Optima Picks Sledgehammer

MONTREAL -- Maximum Throughput Inc. (www.max-t.com), developers of ultra high performance software-based solutions for networked storage infrastructure and media management, announced today that Optima Digital, a post production house in Legaspi Village, Makati City, Philippines, has purchased a Sledgehammer HD!O Dual Link system for end-to-end tapeless telecine and color grading, and facility wide file sharing purposes.

Optima Digital built a post production facility from the elite of the elite post production tools available anywhere in the world, yet something was missing. Their various systems from the various manufacturers did not work together as seamlessly as they had hoped. Many inefficiencies were getting in the way and the majority centered around one thing: video tape. The reality of the facility is that it is all digital (hence the name) which means that all material needs to be digitized into a file-based format so that the various applications can access it. Optima needed a tapeless infrastructure solution which is why they turned to Max-T.

Sledgehammer is Max-Ts shared storage solution designed specifically for the post production and broadcast markets. The system is first the world’s fastest network attached storage (NAS) system, and is also concurrently a dual stream capable HD digital disk recorder (DDR). Video-based material can be digitized to, played back, or recorded out from the system even while it continues to serve the stored content as file-based image and audio sequences. MAXmedia, Max-T’s Java-based software application that comes with Sledgehammer, is the tool through which material can be digitized, managed, and manipulated.

Marc Ambat, the CTO at Optima Digital had the following comment on the acquisition, “Sledgehammer has thoroughly streamlined the way we get jobs done. Our tape related problems have disappeared and we now only bring video tapes in the front door and out the back. The rest of the process is completely file-based and non-linear. This saves us a lot of time and money, and allows us to get jobs out the door on time and on budget.”

Every user on the in-house Gigabit Ethernet network can access the material at the same time. The material no longer must be digitized at every point in the facility that needs to access it. “Whether it’s the 3D department, our graphics compositors, or the Flame artists, everyone can see the same media simultaneously,” Ambat continued. “The Sledgehammer has also allowed us to take on new jobs that we would not have previously bid – specifically those that are not delivered on video tape or film. All material gets loaded centrally onto the Sledgehammer and the work proceeds from there. It’s a very efficient way of getting it all done. We’re getting more work through the facility than we ever have previously, and we’re very happy with our purchase.”John Miller, Max-T’s Vice President of Worldwide Sales had the following to say, “We’re extremely pleased that Optima Digital is using their Sledgehammer in exactly the ways we envisaged when we designed the system: namely as the core infrastructure for a tapeless facility. We look forward to them receiving extensive time and cost savings over the coming months and years.”

Maximum Throughput Inc. (Max-T)