EditShare Field 2 Mobile Shared Storage

EditShare LLC is demonstrating the new EditShare Field 2 at NAB 2013.

The portable shared storage solution offers asset management, file ingest, advanced project sharing/bin locking and archiving capabilities in an all-in-one, high-performance, compact and rugged chassis designed for on-the-go and on-location productions.

"The new Field 2 design is even lighter and more rugged than its predecessor, with size dimensions that comply with the most stringent of airline carry-on regulations," comments Andy Liebman, founder and CEO, EditShare. "Coupled with EditShare’s core asset management, project sharing and archiving capabilities, Field 2 gives editors a complete, end-to-end tapeless workflow in a small form factor with tools to collaborate with colleagues anywhere. Whether you are out on location shooting a movie or an event, on assignment in an ENG truck, or stationed at a remote office, you have the latest production and editing capabilities to make your workflow a lot more efficient and your life a whole lot easier."

With an optional integrated Flow SDI ingest card, users can record up to two channels of HD in leading codecs (XDCAM-EX35, DNxHD, DVCProHD, etc.). The edit-while-capture capability of Flow lets users start editing the moment they begin recording – ideal for ENG scenarios where time is of the essence for fast turnaround late-breaking news stories. With an optional lightweight expansion unit, Field 2 can scale up to 24TB. And using the integrated EditShare Sync Tool, users can send data from a remote location back to home base over a simple Internet VPN connection.

Field 2 Feature Highlights

Flexible Storage Options:
Field 2 comes with several different 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch HDD options – including 10K SAS and SSD – to let users optimize for what counts the most – greatest amount of storage, highest performance, lowest weight and best economy.

Performance and Stream Counts:
Each four-drive set of 3.5-inch drives can support a ‘baseline performance’ of eight streams of ProRes HQ or DNxHD 220 or 24 streams of 25-Mbit video such as DV25 or XDCAM-EX 25. An eight-drive Field with 2.5-inch 10K SAS drives provides about a two-fold increase in performance. An eight-drive Field with 2.5-inch SSD drives provides about a six-fold increase over the baseline.

Reliability:
Field 2 storage is built with the industry’s most reliable enterprise HDDs and SSD drives and uses hardware RAID-5 or RAID-6.

Cost-effective, Yet Powerful Ethernet Connectivity:
In 2004, EditShare pioneered the idea of ‘in-place editing’ over standard GbE connections. Today, thousands of EditShare customers can testify to the fact that GbE works great – even when playing back multi-stream effects. With Field 2, users can make direct connections between workstations and the four on-board GbE ports, or use a unique Linux bonding configuration (adaptive load balancing) to combine the bandwidth of all four Ethernet ports and connect them to a low-cost switch that doesn’t natively support bonding or link-aggregation.

Optional 10GbE Port:
With an optional 10GbE card, users can connect a Field 2 system to a 10Gb switch, which is the recommended configuration if they are using Field 2 with other EditShare servers (XStream, Energy, Flow or Ark) on the same network.

Integrated Flow Asset Management
and Ark Backup and Archiving:
Every Field 2 system includes Flow software (Linux server plus Windows and Mac clients) for file-based ingest, logging, cataloging, searching, simple cuts-only editing and drag-and-drop into the leading NLE applications. Up to two concurrent users can access Flow software running on Field 2, processing up to two file-ingest channels at a time. In addition, Field includes the Ark software for backing up and archiving to approved tape libraries, including Quantum, HP and Spectra logic models.

Scalability:
EditShare’s Extreme Scalable Architecture (ESA) allows connecting multiple Field units together on a single network, or connecting a Field unit to other rack-mounted EditShare servers, where they all just appear as a single storage pool.

File Level Sharing:
EditShare’s NAS technology controls locking at the file level, allowing multiple editors to write to the same volume simultaneously – crucial for efficient workflows. In comparison, many SANS use volume-level locking, allowing only one user at a time to write to a volume.

Project Sharing and Bin Locking:
EditShare developed and patented the first non-Avid ‘bin locking’ solution to allow Avid editors to work collaboratively and use the same bins simultaneously without stepping on each other’s toes. EditShare later extended the technology to support Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro and the company’s own NLE, Lightworks.

Administration Tools:
Although the technology behind every EditShare system is complex and sophisticated, the front-end administration tools make it easy to create user accounts and spaces for media and projects, and to then assign different user rights to the various spaces.

Dynamically Resizable Spaces:
To make media management easier, content creation organizations usually want to create different ‘spaces’ for different projects so that media files can be easily archived or deleted when they are no longer being used. Because EditShare ‘spaces’ are just virtual volumes, enlarging or shrinking them after they have been created is as simple as a couple of clicks.

No Per-Seat License:
No per-seat license removes barriers to productivity and provides faster ROI.

Deletion Security Controls:
EditShare Administrators can set privileges such as who can delete files and when; delete to ‘Trash’ and ‘Undo’ if a file is deleted by accident.

Field 2 Specifications

• Light and Compact – The main Field 2 chassis is 8.25" tall x 12.75 deep x 12" wide and weights under 25 pounds. The Field-2 expansion unit is the same width and depth, and 4.25" tall.
• Quiet – Field 2 is quiet enough to use on location, right beside you.
• Expandable and flexible storage options – both the main Field 2 Unit and the expansion unit can be factory-configured with 4 x 3.5" or 8 x 2.5" drives.
• Flexible slot configuration – allows additional options like network cards, SDI ingest, or Ark Tape LTO.

EditShare Field Builds on Tradition
EditShare introduced its first Field model in 2007. Since then, Field systems have been deployed to cover high-profile sports events such as the Tour de France, America’s Cup sailing, World Cup soccer in South Africa, Wimbledon tennis and the summer Olympic games in Beijing. In addition, Field units have been installed in small OB trucks and used to cover big news events such as the Chilean mine collapse of 2009 and the 2010 and 2011 European Union sessions.