Sonnet Fusion F2 Enables HD Playback

Sonnet Technologies announced that visual effects firm an ideal world of Santa Ana, Calif., is using the Sonnet Fusion F2 portable two-drive RAID SATA storage system to support HD playback of footage during shooting for commercials, TV and film, and music videos. The Fusion F2 provides an ideal world with fast, reliable file storage and playback anywhere it’s needed, serving as an elegant solution that enables instant on-set review of video without tying up cameras or delaying further shooting.

Robb Hart, co-founder of an ideal world, adopted the Fusion F2 prior to a commercial shoot using a high-resolution 4K RED ONE camera and a high-speed digital Vision Research Phantom HD camera capable of capturing video at any frame rate from 1 to 1,000 frames per second at HD resolution. These latest pieces of technology enabled recording at exceptionally high resolution, and the Sonnet Fusion F2 provided Hart with a way to show his clients a high-quality HD (720p) downconversion of each shot immediately after shooting.

"Given the extraordinarily high fidelity of recording, there was no way I wanted to play back the shoot in SD," said Hart. "I knew that on-set HD playback would be possible if I could find the right RAID storage device, and when I saw the Fusion F2 in operation, I felt as though it had been designed with my application in mind. Now that I’ve worked with the Sonnet Fusion F2, I won’t work without it."

Hart combined a 640GB Fusion F2 with an AJA Io HD, a brand-new 2.6-GHz MacBook Pro (4 GB RAM) equipped with a Sonnet Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34, and a 24-inch eCinema monitor to create a smart, lightweight, and easy-to-transport capture and playback system. The Fusion F2, which is about the size of two stacked CD cases, uses eSATA data connections to deliver the fastest performance yet from a two-drive portable storage system, with transfer rates up to twice as fast as by FireWire connection. With its drives configured as a RAID 1 mirrored volume, Fusion F2 enables capture of Apple ProRes 422 HD fed from the AJA Io HD.

The Fusion F2, available in 1TB and 640GB storage capacities, is cool, quiet, and energy-efficient. Side-by-side placement of its drives increases the metal case’s cooling surface area, thereby eliminating the need for a fan and allowing the unit to be bus-powered when no grid power is available. Encased inside a thick aluminum shell, each of the Fusion F2’s high-performance drives is individually shock-isolated, not only protecting the drives during transport, but also virtually eliminating cross-coupled vibration, a potential source of soft-error-induced skipped frames in video capture and playback.

"We pride ourselves on knowing which technologies are best for our work, and what types of products work best in combination to produce the finest result," said Hart. "The Fusion F2 has proved to be a phenomenal solution for our on-set work. The system’s flexibility and portability make it easy to set up and get to work, and the quality of HD playback makes a noticeable impression on our clients."