Gaining Competitive Advantage from Switching and Extension ... · Radically New Industry Structure...

A Whitepaper from the Thinklogical Design Center

Gaining Competitive Advantage from Switching and Extension Infrastructures: Design Considerations for Post-Production

A Thinklogical Design Center Whitepaper• 2 •

Table of Contents

About the Thinklogical Design Center ..........................................................................................2

Executive Summary ...........................................................................................................................3

Technology Advances Drive a Radically New Industry Structure ............................................4

Technology Advances Drive a Highly Collaborative, Non-Linear Workflow ........................5

Design Considerations for a Collaborative Post-Production Switching and Extension Infrastructure .......................................................................................6

Performance ..........................................................................................................................................6

Flexability and Scalability ................................................................................................................7

Collaboration ...................................................................................................................................8

Security.............................................................................................................................................9

Broadcast and Post Production Applications Diagram .................................................................9

A Note About Fiber vs. Copper .....................................................................................................10

Summary .............................................................................................................................................10

About Thinklogical ..........................................................................................................................11

The Thinklogical Advantage ..........................................................................................................12

Design Considerations Chart ........................................................................................................13

About the Thinklogical Design CenterThe Thinklogical Design Center (TLDC) is an invaluable resource available to our customers and partners. Led by two industry pioneers and co-founders of Thinklogical, David Cheever and Peter Henderson, the Center has worked with customers and partners to provide thousands of conceptual system designs for requirements that range from straightforward to extremely innovative and complex.

Backed by a staff of tenured, industry-specific application and development engineers, the Center helps customers and partners discern their needs and requirements, then develops the appropriate system design. Often, features and functions are utilized in the design that the customer or partner had not previously considered. Features and functions may often be created or customized based on the design discussion, utilizing Thinklogical’s rapid development capability.

An initial TLDC consultation is typically a phone call for about an hour or less. Initial system designs are usually completed within 24 hours. All TLDC services and consultations are complimentary.

To contact the TLDC, please call 800-291-3211, or email [email protected].


Post-production — a critical service for the entertainment, broadcast and media industries — has experienced dramatic change on all fronts over the past decade. Remarkable advances in the technology used to deliver its art, vastly improved video and audio formats, and updated techniques and rapidly changing economic models to monetize the new services have, and will continue to drive change into the foreseeable future.

While advances in technology have created a more efficient path to higher quality and more creative product, they have also substantially lowered the barrier to entry. Competition from new entrants has blossomed, but with accompanying and substantial pressure on quality, creativity and price for the entire industry. In net, while revenue and margins per project decrease, customers expect higher quality, faster, and with more customized services — all at a lower price.

The industry appears to be responding in at least two ways:

1. To compete, many traditional post-production facilities are consolidating to become full service providers, often with a continental, if not global footprint. At the same time, boutique firms are multiplying, establishing position by focusing solely on high-end, high-margin services such as specialized visual effects.

2. What was traditionally a sequential content creation workflow, from content creation/ingest through editing, mastering and distribution, has become far more collaborative and non-linear in nearly all aspects.

This white paper addresses these changes, and how a future-proof technology infrastructure optimized for the new collaborative digital workflow plays an important role in helping creative professionals and their organizations maintain productivity, quality, customized services and profitability. The main attributes of the required infrastructure include:

1. High Performance. The system should deliver very high levels of reliable performance between the user and the content source, enabling the transmission of high-resolution video, audio and data with no compression, signal latency, video artifacts or lost frames, thereby enabling the highest quality production possible.

2. Flexibility and Scalability. Thesystemshouldbeflexibleinitsabilitytoscaleasusersandcontentsources grow, easily incorporating new video, audio and data signaling formats, new users, new locations and new applications.

3. Collaboration. Tosupportthenew,non-linearcollaborativeworkfloweditorsshouldbeable toaccessthefile-basedcontenttheyneed,whenandwheretheyneedit, regardless of location, even in a geographically-dispersed, multi-campus or multi-national environment.

