Video Rescue User Stories

Epic
The largest fibre and Ethernet video SAN network in the world.
Out of the Ashes of the old Anglian TV studios EPIC has risen like a phoenix to become not only a major broadcasting hub in Norfolk but to rival traditional studios throughout Europe. With the financial backing of Norfolk County Council and the East of England development agency, EPIC has converted the old TV studios and installed a state of the art HD workflow solution to enable resident clients, visiting production companies and local universities to work with the very latest broadcast equipment in custom designed studios.
Epic really is the future, they provide space and resources for the companies of today and perhaps more importantly teaching the students of tomorrow. The centre is a hub for both commercial and educational users which is a first for the industry, commissioning editors in business suits rub shoulders with the spikey hair tattooed creatives which provides a wonderful pool of talent to not only draw from but to offer inspiration to others.
	Mark Wells the centre Director had a vision of a state of the art facility that offered full HD capability from ingest to output. He wanted a SAN (Storage Are Network) solution that would allow a huge volume of storage to be available without any detriment to speed to between sixty and seventy edit suites. The full plan was to integrate the San with the three studios for live capture of SD and HD as well as allowing full post facilities. He took his wish list and visited IBC in Amsterdam and Video Forum in London. Almost without exception Mark was greeted with the same response from solutions providers and manufacturers which was yes it can be done but we have yet to see it work !
Obviously the manufacturers did not have a shrink wrapped solution so Mark approached the niche solutions experts and was dismayed to find either a lack of knowledge on the subject or if they had the knowledge and lack of experience in actually setting up a system of this magnitude. “It seemed” said Mark “that everyone can put together a Final Cut Pro suite but nobody seemed interested in understanding our wider objectives”.
Mark then happened upon the Video Rescue stand and was immediately put at ease by Dominic Harland (Managing Director of Video Rescue)and Ben Pearce (Technical Director), Mark told me that “They took time to listen to what we wanted, they took notes and then offered a few suggestions and improvements that we had not considered, also they talked me through various other installations that Video Rescue had been commissioned to do and gave me the contact details of the customer so I could check it out for myself; it just seemed that other suppliers wanted to sell me boxes only Video Rescue seemed to get a grip on the wider picture”
EPICs needs and expectations were vast but working with manufacturers both hardware and software allied with our in house expertise we created the largest fibre and Ethernet video SAN network in the world. Any facility that uses two or more edit suites should be considering the benefits and cost effectiveness of a managed SAN network.

Kingston University

Kingston is London's top ranking new university, according to the Guardian. With a wealth of courses available to students and research facilities for use within business. Kingston opened its doors in 1899 and is now divided into seven faculties which has over 2000 staff and 21,000 students. It has undergone a radical campus redevelopment and now houses in excess of 2,000 networked computers. Their is a strong Television and Video Technology course within Kingston which links the design and technology aspects of production enabling the student to build a portfolio of creative work. They have invested heavily in technology to create video production and television studio workflows including broadcast, effects and editing. One project which Ken Evans (Head of department for moving image) was charged with was to find a solution that would allow a central storage network for the audio/video content and a system that would be capable of feeding several streams of HD material to any client machine at once if necessary. Kingston have strong links with Apple and Ken explored the various options as well as attending a myriad of trade shows and perused all the trade papers. After meeting Video Rescue at the Broadcast Expo in London Ken invited Dominic Harland and Ben Pearce to visit Kingston and give an overview of their existing equipment as well as showing what was possible utilising the particular set up at the University. I asked Ken how this consultancy process worked and he replied “We were very impressed with the in depth Knowledge both Ben and Dominic had on video server and SAN's in general and the solution they suggested was exactly what we were looking for. What clinched it was that they didn't just want to sell us the latest thing, they were more concerned on selling us something that actually worked and more importantly that they had experience of it working in the real world”. During installation I asked Ken if their were any hiccups along the way, he replied “Any hiccups were dealt with immediately either by visit or phone diagnosis. We were always left with a working system and our down time was minimal” I also asked Ken if he had commissioned Video Rescue for any other projects, he replied ”Since asking Video Rescue to build our first SAN, we have only ever dealt with them as there has been no need to go anywhere else. We felt we've always had the absolute best deal at the best price” and would he recommend them as a supplier ? “A resounding yes! The company have gone from strength to strength in terms of knowledge and good solid solutions and our current system has been about as rock solid as anything I've ever worked with. The technical staff and students love it, can't really give the guys enough credit for their help, assistance and fantastic systems. Nothing bad to say about VR. Would highly recommend them for the kind of products we have been provided and as I said, they have been unbelievably reliable in the last few years. To top it, Ben, Dominic and Mike are a great bunch of guys with a vast knowledge of these systems and what they do. I wouldn't even think about asking another company in to take care of our SAN. I'd be happy to show anyone around our facility so they can see first hand how it performs.” In total Video Rescue installed a 10 seat XSAN system with an abundance of storage, ten high specced edit suites, and optimised the SAN as well as overseeing the move of all equipment to the new facility.