at this stage is the same process in reverse of the live show, with the show emerging from storage to be worked on simultaneously by staff in multiple production rooms.
"The kind of performance SNL was looking for clearly demanded high I/O throughput, and that's one of the reasons why the SANbox 5200 fits so perfectly with their objectives," commented Ryan Klein, SAN Architect, QLogic Corporation.
"Unique in its class, each 5200 switch provides a fourpack of 10Gb ISL ports for high-speed links between switches." SNL has two QLogic switches on the 8th Floor and one QLogic switch on the 17th Floor through a 2Gb optical port.
The 8th Floor switches are linked together through the 10Gb ISL ports and the 17th Floor is linked via a 2Gb ISL, The 10-Gig ISLs deliver not only blazing speed and full non-blocking performance, but also allow SNL to maximise the number of available data ports for devices in the fabric.
Saturday Night Live The solution, enabled by the 5200 switches, is a low-latency SAN with an easy-to-use GUI for switch and device management.
"The number one reason for choosing the SANbox 5200 is that it has the lowest latency of any of the other switches, and when you're using ProTools that can be pretty important" Seeger affirmed.
"Also, the graphical user interface (GUI) software is very straightforward.
I can watch my firmware between all the devices and visually manage the fabric." To the question of whether the Seeger was unequivocal about how the SANbox 5200s have enhanced productivity and profitability "Absolutely.
Without having this sharing of resources we couldn't have done nearly the amount of work with the degree of quality and creativity," he stated.
"You can edit the show at the same time someone else is mixing the show, all on the same Fibre Channel disc from separate rooms inside the building.
The 5200s make it possible for the network to be continuously available." At the present time, SNL's storage is at about 20 terabytes, and Seeger revealed that another SNL objective in the IT department is to archive and upgrade the audio and video files for the shows recorded during SNL's celebrated early years between 1975 and 1980.
And once again, the move toward greater SAN connectivity that allows individual devices in the fabric to perform at maximum efficiency will help accomplish this project and many others.
"The SANbox 5200 ultimately allows us to interconnect and share all media resources for the entire show's production and post production process," Seeger explained, indicating the central role the 5200s play in the throughput of SNL's valuable audio and video data.
"Everything goes through these switches - every single file.".
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