Irving Harvey Chooses DIT Station Rogue

Featuring a complement of Sonnet
Technologies, Inc. Thunderbolt technology-enabled advanced storage
management equipment inside, the DIT Station
Ltd Rogue has been adopted by Samuel Gursky, a digital imaging technician
(DIT) and owner of Irving Harvey, a digital imaging services company.

Samuel Gursky

The DIT Station Rogue, a portable and compact on-set data management and
playback workstation, brings new efficiencies and time savings to
Gursky’s on-location camera transfer and data management workflows, including
RED Camera, Canon, and other formats.

Within a single impact, and compact carrying case, the
DIT Station Rogue integrates Sonnet’s Echo Express Pro Thunderbolt Expansion
Chassis for PCIe Cards with a RED ROCKET transcoding and playout card – or any
other video card.

These devices are connected to an enclosed 13-inch MacBook
Pro platform, with RAID storage provided by Sonnet’s rugged and
vibration-isolated Fusion F3 storage system. Also included are Sonnet’s Echo
ExpressCard Pro Thunderbolt Adapter SxS card reader, Tempo SATA Pro 6Gb
four-port eSATA controller, and card readers for CompactFlash and REDMAG
1.8-inch SSD media.

"The DIT Station Rogue
gives me all the power and flexibility of a tower computer in the portability
of a laptop," said Gursky, a DIT professional who specializes in
commercial, music video, and event production. "Although I often work with RED Camera formats, I appreciate that the
built-in Sonnet Thunderbolt solutions are format-agnostic and allow me to use
my equipment with any sort of media, such as SxS, CompactFlash, and REDMAG
cards. I can transfer data in the time it takes for me to click the card into
the reader – it’s that fast."

Gursky said the Sonnet solutions are enabling Thunderbolt to deliver on its
promise of fast transfer speeds, and the DIT Station Rogue provides
the lightweight, all-in-one format. Before using the DIT Station, it would take
an hour to set up his equipment.

Gursky gives high marks to the DIT Station Rogue and th
way it houses all the Sonnet gear while adding convenient
functionality. Previously, to facilitate on-location data transfers from
cameras, he was daisy-chaining his MacBook Pro to a camera card reader and then
to two FireWire 800 drives – a setup that was slow, inefficient, and
hot-running. With this configuration, transferring a single hour of footage was
an overnight proposition, and there was no mechanism for real-time playback as
the transfer was occurring.

Now, with the DIT Station Rogue, Gursky is able to
transfer the footage in real time via the MacBook’s Thunderbolt connection and
Echo Express Pro/Tempo SATA Pro combination – connected to a REDMAG
reader in a RED ROCKET workflow, for instance. The RED ROCKET transcoder
delivers  debayered RED Camera footage in
ProRes 4444 format in a fraction of the time once required for transcoding
using the old daisy-chain method.

The DIT Station Rogue’s custom ventilation, wireless connectivity,
iPad mount, and I/O housed in a military-grade case means that Gursky can
receive footage from the camera and ingest it through one of three card
readers; perform data management tasks; view full-resolution playback; perform
on-set image adjustment; and wirelessly deliver dailies right out of the case.
Facilitated by Thunderbolt integration, the DIT Station Rogue’s
Thunderbolt connection allows the workstation to achieve speeds well beyond
that of a conventional laptop-based workflow, taking advantage of both the fast connectivity and portability.

"Ready to go in 30 seconds,
the DIT Station Rogue eliminates the time DIT professionals like Sam need to
set up and take down traditional equipment – leaving them more time to liaise
with the DP and director," said Greg LaPorte, VP of sales and
marketing at Sonnet Technologies. "The
DIT Station Rogue is a true all-in-one tool for any workflow, anywhere and
anytime, and it works seamlessly through the powerful integration of Sonnet’s
technology."