SSD Case Study - High Resolution Video Capture
Kingston SSDs Give Video Imaging Company Competitive Advantage
Kingston SSDs enable our video system to deliver the high-resolution capture, zoom-in and replay performance that make us a player in the sports broadcast, government and industry spaces.
John Kerr
CEO
PsiTech, Inc.
The Customer
PsiTech Inc. develops and leases high-resolution video systems for use by the sports broadcast and government and manufacturing industries. These are highly competitive spaces, each with uncompromising requirements for high-resolution video imagery.
The Challenge
In order to deliver the video image quality that customers require, the company’s Vortex System must capture camera data in uncompressed format. This allows sports broadcasters to zoom-in on plays with high resolution so that referees can make the right replay call. Thus, the company’s system is very data-intensive. It consumes terabytes of storage to capture a complete game and must read and write massive volumes to manipulate content.
Previously, PsiTech used 30 spinning disks to accomplish this goal. In turn, these components drove up the Vortex’ footprint to 5 RUs. Another drawback was that the hard disk drives did not fare well in customers’ demanding environments.
Our customers set up, tear down and transport our systems on trailers with poor suspension across rough roads and terrain. In order to meet the reliability standards we set for ourselves, we needed to upgrade our components to be fully solid-state.
John Kerr
CEO
PsiTech, Inc.
The Solution
Managers replaced the Vortex System’s hard drives with Kingston SSDs. The system also uses Kingston RAM in 32, 64 and 128GB configurations.
- Slashed solution’s footprint by 60 percent
By reducing 30 hard drives to 14 SSDs managers shrunk the solution’s footprint from 5RUs to 2RUs. - Boosted System performance
The Kingston drives deliver faster data read/write performance and store data without losing any resolution. They also use less power and can withstand significantly more mechanical vibration.
Our Vortex System is entirely solid state now due to the capacity and performance of the Kingston SSDs. Our solution is more reliable, more mobile and better performing for our customers.
John Kerr
CEO
PsiTech, Inc.
The Results
After implementing the Kingston SSD and memory solutions, managers realized a number of benefits. These include:
- Sustained write speed performance delivers competitive advantage
The Kingston SSDs deliver the sustained write speeds essential to capturing detailed and engaging imagery. This not only promotes a superior viewer experience, it enables broadcast product-placement opportunities by zooming in on sports equipment logos, for example. - Customer-satisfying read speed performance
Kingston SSDs’ high read speeds are ideally suited to the broadcast industry to allow editors to quickly queue up replays and zoom captures in real time. They also enable the Vortex System to manipulate uncompressed data to change camera perspectives for a more visually interesting viewer experience. - Ideal for fast frame-rate applications
The I/O performance and high capacity of the Kingston SSDs meet stringent imagery capture standards for fast-frame uses. For example, using a PsiTech System, NASA engineers were able to determine that a piece of foam that detached during a shuttle launch caused no damage. - Unleashes the creative potential of filmmakers in post-production
By filming sequences in uncompressed format, editors can zoom in or out, or make adjustments to camera perspectives with no noticeable loss in resolution. This represents a significant advancement in their ability to manipulate post-production content.
The ability to capture and process ever-increasing amounts of uncompressed data has maintained our competitive advantage in the marketplace. And the performance and capacity of the Kingston SSDs have been key contributors to our success.
John Kerr
CEO
PsiTech, Inc.