STORAGE FOR AUTODESK'S MAC-BASED SMOKE

With the announcement of Smoke from Autodesk for Mac, video editors now have an incredible new option for working on high end productions without the need for multiple applications like Final Cut Pro, After Effects and third-party plug-ins.

In the past, Autodesk's Smoke has only been available on high-end systems, like those from SGI. This meant high cost, higher risk and fewer dollars left over for storage and other necessities. With Smoke now available on Mac platforms, customers can purchase easy-to-use, powerful Mac Pro systems and a cost-efficient storage solution to get all their work done within a single unified workflow.

No more will projects need to be exported into different applications or transcoded for compatibility outside of the primary edit application. No longer will shops need editors trained on four or five different applications and plug-ins.

In addition to using Smoke on their Macs, these editors have the additional advantage of being able to use high-speed 10Gb Ethernet connectivity to enable shared storage solutions for their uncompressed and high-bandwidth workflows.

Small Tree's unique 10Gb offerings make use of Intel's innovative TCP offload features and Small Tree's low latency driver code to make sure streams are captured correctly without drops and jitter.

Post production users will find that using Smoke gives them access to 3D effects, color grading, image stabilization and a plethora of features not found in existing Mac editing applications.

Steve Modica is CTO of Oakdale, MN-based Small Tree (www.small-tree.com), the designer of Mac-based shared storage technology.