4. Security and Physical Separation. The system should physically separate the users from the sources of information, such as media servers and PCs, to protect the content from being pirated while providing the end-user employees with the authorized access to thefilestheyneedtodotheirjob.

5. Fiber-Optic Connectivity. Creating a future-proof post-production infrastructure based on a high- bandwidthfiber-opticKVMsignalextensionandswitchingtechnologyresults in an optimized workspace with a minimized technology footprint enabling ease of integration and use.

Executive Summary


Technology Advances

Drive a Radically

New Industry Structure

Alternative content delivery channels created by digital media have generated new opportunities for content producers and creative professionals. Post-production service providers are no longer constrained to just film and broadcast production. Web content, social media and mobile applications present an expanded opportunity.

In addition, significant advances in the underlying technology have allowed for dramatic improvements in quality, efficiency and customized service. Video formats have increased four-fold, color depths have multiplied and audio has become richer. Software and hardware have become much more powerful and dramatically more affordable.

Yet while these changes have provided post-production customers with dramatic improvement in quality, creativity, speed and cost savings, the post-production providers have seen seismic upheaval in their operating model as they struggle to adapt to their new reality and likely future. For instance, the new digital media markets have various — and in many cases still unproven — business models, creating additional pricing scrutiny as companies attempt to monetize the new media delivery channels. Post-production service providers must have “very sharp pencils” to compete effectively in these new markets. While helping the post-production companies more efficiently meet their customer’s ever more stringent requirements, the technology advances in post-production hardware and software also lower the barrier for new entrants to the market, creating a flurry of lower-cost competitors and generating additional pressure on margins.

In fact, demand for traditional services provided by post-production such as video and audio editing and sound recording has remained flat, resulting in slow growth for the industry as a whole. According to a recent report from A.T. Kearney, the overall U.S. post-production industry is expected to grow only by three to four percent in the coming years, with the exception being specialized services such as visual effects – and even the domestic visual effects specialists are seeing work increasingly move offshore to lower-cost providers.

To compete effectively, many traditional post-production houses are combining and consolidating to become full service providers with expanded geographic presence. Regional firms that were once located primarily in Los Angeles or New York, are growing to a continental or even a worldwide presence, often through mergers or acquisitions. In addition, these firms are establishing satellite locations in China or India, or even just in new domestic locales such as upstate New York (where a post-production firm may earn a tax credit of up to 35% if 75% of a project’s post-production is completed by a firm in that region).

At the same time, the lower barrier to entry created by the industry’s technological advances has resulted in an expansion of the number of “boutique” firms targeting a specific subset of the post production workflow. These firms are much smaller, often new entrants that are focused solely on high-end, high-margin services such as specialized visual effects.

Finally, many other content creators, such as large broadcasters and advertising agencies and online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple’s iTunes, are now able to cost-effectively create and manage internal post-production divisions, relying on supplementary help from external service providers only as needed.

The expanded geographic presence of consolidated providers with a global footprint, the freedom to locate a boutique location anywhere, the ability to find trained artists in any region of the world, and the ability to cost effectively manage all or most of an advertising agency’s post-production needs in house, have all enabled this new industry structure to become a reality. Each of these would have been difficult, or at a minimum inefficient, prior to the technological advances of the last decade. Yet the very same technological advances that enhanced the post-production firm’s productivity and allowed the industry to evolve to this new structure, have created a much more competitive industry with scrutinized budgets, tighter timelines, rapid technological advances, and greater workloads managed by geographically dispersed staffs. Today’s post-production facility must be ever vigilant in balancing resources and high client demands to maintain profitability.


Technology Advances

Drive a Highly Collaborative,

Non-Linear Workflow

Digital formats, the advancement of higher resolutions such as UHD, 4K and 8K, higher frame rates, 3D dimensionalization, the advent of more powerful, lower-cost software and hardware, and an easier to train and more technically astute creative workforce, provide the opportunity for greater productivity through a much more collaborative, sometimes geographically dispersed and often times, non-linear workflow. Taking advantage of this opportunity is one of the key ways a post-production facility might enhance their business vitality in the increasingly competitive market described above.

