The Rebel Fleet Adopts Quantum Storage for Post-Production in Challenging Remote Film Environments

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Quantum Corp. (OTCPK: QMCO) today announced that The Rebel Fleet has deployed a Quantum StorNext storage solution to meet the rigorous digital workflow service demands of a large-scale film project.  The Quantum Xcellis and QXS storage solution enabled The Rebel Fleet to support real-time processes involving high-resolution content in the field while maintaining a small footprint.  It also was configured to be used in a mobile rig, rendering 150 frames of footage per second in three different formats and supporting real-time color grading.

Click to Tweet: The Rebel Fleet implements @QuantumCorp high-performance storage to handle digital workflows for a high-profile film project http://bit.ly/rebelfleet 

Storage Performance and Mobility for a Major Film Project
Based in New Zealand, The Rebel Fleet provides a wide range of digital workflow services for television and film production crews, including on-location color correction and quality control, archiving, content delivery, and more. When a major Hollywood studio was preparing for principle photography for a live action film project set in New Zealand and China, The Rebel Fleet proposed a full range of digital workflow services, including conducting initial color grading and quality control, archiving content to digital tape, creating mezzanine and proxy formats for post-production, and uploading clips to the web for immediate review by the director and other stakeholders. The solution had to be mobile, and therefore dense from the perspective of both performance and capacity.

"In the past, we had used direct-attached storage as part of our rigs," says Michael Urban, founder and managing director at The Rebel Fleet. "But to manage the digital workflows for this new film, and to support onset processing of high-resolution media, we needed higher-performance shared storage." 

Factorial Recommends Quantum StorNext
To evaluate various technologies, The Rebel Fleet turned to Factorial, a Quantum partner with expertise in designing digital workflow solutions for broadcast and post-production studios.  

"When The Rebel Fleet team started to look at the next performance level up for their unique needs, we suggested they take a look at Quantum storage," said Tim Benson, director and technology evangelist at Factorial. "Instead of focusing on capacity or bandwidth, we talked about workflow. And that discussion centered on the benefits of the Quantum StorNext platform."

The Rebel Fleet chose Quantum Xcellis workflow storage with Quantum QXS hybrid storage systems for online and nearline storage.

High Performance Enables Real-Time Color Grading and Fast Rendering
High-performance storage based on the StorNext file accelerated color grading. This ultimately made the entire production process run much more efficiently. "Our colorist has been working on large-scale projects for years, and he had never experienced the performance he achieved with this environment," says Urban.

High-performance storage also enabled fast rendering. "With the Quantum solution, we were able to crank out 150 frames of footage per second in three different formats while also supporting real-time color grading," says Urban. "Overall, this online environment delivered 6 GB per second of throughput. It was very impressive, and it helped us meet tight turnaround times."

Seamless Scalability and Vast Capacity for a Mobile Environment
The StorNext platform enabled the Factorial team to scale the ingest volume, doubling its size from 200 to 400 TB, without interrupting the shooting schedule. When the production team started shooting more than they had planned, Factorial was able to add storage without disturbing previously ingested data still residing in the environment.

Reliability for Today, Flexible for Tomorrow
System reliability is particularly important on a remote location where support personnel are miles away, and the Quantum system exceeded The Rebel Fleet's reliability expectations. The positive experience with Quantum storage on the major studio film led The Rebel Fleet to acquire additional Quantum systems. The company deployed another Xcellis system for television and commercial workflows, and it has standardized on StorNext and Xcellis for all high-performance needs going forward.

"StorNext has changed the way we work," says Urban. "It provides the performance we need plus the flexibility to support a wide variety of creative tools and processes. With StorNext, we are completely unconstrained."

Additional Resources

• Read the entire case study for The Rebel Fleet: https://www.quantum.com/rebel-fleet/
• Learn more about StorNext: https://www.quantum.com/stornext
• For more about Xcellis: https://www.quantum.com/xcellis

About Quantum
Quantum technology and services help customers capture, create and share digital content ? and preserve and protect it for decades.  With solutions built for every stage of the data lifecycle, Quantum's platforms provide the fastest performance for high-resolution video, images, and industrial IoT.  That's why the world's leading entertainment companies, sports franchises, researchers, government agencies, enterprises, and cloud providers are making the world happier, safer, and smarter on Quantum.  See how at www.quantum.com.

Quantum, the Quantum logo, StorNext and Xcellis are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Quantum Corporation and its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

"Safe Harbor" Statement: This press release contains "forward-looking" statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Specifically, but without limitation, statements relating to the benefits, advantages, goals, satisfaction and value derived from using Quantum's StorNext®, Xcellis and QXS storage solutions are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to Quantum on the date hereof. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Quantum's actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statement, including unexpected changes in the Company's business. More detailed information about these risk factors, and additional risk factors, are set forth in Quantum's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties listed in the section entitled "Risk Factors," in Quantum's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 9, 2017, especially those risks listed in this section under the headings "Our results of operations depend on a limited number of products and on new product introductions, which may not be successful, in which case our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected." Quantum expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. 

Public Relations Contact:
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Quantum Corporation
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SOURCE Quantum Corp.