Tempe 11 Installed Small Tree GraniteSTOR

A recent shared storage installation at Tempe 11, a government access station operated by the City of Tempe, illustrated once again that it’s either Ethernet or it’s EtherNOT, as an Ethernet-based solution from Small Tree has enabled the full-service production team to substantially increase its workflow without crippling its bottom line.

"We recently added a third editing suite and we needed a solution that would allow us to share resources between the suites," stated Greg Wolfe, media services producer for Tempe 11. "Originally, we were looking at a 6TB Fibre Channel system, but the pricing we received was between $25,000 and $40,000. With Small Tree’s shared storage and networking technology, we were able to double our storage capacity to 12TB for about half the price of a typical Fibre Channel system."

"Working for a municipality, keeping expenditures low is always a priority," Wolfe continued. "This system has allowed us to increase our productivity substantially without a huge capital investment."

To facilitate its workflow and increase its editing team’s productivity, Tempe 11 installed Small Tree’s GraniteSTOR shared storage technology with its unique OS X networking capabilities supporting multiple Ethernet ports, tightly integrated with Apple’s built in file sharing system. The GraniteSTOR solution incorporates Small Tree’s PEG6, a 6-port Ethernet card with the Edge-corE ES4524D, a 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switch certified to work with Small Tree’s technology.

Prior to the Small Tree installation, Tempe 11 relied on copying files from one workstation to another, as each suite was completely independent from the other. Now, when one editor is done with a segment it is immediately available in any suite for editing into the full program. Thus, the new technology is saving hours of post-production time per show. Additionally, the Small Tree Ethernet-based solution has enabled Tempe 11 to shift from SD production to HD production without missing a beat.

"We recently switched from doing all SD production to HD production – doing everything in DVCPro HD," stated Wolfe. "There have been no problems editing DVCPro HD over Ethernet. In fact, I’ve seen no difference between editing DVCPro HD over Ethernet than editing SD over the local drives."

Finally, ease of installation was another major plus to Wolfe and his team, as they installed the near turnkey solution on their own and had it up and running in less than an hour.

"We had the system out of the box, rack-mounted and wired in 30 minutes," Wolfe remarked, "and with some assistance from Bob Zelin [noted video engineer] over the phone, we were live in another half an hour. This was another cost saver for my team and the taxpayers, as we didn’t have to spend additional monies on calling in our internal IT team or fly Bob out to help with the installation."