Yet, while the pressure to move to a more collaborative and automated, non-linear workflow from creation to consumption is great, many organizations may still be mired with organizational silos and legacy technology infrastructure that is optimized for the linear processes of the past. A lack of integration and inability to support seamless, non-linear, and often times geographically dispersed workflows not only creates business inefficiencies, but may also put the long-term viability of a post-production house at stake.

File-based workflows are the natural outgrowth of new digital media formats. They require a more advanced storage, transmission and distribution infrastructures to facilitate seamless collaboration. A de-centralized and often global workforce creates an imperative for the technology to be available, with the same level of performance whether the user is in the same room, building, state, or even country as their co-worker. Post-production firms must maximize the value of each media asset in the fastest and least expensive way possible. Making the problem even more complex, they have to do this while fully protecting the intellectual property from piracy and other malicious activity.

Therefore, successful post-production facilities need to take a traditionally sequential content creation workflow, from content creation/ingest through editing, mastering and distribution, and make it ever more collaborative and non-

linear, while still ensuring the security and integrity of the asset at a level needed to pass Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) content security surveys and maintain eligibility to work with major studios. The more effectively an organization achieves this objective, the more effectively it will be able to compete in today’s highly competitive industry.

With the rapid pace of digitization across vertical markets, especially within the media and entertainment industry, the need to manage digital content is no longer “nice to have” but a “must have” for any organization.

– Frost & Sullivan


Whether a global post-production service provider, a boutique specialist, or an internal division of a broadcast or advertising firm, today’s post-production organization must seek to optimize a collaborative, non-linear workflow from ingest through distribution to establish competitive advantage along two dimensions: productivity and customer satisfaction. A critical component underlying the facility’s ability to achieve the required workflow optimization is a high-performance KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) and audio signal switching and extension infrastructure, based on best practices that meet the needs of the business and creative process today and well into the future. There are several areas for consideration in achieving such a switching and extension infrastructure.

Performance

Editing in the post-production world has always had to be precise. With the onset of digital media, both the ability and requirement for precision have continued to increase. More than ever, it has become imperative that color is matched, audio is in sync, and content flows seamlessly. As resolutions (and the accompanying digital file sizes) get larger, the need for precise and accurate delivery and editing of content becomes greater.

Latency, lost pixels and artifacts in digital media must not compromise performance and creativity in the editor’s craft in the post production workflow. When present, these inhibitors can result in a less than perfect product. This outcome can occur in two ways: an otherwise effective editor, working with less than optimal media quality, creates a less than optimal product; or, an otherwise effective editor, suffering from the increased fatigue from working with less than optimal media quality for long periods of time, ends up delivering an uninspired and sub-par product.

Most often, the compression algorithms that are used to provide signal switching and extension over lower bandwidth transport are the culprits in creating the latency, lost frames, lost pixels and artifacts. Therefore, a critical consideration in the selection of the switching and extension system is the facility’s tolerance for compression, latency, lost frames, lost pixels and artifacts, weighed against the option of using a completely uncompressed approach. Best practices suggest an uncompressed approach based on a high-bandwidth transport infrastructure, providing every pixel available in the original content at native resolution with no latency or artifacts.

Design Considerations

for a Collaborative

Post-Production Switching

and Extension Infrastructure

UNITED, a full-service multimedia audio-visual production company based intheNetherlands,realizedtheirlegacycopper-basedKVMswitchingandextension infrastructure had limited bandwidth and an unacceptable level of compression, resulting in images and video being delivered to the editors with loss of synchronization, loss of pixels and unacceptable latency. Because the quality of content required by their clients, UNITED installed an uncompressed fiber-opticswitchingandextensionsystem,providingtheireditorswithimagesand videos of the exact same quality as the original with no noticeable latency, artifacts or ghosting effects.


