Ignition Productions Delivers for Red Bull TV with SNS
In October of 2016 Ignition Productions was awarded the contract to cover the 2017 Dakar Rally for Red Bull TV. The aim, to make a daily behind-the-scenes show of the world's toughest Motorsport event. 13 Days of competition across 3 countries and some of the toughest conditions imaginable. Temperatures varied from 50 degrees Centigrade to near freezing at altitudes over 3500m and pouring rain, the event is tough just to attend let alone make broadcast TV.
The shows needed to be current and informative with media acquired from the host broadcaster combined with 2 Camera crews shooting on Sony FS7 cameras and 2 hosts. Given the huge travel involved in this event (over 8500km total) the window for travelling to the next stage - shooting, editing and play out - was tiny, with a satellite window of 7pm nightly (6pm in Bolivia). Director Nathan Prendergast and his team needed an editing storage solution that was efficient, easy to transport and offered true shared editing capability.
Nathan contacted Digistor for a solution that would cater to all requirements yet be sturdy enough to handle the extreme conditions and constant transport. He talked to Darren Godwin at Digistor, and settled on the SNS Prodigy EVO. "Compact, Lightweight and powerful, the EVO proved to be the perfect choice" says Prendergast.
"I love the simplicity of the EVO Prodigy and the ShareBrowser environment” shares Darren. “When working in unfamiliar surroundings and under pressure, it’s great to know the Prodigy just keeps going."
Ignition Productions went with the 4Bay system combined with 6TB drives giving 24TB Raw or 17.9TB of usable space. The system connects to the edit suites via 1Gigabit Ethernet ports (10GB are available) and was paired this with 2x15" MacBook Pros running Premiere Pro. "I was unfamiliar with the system, but the SNS Support call proved efficient and very easy for me to setup and in very little time, I had a true travelling shared edit solution to tackle Dakar 2017."
"When working in unfamiliar surroundings and under pressure, it’s great to know the Prodigy just keeps going."
Darren Godwin
Transit Pak in Melbourne put together a strong lightweight case that also housed a small space for power & Ethernet cables along with a secure spot for a spare 6TB drive in case it was required on the trip, but it never was. The SNS EVO prodigy never missed a beat and from the moment it was pulled out of the case in Buenos Aries, it delivered continuously.
For most of the event, the system travelled by road in the host broadcaster SNG Truck and was setup and connected to the edit suites in a small tent located close to the truck. On completion of the edit days, the SNS was packed away and hit the road at 10pm to travel for up to 15 hours by road to the next location where it was set up and once again ready for duty.
"I highly recommend the SNS EVO not only for a travelling system but as a true shared editing option. It is affordable and expandable without the costly requirements of fibre cards or thunderbolt expansion docks."
Nathan Prendergast
Ignition Productions saw that the shared nature of the SNS EVO prodigy proved to be a real advantage for several reasons. It was helpful not only in its dual editor capacity, but also allowed ingesting and vision preview to continue without slowing the main edit and shortening an already narrow timeline. They found the EVO ShareBrowser interface is “easy to use and the indexing option is helpful with file management.” Editing performance was “solid with the system handling multiple streams of mixed format media in FULL HD.” Nathan shared that there was no time for any form of Transcoding so all media shot in camera, on GoPro or delivered from the Host broadcaster were in their original form and combined with high end animating GFX package, “the EVO performed brilliantly.”
As a result of the experience, Director Nathan shares “I highly recommend the SNS EVO not only for a travelling system but as a true shared editing option. It is affordable and expandable without the costly requirements of fibre cards or thunderbolt expansion docks. I hope to expand my SNS range as my business needs expand and will be happy to take the SNS EVO on the road with me again.”
Digistor can help find the right solution to your project. Be sure to contact us to discuss for your production, post production and storage requirements.