Color grading is the most performance-demanding process of a post facilities infrastructure, particularly their storage solution. The reason for this is that color grading demands the highest quality content to produce the best-looking results. In many workflows, the color grading process uses the RAW Camera files or lossless video codecs to maintain as much pixel depth and resolution as possible. Invariably, grading such high-quality content results in high bitrates. For example, one 4K 16Bit stream at 24 FPS produces a bitrate of approximately 1.2 Gigabyte per second. The industry-standard color grading formats such as DPX and EXR store every frame as a separate file. Just trying to play these file sequences back in real-time can be too great of a task for many storage solutions.
ELEMENTS has renowned expertise in providing storage solutions for real-time media workflows, including color grading with multiple streams of 4K, 6K, and 8K content.
SAN or NAS, you decide
One of the unique features of the ELEMENTS ONE and ELEMENTS BOLT storage solutions is that they can behave both as a SAN and as a NAS at the same time.
In a SAN configuration, they deliver block-level or native-client storage access required for high-performance applications, and as a high-speed, Ethernet-based NAS, they are flexible and secure. This feature gives you the flexibility to choose the most suitable configuration for your infrastructure.
Fibre Channel or Ethernet. Why not both?
Choosing an ELEMENTS solution gives you the choice to use Ethernet or Fibre Channel on a per-client basis. For example, demanding color grading workflows on a hard-drive-based system are best done with block-level access such as Fibre Channel or iSer connections. This approach allows you to benefit from a high-bandwidth connection with minimal latency while at the same time reducing overall complexity. ELEMENTS systems connect to 32 Gbps Fibre Channel infrastructures for the highest performance access to your content.
With speeds of 100 Gbps and rising, Ethernet-based systems can support demanding color grading workflows in real-time with cost-efficiency benefits. Ethernet-based solutions also provide additional benefits such as user permission management and advanced security features.
Efficient integration with DaVinci Resolve
The ELEMENTS Media Library visualizes the content on the storage and presents the dynamic proxies through an intuitive web user interface. Taking advantage of Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Workflow integration, colorists can now access content on ELEMENTS storage straight from the NLE. This tight integration enables them to browse for content and import it with a single click – all while keeping the comments made in the Media Library. Furthermore, the Panel allows you to save time by using the Media Library proxies for offline editing.
The granular search function allows you to combine multiple search criteria and find just the right footage for your project, straight from DaVinci Resolve. Additionally, the ELEMENTS system can host a shared database, allowing for efficient usage of Resolve’s project sharing function.
Maximum performance by using flash technology
The ELEMENTS BOLT is an all-NVMe solution that delivers the highest performance of over 70 GB/s per chassis. It provides this performance with virtually zero latency and no filesystem fragmentation. This flash-based storage technology seamlessly handles even the most demanding high-bitrate color grading workflows with files sequence formats like DPX and EXR.
Simultaneously, ELEMENTS BOLT is based on forward-thinking flash technology that will enable your company to implement high-speed Ethernet-based workflows. This approach allows you to benefit from both the highest performance and Ethernet infrastructures‘ ease of use and scalability.
We really like that ELEMENTS allows us to run multiple 4K HDR color sessions simultaneously – without losing performance.
Meetal Gokul, Director of Post Production at IMAX
Boost your performance with a technology 10x faster than traditional SSDs
Implementing an efficient and easy-to-use storage system used to be a rather complicated task. With ELEMENTS BOLT your overall performance will not only dramatically improve. Your whole workflow will also become radically simplified: resulting in less stress and a significantly lower operating footprint.
Use only one product to support every step of the production process
Put an end to time-consuming data copying: you only need one single storage system for providing media assets to every department and every application in your facility, from scanning, to color grading, editing, compositing, VFX, and GFX – and everything else.