Flexibility and Scalability

An optimized digital post-production process needs to support several functions, processes and technologies, both onsite and offsite simultaneously, and with an eye to the future. With today’s large range of technologies and formats, including 4K, 8K, Stereo/3D, high frame rate, high dynamic range, wide color gamut and further advances to come, the switching and extension infrastructure needs to easily manage all formats and signal types available today, while being robust enough to easily support future advancements.

Best practices suggest at least five major considerations. First, does the switching and extension infrastructure easily support all of the video, audio, KVM and data formats that a post-production facility has today? Designing the infrastructure around a single matrix switch and extension technology architecture that is able to handle all signal types and resolution formats reduces the facility’s hardware footprint, easies the engineering workload and increases productivity and flexibility as only a single integrated system needs to be configured and maintained.

Second, will a particular architecture support unrestricted, “any-to-any” switching and still provide the tools necessary for an administrator to restrict access to sources and destinations? That is, for example, can a DVI source be switched to anywhere the customer would like it switched, even if they are not sure of the requirements beforehand? Building on that requirement is the potential to multicast a source to many destinations. Yet a robust, any-to-any switching architecture must also provide the capability for the administrator to restrict source-destination combinations as needed. This flexibility is required to meet and exceed the post-production facility’s client needs.

Third, how easy is it to reconfigure and expand the architecture as the needs of the post-production facility change, often in a manner that was not foreseen? In some system architectures, changes and expansion quickly lead to a need for a complete redesign of the overall system. Naturally, the best practice for expansion of the system — incrementally or even in a much larger way – would be to ensure that the system is as modular, flexible and “plug-and-play” as possible.

Fourth, how easily will the system adapt to new video, audio and data formats of the future? Best practices suggest that the conversion of the format into whatever transport format is used (packets, proprietary protocols, etc.) happen as close to the edge of the infrastructure as possible. For instance, if conversion of the format happens at the signal extender and if that conversion is to a protocol agnostic transmission system that carries the information from the extender through the switching architecture, then only the extender will need to be updated to carry a new video, audio or data format.

Finally, serious consideration must be given to the footprint and environmental aspects of the entire system as it achieves these flexibility and scalability requirements. How much space do extenders and switches consume in the workplace? How much heat and noise do they generate? What is the cabling footprint of the system? How many cables are required to carry the various video, audio and signal formats? Undesirable and inefficient space utilization, excessive cabling and too much heat and noise can have deleterious effects on maintenance and administration of the system, the editor’s workplace environment, and ultimately the client experience.

TheMill,avisualeffectsanimationanddesignstudiowithmajorfacilitiesinLondon and Los Angeles, initially installed a copper-based network to extend local video in its editing facility. However, the company soon found that limitations of the infrastructure required that the computers remain in the same room with editors, and the system would not support USB 2.0 signals, a key requirement for data transfer. Not being able to extend all computer peripheral devices, USB ports, and tablets limited their workspace and flexibilityforexpansionortask-basedcollaboration.

TheMillturnedtoafiber-opticbasedsignalextensioninfrastructurethatallowed the company’s technical team to move computing resources out of the editing suites and into machine rooms, while at the same time maintaining the availability and performance of video displays and computer peripherals including support for USB 2.0.


Collaboration

As the industry evolves into multi-location operations that collaborate regularly with boutique specialists across the world it is important to have high performance switching and extension not just within a post-production studio, but also between studios, within the entire building, across campus and between multiple facilities across the world. Ideally, editors should be able

to access the content they need, when they need it, regardless of location. In addition, editors should be able to work together, perhaps editing audio and video simultaneously, whether they are in the same room or in separate offices in Los Angeles and Chennai. Because the modern post-production workflow is a collaborative effort, it should be easy to switch from one user to another (as well as one content source to another) as needed to accomplish the task.

