HUDSON, MA (March 7th, 2019) – Facilis, a leading international supplier of cost-effective, high performance shared storage solutions for collaborative media production networks announced today the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has chosen Facilis to expand their shared storage network and enable 4K+ workflows. Headquartered in Washington, DC., the NAHB is one of the largest trade associations in the United States. Founded in 1942, NAHB is a federation of more than 800 state and local associations. About one-third of NAHB’s more than 140,000 members are home builders or remodelers. The remaining members are associates working in closely related fields within the housing industry such as mortgage finance and building products and services. The association produces a large amount of video content every year including two design-build video series, housing legislation videos, safety training videos, and videos addressing new regulations and standards for taxing, etc., that inform NAHB members. The group also produces a large amount of educational material for online courses, conferences and seminars.
To create that volume of content, the NAHB has its own video production company, Structure Productions, and its own facility for all internal needs as well as providing production and post-production services to external clients such as National Geographic and the Travel Channel. “Our goal has always been to bring outside business into the facility when we can, so we will pitch TV shows to different networks and offer our talents to anyone who needs video production services,” says Sam Mercer, post production supervisor, onsite engineer, and manager at Structure productions. “We’re allowed to operate autonomously in that regard.”
Wanting to expand their existing Facilis shared storage network and support the latest high-resolution files from 4-8K, Structure Productions recently expanded their Facilis investment and added a Facilis Hub Server with help from Jim Deigan and the team at DVG Group. The facility now has two more Facilis 24D storage servers and a pair of TX-16 expansion chassis, all connected to the Facilis Hub Server which aggregates and intelligently manages the storage network for the fastest and most efficient throughput.
“The introduction of the web console was a game changer in terms of convenience for us,” says Mercer. “I have remote admin control that allows me to create volumes and assign permissions for all of our 8 edit suites from any workstation, even when I’m away from the building. It’s extremely convenient.”
Structure Productions has eight Mac Pro workstations using Premiere Pro and other Adobe Creative Cloud apps with dual or triple monitor displays installed in eight edit suites. When the team shoots interviews or brings in TV show material, they’re generally shooting 4K if not higher. “One of our clients recently finished a documentary for Nat Geo Wild and they shot most of the material at 6 or 8K with the latest Red Camera. For short form productions, we run the footage native on the Facilis system. For longer form work, we’ll create HD proxies of the 4K+ media to save space and max our performance and flexibility,” comments Mercer. “The important thing is that the Facilis system can handle it all.”
“In addition to renting our edit suites, we also rent out media storage space to our clients. This gives them highly protected RAID storage for their media and quick access to material when it is needed,” comments Mercer.
Connectivity was always an important selling point for Structure, and one of the reasons the team chose Facilis in the beginning. For maximum bandwidth, the edit suites are connected via dual 16Gb Fibre Channel, with 32Gb Fibre Channel server interconnects. A further 10-12 producer stations are connected via Ethernet giving all stakeholders access to media.
“We’ve stuck with Facilis over the years because of the great flexibility and performance the system affords us. Service is great and our support contract lets us get in touch with a knowledgeable Facilis rep in under 5 minutes, if needed. Support reps can even remote-in and take care of any issues if they crop up, which means a lot to us,” says Mercer.
