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WEVA Partners With Universal Studios Florida For WEVA EXPO 2008 Tour

Posted by Safe Harbor Staff
April 17, 2008

WEVA International has partnered with Universal Studios Florida Production Group to plan an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of the Universal Studios Production Facilities for professional videographers in conjunction with the WEVA 18th Annual Wedding & Event Video Expo, August 11-14, 2008. WEVA EXPO 2008, the wedding and event video industry's largest convention and trade show will be held at Orlando Grande Lakes Resort, just 10 minutes from Universal Studios Florida.

The largest working motion picture and television studio outside of Hollywood, Universal Studios Florida boasts 9 state-of-the-art soundstages, multiple broadcast studios, and more than 100 backlot sets. Numerous feature films (including The Waterboy, Matinee, and Parenthood) have been shot on the studio backlot.

Home to cable network’s Nickelodeon, Universal Studios Florida has hosted TV programs as diverse as The Ellen Degeneres Show; The Food Network's Emeril, Live!; The Steve Harvey Show; America's Most Wanted; Fear Factor; BattleBotsIQ and TNA (Total Nonstop Action). TNA, today's popular contemporary wrestling show, is taped in Stage 21 - (adjacent to the park).

This summer, WEVA EXPO 2008 attendees will have a rare opportunity to take an optional pre-convention, behind-the-scenes tour of Universal Studios that is being planned for Monday August 11, 2008 (starting early afternoon, ending before the official WEVA EXPO 2008 Opening Night Gala at 5:45pm).

"As announced at our NAB event this week, WEVA is already at work with the Universal Studios Production Group (USPG) designing a backlot tour that is ‘professional to professional’ rather than the standard ‘visitor’ version normally presented to park guests," relates Dan Argenas, WEVA’s Director of Association Communications. "Our goal is to offer WEVA EXPO 2008 attendees an inside view of state-of-the-art television and film production that’s up close and personal."

The WEVA and USPG teams are finalizing details of the tour, including ground transportation (private busses will depart from the JW Marriott). Watch WEVA.com for more news on the Universal Studios Tour and continuous updates on all WEVA EXPO 2008 Wedding and Event Video Sessions, EXPO 2008 Trade Show, and EXPO 2008 Special Events.

CalDigit’s HDElement launched at NAB 2008

Posted by Safe Harbor Staff
April 14, 2008

The HDElement is the compact 4 – bay storage you’ve been waiting for. From professional content creators to educated amateurs, CalDigit understands that people are always looking for affordable storage solutions. The HDElement was built with these people in mind. Working in conjunction with the CalDigit RAID card, the HDElement is a 100% hardware RAID based product.

" Our customers had been asking for a 4 bay RAID 5 external storage solution capable of the high bandwidth requirements of editing Uncompressed HD with, for some time now", said Jon Schilling, Sales Manager of CalDigit. "We responded to these needs by manufacturing the HDElement RAID 0,1,5,6 & JBOD storage solution product."

The HDElement gives you room to grow. You can connect up to 3 HDElements to the CalDigit RAID card, as your workloads increase, so does your storage. The HDElement is also bootable, starting up from your RAID volume can also give you mobility when you need to take your footage and system with you to another location.

Management, Migration and Expansion are easy, with CalDigit’s RAID Shield GUI. Managing your drives, running performance checks and monitoring your system are a snap. In the event of any errors, alerts or changes to the RAID array an e-mail notification is sent to you immediately.

Software RAID cards use the internal processing power of your host computer’s CPU. The CalDigit Hardware RAID card frees up your computer’s processor to do what you need it to do - run your applications and OS. This allows you to work with more fluidity without slowing you or your workstation’s processor down. Hardware RAID, as on the CalDigit RAID card, is possible because of a dedicated Intel processor, and 256MB of built-in cache memory. This gives true hardware RAID capabilities. Utilizing the PCI-e expansion slots in the latest MacPro or PC machines, the CalDigit RAID card offers unrivaled performance and protection for the capturing, storing and editing of large HD media files and content creation.

The new HDElement - 4 bay external drive enclosure, with RAID 0,1,5,6 & JBOD connected through external mini-sas) is capable of speeds of 350MB/s. You can achieve sustained speeds of 500MB/s when connecting multiple units. The HDElement also features CalDigit’s ASTT, (Active Sustained Transfer Technology), to keep your performance sustained and in check.

Retailing at 99 cents a GB, the HDElement is your new storage solution.