Best practices suggest that the architecture required to support the new world of collaborative post production be able to extend sources to destinations with no compression, latency or lost pixels to as great a distance as possible, preferably covering all of a facility’s locations and collaborators’ locations within a distance

of 50 miles, or 80 kilometers. In addition, for distances greater than 50 miles, the architecture should provide for the most efficient transport of content over longer distances with minimal loss of signal quality or system performance, again with an eye toward preserving the content and minimizing latency if the application involves real-time collaboration.

AtEFILM(apartofDeluxeEntertainmentServices),oneofthemostadvanceddigital laboratories in the world for the motion picture and television industry, numerous compositors and editors reside in multiple editing suites throughout the company’s Hollywood campus, as well as at satellite facilities located at studios and creative agencies in the Los Angeles area. Immediate access to content is key to meeting customer deadlines and maximizing the productivity of creative talent. It is critical that a tightly integrated signal extension solution provide not only seamless access to content and resources, but also not be limited by distance.

Therefore,EFILMchosetodeployahigh-bandwidthfiber-opticKVMandvideoextension and switching infrastructure to provide long haul transmission of content and computer signals without compression to its facilities up to 12 milesawayfromthecontentsource,withnosignallatencyorlossoffidelity.ThisallowsclientstoattendeditingsessionsattheEFILMfacilityclosesttotheirhomes,ratherthanhavingtodriveinLosAngeles’infamoustraffictothemainEFILMfacility.ItalsogivesEFILMaremotebutuncompromisedpresenceco-locatedalongsideaudiofinishingfacilitieswithMPAAapprovedsecurity.ThislevelofcustomerserviceisonewayEFILMdifferentiateditsservice in a highly competitive regional market.

The media and entertainment market is now more interested than ever in solutions to streamlineandraiseworkflowproductivity in the content lifecycle that spans creation to delivery.

– Frost & Sullivan


Security

While flexibility and access to content is critical to workflow productivity, the threat of content theft might be thought of as a driver in the opposite direction: How does the organization increase access to content for collaboration, while at the same time protect it from being corrupted or stolen? While the trend to digital media opens up new opportunities for production and consumption, it also makes it easier for those with criminal intent to copy and distribute proprietary intellectual property without authorization. All aspects of the post-production workflow should maintain an appropriate level of security that protects content but does not impede on the creative process. Security is especially an issue when dealing with offsite or remote editing suites and employees.

One way to increase the level of protection around valuable digital assets is by physical separation. Remembering that perpetrators are often trusted internal resources such as employees and contractors, it is appropriate and prudent to ensure that they do not have direct access to the content servers.

In the future-proof (and piracy-proof) post-production infrastructure, best practices suggest that content servers should always be in secure locations, where only administrators have access to them. Content should be switched to the editors from this secure location. A high bandwidth fiber-optic infrastructure allows the operator to work on the content as if he is in the same room with the servers, without requiring the physical transfer of files from one location to another.

At the editor station, there should not be any method of taking the content; that is, USB and other peripheral ports should be configured to support the required peripherals only, but not portable storage devices such as USB thumb drives. In addition, hardware and equipment used in the transmission process should not store or buffer data or images. Providing this physical separation of the content and data sources from humans can be the single most important step to thwarting security breaches; fundamentally, if the content never leaves the secure location it can’t be pirated. At a minimum, physical separation reduces the number of people who have access to the content from many to a more accountable few.

Broadcast and Post-Production Applications

Secure Technology Room• KVM Matrix Switch

• Media Servers

• Image Library

• Render Farm

• Ingest

• SAN

Up to 80km/50 Miles

Remote Digital Intermediate Facility

Grading Suite Viewing Theater

Grading Suite


8 Duplex protocols over one fiber

KVM Main

KVM Assist

2K Video 4:4:4

HDSDI Video

VTR Control

Gigabit IP

Audio 7.1

Spare

KVM Main

KVM Assist

2K Video 4:4:4

HDSDI Video

VTR Control

Gigabit IP

Audio 7.1

Spare

CWDMPassive

MUX

CWDMPassive

MUX

A Single strand ofSingle Mode Fiber

Hollywood Remote Facility

1

8Duplexprotocolsoveronefiber

A Note about Fiber vs. Copper

Historically, post-production has relied on copper-based network infrastructure (CAT-X, for instance) to transport video, audio and data within or between facilities, along with a computer KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) signal extension and switching system. However, as the post-production industry evolves to meet the demands of the digital file-based workflows and higher-resolution formats, best practices are driving the migration towards a fiber-optic transport infrastructure.

