“Initially, we considered alternative THE TV REALITY OF FNTECH’S recorders (AJA KiPros), but these proved to be limited in terms of SUCCESS WITH CINEDECK RX codec choice, and had questionable build-quality. By comparison, the “Cinedeck’s top-of-the-line products give producers the Cinedeck EX was robust, felt like a speed, efficiency and security they demand as they entrust mini-VTR, and offered an impressive their multi-million dollar productions to us.” range of codecs. At that time, the EX was the only one that could encode ~Curt Fuglewicz, co-owner FNTECH to DNx145 MXF Op Atom, which was essential for the show’s editorial needs.” FNTECH selected eight Cinedeck EXs, which were built into custom racks at the show’s studio location. Curt Fuglewicz, Center Right Seven EXs were used to capture 1080i, 59.94fps from Sony 1500 ISO cameras, with one EX allo- cated for the line cut. Each of the EXs encoded the material to The company: FNTECH, Toronto, Canada DNx145 MXF Op Atom, with the files simultaneously recorded FNTECH is a thriving technical supplier to major broadcast TV to the EXs removable SSD drives and to local-attached eSATA series shooting and posting in Canada, with multiple Cinedeck drives, which were sent to editorial. This provided redundancy EX and RX systems at the heart of the various tapeless work- and a much faster way to transfer material to a 24TB Avid ISIS, flows they develop. as compared to realtime tape ingest. Files were copied over- night from the eSATA drives in preparation for editorial the fol- Based in Toronto, the business was established in 2010 by Curt lowing morning. In addition, some of the EXs were also used Fuglewicz and Karel Noordover. Prior to starting the company, on location shoots in combination with Sony 900 cameras, Fuglewicz and Noordover worked separately as independent with the removable SSD drives used for file transfer to the Avid technical producers, but became so busy they decided to join ISIS. forces. This rapidly led to them taking on more projects under the FNTECH banner, and to the company becoming a key sup- “Whilst this might look a little old fashioned by today’s stan- plier of lighting, camera and audio equipment and the associ- dards, three years ago it was pretty revolutionary and proved ated workflows on primetime TV programs. hugely successful,” says Fuglewicz. “The production company loved it that we could deliver “If it plugs-in, lights-up or needs electricity, that’s pretty much ready-to-edit files so quickly our domain,” says FNTECH co-owner Curt Fuglewicz. “We’ve after each shoot. Their sat- built our business around Cinedeck recorders. They set us isfaction with the workflow apart by enabling us to be a fast and responsive supplier. They we devised was such that have great toolsets for a wide range of tapeless, multi-cam they ditched the HDCam shows, and help producers improve dramatically on their tapedecks they had been us- workflows and costs.” ing, and the show has been completely tapeless with The productions: primetime multi-cam series including Big Cinedeck ever since.” Brother Canada and Chopped Canada Success has been such that FNTECH has deployed multiple Word about FNTECH’s suc- Cinedeck EX and RX systems on a range of popular TV pro- cess of using Cinedeck EXs grams: Big Brother Canada, reality talent shows Canadian Idol on The Ron James Show and Canada’s Got Talent (Insight Productions for Endemol EX Flight Pack at the Ron James Show quickly earned the company USA), several seasons of the comedy series The Ron James a reputation as a pioneer for Show (Enter The Picture for CBC Television), figure skating fast and efficient workflows in Canada. “New producers, edi- competition Battle Of The Blades (CBC Television), cooking tors and post production supervisors who came in for demos, show Chopped Canada (Paperny Entertainment for Food Net- immediately saw the benefits of this type of workflow, and we work), and the prestigious Gemini Awards celebrating achieve- soon started to attract more and more multi-cam shows,” says ments in Canadian broadcasting and cinema. Fuglewicz. “We have worked closely with Cinedeck for a couple of years The workflow: Big Brother Canada (Insight Productions for now, and recognize that they have much better products than Endemol USA) many other companies today. Either their rivals don’t do as Realizing that FNTECH needed to expand its capacity and much, or you might need to pay ten times the price to achieve capability to deliver the new breed of tapeless workflow, the same functionality,” says Fuglewicz. “Ultimately, Cinedeck’s Fuglewicz says he jumped at the chance to test one of the first top-of-the-line products give producers the speed, efficiency dual-channel Cinedeck RXs, when they became available in and security they demand as they entrust their multi-million early 2012. dollar productions to us.” “We were attracted to the high-rez master/low-rez proxy The workflow: The Ron James Show (Enter The Picture for capability that the RX offered all in one box,” he says. “When CBC Television) we were given the opportunity to bid on supplying Big Brother FNTECH gained its initial experience with Cinedeck technology Canada, we immediately saw how the RXs could play a pivotal in 2010, when it was tasked with blueprinting the workflow for role in the workflow.” the second season of CBC’s The Ron James Show. The comedy show’s first season was taped-based and had encountered dif- Big Brother Canada was shot using 75 cameras, running non- ficulties in editorial due to lengthy transfer times from HDCam tape and limited Avid ISIS shared storage. To address these is- stop 24/7 over 72 days. Material needed to be delivered quick- sues, FNTECH developed a new tapeless workflow, harnessing ly to editorial for the creation of three one-hour shows each multiple Cinedeck EXs and a larger SAN. week during the season. FNTECH deployed seven Cinedeck RX recorders