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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE SAMSUNG
The new Samsung Portable SSD T5 drive is helping many digital media creators. But who knew that the analogue film business would also benefit? THE FILM PROCESS
SPINNING DISK DELAYS Sometimes the drives sent in to Cinelab have enough capacity but can only manage around 25MB/s data rate. When Adrian was initially introduced to the Samsung Portable SSD T5 drive, he had a lightbulb moment. “We placed the Samsung Portable drive into our process and immediately were attaining transfer speeds of perhaps ten times what we were used to. You can’t underestimate how impactful this is when clients are waiting for their files. Usually transferring 2TB of data to a drive is done as the last step of the process and you are looking at hours of waiting. With the Samsung Portable SSD T5 drive you are cutting down hugely on that stressful time when clients are calling and asking how much longer they have to wait. “Because we have had such a positive experience using Samsung’s
and quickened up the process – but there is an inherent log jam and that is based on transfer storage. Adrian Bull, CEO of Cinelab London, explains the process. “All of our processes are regimented thoroughly. Our clients send us their rushes and often send us a drive so we can send back the scanned files to them. Modern scanners produce files that are around 75MB per frame; for a day’s rushes you could be talking around 2TB per day especially when you’re dealing with uncompressed DPX files. “We use all the modern interfaces but the drives that sit behind them are the Achilles heel. You can be spending hours and hours copying stuff off and then the client spends similar amounts of time transferring the files at their end. In fact, we can actually generate the data far quicker than we can deliver it.”
inelab London is one of only two film processing plants left in the UK. In fact, it is bucking the trend of film not being popular for use in shooting movies – its service includes processing and scanning all formats from 8mm to 65mm. It has the only 65mm line in Europe with their first job being the movie Murder on the Orient Express . The business also handles film restoration, recording back to film and film cleaning. But Cinelab has a problem and it’s not of its own making. When digital cinematography first appeared, crew and actors alike loved the way you could immediately see what had been shot. With film, you had to develop the rushes at a lab and wait sometimes days to get to see the results. Since then the film processing and scanning business has smartened up its act
WE USE ALL THE MODERN INTERFACES BUT THE DRIVES THAT SIT BEHIND THEM ARE THE ACHILLES HEEL
ABOVE Cinelab is one of only two film processing plants in the UK.
DEFINITION APRIL 2018
DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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