The performance limitations of copper-based connectivity — including electronic emanations, the inability to support UHD content in native format, and the introduction of latency when transmitting signals over distances — have been driving forward-looking post-production organizations to implement fiber-optic-based infrastructures. In addition, the economics of replacing copper with fiber, or building a new facility with fiber, are such that in many applications deploying fiber throughout a network can be significantly less expensive than installing new grades of copper.1

The high-bandwidth capacity of fiber

enables the multiplexing of

diverse signal formats into a single

uncompressed data stream,

increasing efficiency and improving performance.

Summary To meet the challenges of the digital media paradigm shift, post-production professionals need to consider the type and scope of the infrastructure installed to support not only today’s increasing demanding business and technical requirements, but those of a rapidly-changing and uncertain future. Understanding these challenges – and how individual post-production houses and creative professionals should respond to them – will naturally lead to a future-proof technology infrastructure based on recommended best practices of high-bandwidth, fiber-optic signal extension and switching that is optimized for this new collaborative digital workflow.

For today — and tomorrow — this infrastructure can play an important role in helping creative professionals and their organizations maintain productivity, quality, customized services, asset security and profitability and will determine not only the viability of these entities as a business, but the future of the post production industry as a whole.

1 Fiber Optics Technology Consortium, The Telecommunications Industry Association, www.tiafotc.org


Thinklogical is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sales of high performance, secure extension and switching systems to control, distribute and manage video-rich, big data. Our systems switch real-time video, audio and peripheral signals between many sources and many destinations for applications where high and reliable bandwidth is required, co-location of computers with users is not desired, permitted or possible, and where maintaining data integrity and security is necessary or highly important.

Thinklogical extension and switching systems are installed in thousands of customer sites worldwide and across multiple industries, including:

• Dozens of film and broadcast studios, including the largest names in cable, broadcast and sports. These post-production operations must transmit massive quantities of video and audio footage (up to 8 million pixels per frame for 4K digital cinema – four times today’s High Definition television) to editing suites within the same building as well as other locations up to 80 km away, with no latency, loss of frames or video artifacts – all the while securing the footage from piracy and unauthorized release.

• The U.S. Department of Defense Unified Commands, which operate the largest command and control centers in the world. The ability to securely, yet flexibly, restrict access to Top Secret, Classified and Unclassified information, while ensuring rapid access to mission critical, real time, video rich information in full resolution, with no latency, artifacts or lost frames, is essential to coordinating and directing US and allied forces in various geopolitical regions of the world.

• Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) piloting centers, where security, full video resolution and low control systems latency are crucial to successful drone flight operations, especially over extended pilot shift times of multiple hours.

• Nuclear power plant control centers, where minimization of electromagnetic signal interference with various sensor information (by using fiber rather than copper cabling) is important, and fully redundant, instantaneous failover to an emergency control center located a safe distance from the reactor core are all crucial requirements.

• U.S. State Department Embassies in combat zones and world hotspots, where mission- critical command and control centers are used to direct security efforts local to the embassy, and provide intelligence and surveillance information to central commands in the region.

• National research laboratories and universities, where no latency and full resolution are stringent requirements for simulation and 3D modeling applications.

• Global oil, gas, and energy production and distribution companies seeking secure, high performance real time operating centers and control rooms

About Thinklogical


The Thinklogical

Advantage

• Thinklogical offers the highest extension and cross point switching performance in the industry, with dedicated 6.25 Gbps of bandwidth per optical thread, in a scalable, protocol-agnostic, completely non-blocking switching matrix.

