Thunderbolt 3 Shareable Storage in RGBworks Studios

RGBworks Studios (hereinafter referred to as RGBworks) is a professional film and post-production company composed of senior directors and senior film and television producers in Hong Kong. It has several professional post-production suites, including color theaters for cinema movie gamut, color rooms specially designed for DOBLY VISION and HDR, and multiple color studios for post-production of TV series, Internet dramas, online movies, etc.

The management team of RGBworks has a wealth of resources in the industry and close ties with the film and television industry in Hong Kong and China. The team has professional knowledge and rich experience in both pre-production and post-production work, and therefore can accurately meet customers' requirements for color. RGBworks is a professional color correction company with many senior directors and colorists, and all of its high-end color correction systems are from Blackmagic Design, such as DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel, DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, and DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel. In addition, it is also a certification center for Blackmagic Design and Dolby Vision. With more than 20 years of industry experience, it has served high-end customers such as Cheung Kong Holdings and HSBC. The post-jgrading of many movies also came from RGBworks, such as the movie "Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch" and "Big Superstition: Year of the Pig," the entertainment TV shows "The Sound 2019" and "Amazing Voice," the online movie “Operation Undercover 2: Poisonous Dragon,” etc.

RGBworks uses Apple's Mac for color correction and editing. From MacBook Pro to the latest iMac Pro, all Mac devices are working independently. Data sharing has to be done by moving storage devices or copying data to/from each other, which not only wastes usability but also reduces work efficiency. When it comes to other solutions, the bandwidth of traditional NAS cannot fulfill the working requirements of RGBworks. Although FC SAN can provide sufficient bandwidth, the high cost makes it prohibitive.

Upon understanding their workflow and requirements for data sharing and performance, we recomended our T-Share (Thunderbolt 3 shareable storage) solution to RGBworks.

Two A12T3-Share from Accusys’ T-Share series are flexibly distributed in two production rooms, and are connected to Accusys’ ThunderBox (PCIe 3.0 expansion box) through PCIe cables. The hosts in color correction rooms are also connected to ThunderBox via Accusys’ C2M (PCIe to Thunderbolt converter) and PCIe cables, solving the distance problem between the color correction room and the other two production rooms. With Apple's Xsan file system, all the Mac hosts of RGBworks can access the same storage pool, share materials, and improve work efficiency.

With this flexible Thunderbolt 3 shareable storage system, RGBworks has satisfied the needs for data input, sharing, editing, color-matching and backup. Its read and write performance speed of over 2000MB/s can fully meet the professional and fast-paced high-end color correction work of RGBworks, and put the working methods of process, collaboration, quickness, and simplicity to practice.

Not only does this Accusys T-Share SAN have excellent performance, but its price is far lower than traditional FC SAN solutions. Moreover, the flexible deployment of this T-Share system allows more users with complex environments to enjoy convenient applications.