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Orbital Data 5500

Jan 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By John DiMaggio, Nice Shoes

Faster Delivery of Digital Images Over the Internet

It's no secret that film and television production and postproduction are undergoing great changes. The latest digital capture technologies — HD and data-resolution cameras — join 35mm film as viable image capture tools, with an increasing number of commercials also finishing in HD. We're also moving toward tapeless production and post with new and upgraded storage gear such as SDRAM, Blu-ray disc, and hard drives.

As a result of these nonlinear technologies, workflow is changing too. As digital data takes over, we're increasing the use of TCP/IP-based networks to speed approvals or deliver content. Many shops are replacing FedEx and courier services with the Internet, for example. At any point in the approval and finishing process, it makes sense to convert footage to an MPEG-2 data file, the new standard for transmission and delivery. Using MPEG-2 files, productions can take advantage of the latest transmission technologies, whether it's a private high-speed network or the Internet itself. By using this free network that reaches around the world, costs can also be kept much lower than using a dedicated fiber-optic network or booking satellite transmission time.

But serious challenges await anyone sending massive files over the Internet. Since any data file must share that network with many others, delivery speeds can vary greatly. Sure, it's relatively quick to send a few minutes of DVD-quality footage, but things slow down when you send larger amounts of footage, or if you send higher res Digital Beta-quality MPEG-2 files. Couple that with the distance sent and the result is slower transmission speeds. Unpredictable network delays can further slow things down.

Nice Shoes provides postproduction facilities for high-end television commercials, so we know that our clients need to regularly send MPEG-2 files to keep far-flung producers and agencies up to date on edits, send clips for further work, or get that all-important final approval.

We already rely on Telestream's ClipMail Pro, an MPEG encoding and delivery appliance. It uses a store-and-forward strategy to send files over an IP network to another ClipMail appliance, or an FTP site. (Unlike bandwidth-hungry streaming video transmission, file-based store-and-forward devices send data in small packets. That means even low-bandwidth connections will transmit data perfectly, if not as quickly.)

With ClipMail Pro, we simply select the video quality — that determines the size of the file — and send the data. We use it extensively to move video all over the world, exchanging everything from casting footage, dailies, rough cuts, and a finished commercial. If we need to send material that needs further post work, we use MPEG-2 at Digital Beta-quality settings. But that results in huge files. A 30-second commercial, for example, will consume about 250MB. Even at lower proxy resolutions, sending several hours of dailies takes even more time to transmit.

That wasn't acceptable — we needed faster transmission speeds. We first tried to upgrade our telco connection, moving from a single T1 line to four. That enabled us to increase our maximum bandwidth from 1.5Mbs to 6Mbs. Although this helped throughput to some extent, it still didn't resolve problems with bottlenecks in the Internet itself.

Distance is the other complicating factor. Even with high-speed, broadband Internet connections, data doesn't take a straight route to the receiver, something a dedicated line can deliver. Instead, the data “hops” as it is passed from one computer node to another. Longer distances mean data takes more hops, so there's more chance of dropping some data. With TCP/IP protocol, that means the node must request packets to be resent, further slowing things down.

What could we do? Well, we heard about a new technology from San Mateo, Calif.-based Orbital Data that maximizes TCP/IP transmission. Their Orbital 5500 network appliance works by “filling” the network connection with your data. (Both the sender and receiver need to have an Orbital 5500 for this to work.)

Here's how it works. Before any data is sent, TotalTransport — that's what Orbital Data calls the complex algorithms embedded into the Orbital 5500 appliance — tests the network by connecting to its partner machine. Together, they figure out how data is flowing over their connection at that point in time, which lets the units optimize the transmission.

That's different from how conventional TCP/IP works. Internet protocol is more or less blind about what's actually going on in the network. It just sends a packet of data, waits for a confirmation from the other end that it's been received, and then sends the next packet.

By figuring out the status of the network, Orbital 5500 increases the efficiency of any connection, since more data can be packed into the pipeline, no matter how modest the connection. It's something like mailing out a lot of letters. Sure, you can mail one after the other, making separate trips to the post office, but if you bundle them all together and make just one trip, you've greatly increased your efficiency.

Here's an example of the improved throughput we now have. We often collaborate with Atkinson TV in Cape Town, South Africa, which is about 7,800 miles from New York. With Orbital 5500s installed at both facilities, transfers have increased nearly twelvefold, from a turtle-slow 300Kbs to about 3.5Mbs.

There's good synergy too in using Orbital Data's TotalTransport with Telestream's ClipMail Pro. It's a comparatively minor investment to add Telestream and Orbital boxes at agencies and facilities you work with regularly. It's cheaper than paying for dedicated lines by the month.

It's simple to use, too. At both Nice Shoes and Atkinson, we could easily install and maintain the equipment without the help of an electronic engineer or an IT department. All you have to do is plug ClipMail Pro's output to the rackmount unit, which in turn connects to the telco's line. You don't have to load software or make any other changes. It's invisible to the user.

Combining these two technologies provides a fast, stable connection among collaborative partners. That can make the difference between a successful partnership and a frustrating, non-productive one. The finger-tapping act of waiting for data to arrive can take the creative adrenaline out of working together. Fast delivery, on the other hand, preserves the give-and-take fluidity that allows the creative juices to flow — even over thousands of miles.

John DiMaggio, director of new media services, started working at Nice Shoes when it was started in 1996. Nice Shoes, one of New York's premiere postproduction and finishing houses, provides film transfer and visual effects services for high-end commercial clients such as BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather, and Young & Rubicam. For more information, visit www.niceshoes.com or call Angela Botta at (212) 683-1704. For more information about Orbital Data, visit www.orbitaldata.com.

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