for the show connected to central routers. This enabled two separate production Indeed, ratings for this first season of Big Brother Canada, teams to follow individual houseguests broadcast on digital cable channel Slice, went through the roof, and different stories unfolding in the quadrupling anything that’s ever been seen on such a network, Big Brother house, using three Cinedeck with the show becoming the biggest speciality show ever in RXs each. he seventh RX was dedicated Canada. to capturing confessions and activi- ties in the Diary Room. The production The workflow: Chopped Canada (Paperny Entertainment used a variety of cameras, from small for Food Network) robos to full studio cameras, with each Chopped is a US reality cooking series that, in each episode, RX recording XDCam50 masters and pits chefs against each other for the chance to win a cash prize. native Avid JFIF 10:1proxies directly to With the successful experience of Big Brother Canada under separate Avid ISIS storage systems. The its belt, FNTECH secured the contract to supply the technol- master files were captured to a 64TB ogy and tapeless workflow for the first 26-espisode season of Avid ISIS, while a 32TB Avid ISIS collect- Chopped Canada. ed the proxies. Realising the production would deliver the best part of 12,000 “We’re very proud of the workflow on Chopped Canada – it’s RX units rack mounted at hours of video, FNTECH also deployed very much our own and not modelled on others,” says Fugle- Big Brother Canada wicz. “We saw that the US version was still being recorded to Pronology asset management to assist tape and realized we could do much better. We invited the with the on-going management of the material. Canadian producers to examine our Big Brother Canada work- “The chief advantage of using the RXs was that editorial could flow, and they immediately recognized the time and cost sav- start almost instantly –­ as soon as a proxy file was closed and ings they would make by going tapeless using Cinedeck RXs at available on the 32TB Avid ISIS. Having fast access to the low the core of the workflow.” rez 10:1 native Avid material was huge for the editors, as they FNTECH built a custom equipment room and deployed 10 were able to create group clips and view multiple cameras Cinedeck RXs, recording 1080psf (Progressive Segmented right away, without the stress of having to wait for material Frames) at 29.97fps from fiber-connected Sony 1500 cameras. to be transcoded. Having just the XDCam50 material on a The RXs recorded XDCam50 master, and native Avid DNx45 separate Avid ISIS proved a great space saver too. Another proxies direct to a 96TB SAN on-board the OB truck. As with time-saver was that switching from offline to online resolution Big Brother Canada, the RXs were used in conjunction with was simply a matter of relinking to the Cinedeck-generated Pronology asset management. So along with the dual deliver- XDCam50 clips.” able codecs for editorial, the RXs were also used to simultane- ously create H.264 proxies for the Pronology web component. Fuglewicz is also highly-appreciative of RX’s tight integration “We were encoding three different codecs at the same time with Pronology asset management. “The Pronology software from each RX unit, and we hadn’t even reached its limit,” says triggers RX recording, gives each file a name and ID, transfers Fuglewicz. At the end of each shooting day, the DNx45 mate- log notes, and builds a database of the entire contents. It was rial was copied to mobile transfer drives. These dailies were totally complementary to the RX and Avid editorial workflow,” dispatched to the editorial company and copied to a local Avid he says. ISIS to be ready for editorial the following morning. The high- “As with the EX, the RXs delivered massive time-savings in rez master footage remained on the 96TB SAN, and was also getting the assets into editorial. I can’t imagine doing this sort archived to LTO tape for back-up and archive. When produc- of show in any other way. The thought of doing this on tape tion wrapped, the SAN containing the complete set of master or optical disk is the stuff of nightmares. It was a great suc- and proxy files, was relocated to the editorial house to support cess for all concerned, and the production company put out the final editorial process on the series. great-looking shows three times each week over the 10-week “It’s not just speed that makes the RX a winner, but also the season.” cost-savings and efficiency versus tape,” remarks Fuglewicz. “There’s absolutely no good reason to ingest and transcode hours and hours of material from tape anymore. We calcu- Big Brother Canada Workflow lated that the cost of tapestock alone on Chopped Canada would have accounted to 80% of the total cost of our turnkey 75 cameras Production package – and that excludes the additional costs of the tape Switcher machines and the labor. With RXs in the workflow, there is no transcoding, one operator can manage the recording and XDCAM 50 master / JFIF 10:1 proxy deliver the drives for editorial. The savings with the RX are just enormous.” 7 Cinedeck RX To anyone considering investing in Cinedeck technology, Fuglewicz says, “For recording, ingest and editorial support, Master Record to 64TB Avid ISIS via 1Gb they’re the most open, flexible and innovative devices in the Ethernet broadcast market. The RX is very broadcast friendly. With tools like proper timecode reference, sync and scopes/analysis tools, they operate more like a true VTR, and the integration with as- set management systems like Pronology is really slick. Plus you Proxy Record to 32TB have a fantastic support team standing behind it all, working Avid ISIS via 1Gb with you when you need them. Our success is a direct reflec- Ethernet tion of Cinedeck’s ability to push the technology curve, and it has been well worth the investment.”

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