CalDigit Now Shipping the HDPro 8 bay RAID Tower Solution

Posted by Safe Harbor Staff
July 31, 2007

CalDigit, a leader in storage, is now shipping the HDPro Tower & Rack Mount 8 bay HDPro RAID storage solution. With capacities from 2.0TB up to 8.0TB, the HDPro has industry breakthrough PCI Express directattatch as a storage interface that connects the host and RAID controller at up to 20Gbps and eliminates the bottleneck of traditional storage interface and need of additional expensive host adapter.

When you have a need for large storage for your HD projects, or large media files, database, photos, images, the HDPro is your storage solution. Offering RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 with the HDPro you'll have safe and reliable operation all in one package, warranted for 3 years by a leader in HD storage, CalDigit Inc.

Prices start at $3999 for a 2TB system which includes a CalDigit Controller Card.

"With the overwhelming success of the field - proven HDPro Rack Mount version, we're very pleased to announce the much anticipated HDPro Tower is now shipping", said Jon Schilling, Account Manager of CalDigit Inc.

The CalDigit HDPro's unique architecture combines the best in value with the newest technology. The HDPro works with MacPro, G5, Mac OS X Server, Windows, and Linux workstations as well as other platforms.

Configures RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 with Single Hardware RAID Controller
The HDPro offers flexible RAID configuration options, enabling users to configure for maximum performance, maximum assurance for critical data security (double parity RAID 6) or maximum capacity(RAID 0). With single parity in RAID 5 mode, the HDPro features an advanced distributed parity algorithm, accessing data and parity blocks across all the drives in the disk array, this removes the limitation that the dedicated parity drive represents in RAID 3, improving write and read performance in RAID 5, HDPro can rebuild itself in the event of one drive failing. When configured in RAID 6 mode, fault tolerance is maintained by the world class CalDigit RAID engine ensuring that the parity information for any given block of data is placed on TWO drives separate from those used to store the data itself. Such double protection is to protect your valuable data even if two drives fail.

Single Hardware RAID controller prevents data loss by software striping.
Most SCSI and FC RAID rely on software striping to obtain the required data rate to edit and capture uncompressed 10 bit HD even those RAID storage have hardware RAID controllers inside. The HDPro configures all 8 hard drives with a single RAID controller and offers plenty of speed for uncompressed HD or 2K footage.

Up to 400MB/s. Ultra-fast Sustained data rate.
With the latest fast RAID processor and CalDigit's proprietary cache control technology, the HDPro delivers ultra fast sustained data rate for up to 60% of its capacity 400MB/s in RAID 5 and 380MB/s for entire capacity without help of software striping.

An Industry Breakthrough 20Gb/s Interface that leaves SCSI & Fibre Channel Speeds in its dust
Unlike Fibre Channel, SCSI, FireWire and eSATA RAID storage, the CalDigit HDPro is using a direct connection to the computers bridge chip and memory system combined with high link speeds. This direct link eliminates latency introduced by the conversion of other interfaces and provides superior bandwidth, availability and deployment flexibility over earlier-generation SCSI and Fibre Channel technology.

The CalDigit controller card includes error correction, and adapts to the speed of the slot automatically. The HDPro features up to 20Gb bandwidth for ultra-fast data transport between the storage system and the host computer. You get both superb speeds and reliable bandwidth for high-speed data transfer.

The Hefty Cache keeps pumping the data without taking a breath Because of HDPro's sustained and high speed data transfer rate, the size of controller cache can act as a bottleneck. For example, the video playback does not keep up with your movements on the timeline, and lag behind. Larger cache size keeps up with you as you edit and buffer the video files. For the critical application, you can increase HDPro controller cache up to 2GB.

Editing on the Go
Many RAID solutions in the marketplace can only be used on your desktop workstation. Because the RAID processor is in the HDPro, the HDPro in combination with the ExpressCard frees you from your studio for editing on the go. This also means that the external RAID storage for your laptop is no longer limited to FireWire and USB connectivites. The CalDigit ExpressCard easily plugs your HDPro into your MacBook Pro, or PC laptop, and enables you to edit DVCProHD, DVCAM, HDV, uncompressed SD and up to 10 bit uncompressed HD.

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Safe Harbor's video and post production news blog offers you the latest announcements and updates from the industry.

News » CalDigit a Safe Harbor blog

WEVA Partners With Universal Studios Florida For WEVA EXPO 2008 Tour

CalDigit’s HDElement launched at NAB 2008

CalDigit Now Shipping the HDPro 8 bay RAID Tower Solution

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