• Thinklogical systems transport every resolution of computer or broadcast video available today, with no compression, pixelation, lost frames, artifacts or latency, and with the lowest fiber footprint in the industry.

• Thinklogical offers the highest Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) in the industry (100,000 hours), hot-swappable and redundant components, and can be configured as fully redundant with immediate failover capability.

• Thinklogical systems can be designed to achieve, over significant distances (up to 80 km if necessary, separation of the threat (users) from the target of the attack (the information). In addition, Thinklogical offers the ability to limit the functionality of USB ports, allowing for peripheral connection but prohibiting the theft of data or injection of viruses through USB ports.

• Thinklogical provides a robust and flexible suite of advanced partitioning and restriction features and functions that allow for close management of user interaction in environments with multiple users and multiple sources of confidential information.

In fact, the Thinklogical system architecture has undergone stringent independent testing with NATO and the US Department of Defense, resulting in the awarding of Common Criteria EAL4 status, NATO NIAPC Evaluation Scheme: Green, and TEMPEST Level B approval. These accreditations endorse the system for use in the most secure and most demanding military and intelligence environments, based on fiber, electrical and firmware isolation characteristics, system architecture security features and functions, and the robustness, reliability and redundancy of the switching products. Thinklogical is the only company in the world to achieve Common Criteria EAL4 status for fiber optic based extension and switching systems.


Design Consideration

Thinklogical Approach & Benefits

Performance • No compression; full video and image resolution with no artifacts or lost frames

• Infinitesimal latency, unnoticeable by the human eye

• Completely non-blocking 6.25 Gbps crosspoint switching matrices

• Mean Time between Failure (MTBF) of 100,000+ hours

• Configurable to achieve a parallel redundant system with two synchronized Thinklogical switches running parallel (mirroring with identical signals).

• Thinklogical’s unique “switchover capability” allows the system to automatically choose a stream to “lock onto” and then automatically failover to the parallel stream if necessary.

• Complete redundant, hot-swappable components such as power supplies and input/output cards

Flexibility and Scalability

• Flexible restriction scheme and on screen, drag and drop displays to enable quick and easy customization per location/room/application

• Scalable from 5 ports to 640 x 640 ports

• Modular switches and extenders allow for reconfiguration and expansion as necessary, customized in the field to the specific customer needs

• Protocol agnostic, allowing all future video, audio and peripheral signaling formats to be easily incorporated into the overall system

Collaboration • Connect geographically disparate users and locations with optimal performance and results

• Support for all major video, audio and peripheral signaling formats, including full performance USB 2.0

• Any-to-any switching of content sources to user destinations supports collaborative and non-linear workflows

Security • Physically separate content sources from users for added security

• Ability to limit the functionality of USB to peripheral connection only; disallowing the theft of data or injection of viruses through USB ports

• Restrict users and sources on a port by port basis

• Prevent changes to restriction scheme by unauthorized users by implementing scheme in firmware (requires physical access to the switch to change)

• Meet highest levels of security accreditations: EAL4, TEMPEST

Fiber vs. Copper • All Thinklogical systems are fiber optic based (single mode or multimode), allowing for signal extension up to 80 km (50 miles) at full resolution

• Dedicated, 6.25 Gbps bandwidth per optical stream (port to port)

• Fiber optics are inherently and dramatically less vulnerable to eavesdropping attacks

For more information about Thinklogical products and services, or for a complimentary consultation on your specific system needs, please contact the Thinklogical Design Center at 1-800-291-3211 or [email protected]

Thinklogical can provide many benefits in today’s post production environment, directly responding to the key design considerations and best practices described in this white paper:


Notes

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Notes

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gaining Competitive Advantage from Switching and Extension ... · Radically New Industry Structure...

Documents

Transcript of Gaining Competitive Advantage from Switching and Extension ... · Radically New Industry Structure...