G-Technology Presents: On Location with Documentary Filmmaker Graham Sheldon

G-Technology goes on location with Award-winning Filmmaker Graham Sheldon while shooting his film documentary, Cornerstone: Switzerland. On-location data management for RED Cinema Cameras in no small feat, so Graham relies on the speed and durability of the G-Speed Shuttle XL and Pelican Cases to centralize and protect all his precious footage on location back to the studio.

G-Technology goes on location with Award-winning Filmmaker Graham Sheldon while shooting his film documentary, Cornerstone: Switzerland. On-location data management for RED Cinema Cameras in no small feat, so Graham relies on the speed and durability of the G-Speed Shuttle XL and Pelican Cases to centralize and protect all his precious footage on location back to the studio. Click here for all G-Technology.

Click here to watch on YouTube.

Media management might seem like a boring topic. Which it is, until it isn’t. In the grand tradition of filmmaking — which is to say, giving a job with an incredibly high level of responsibility to one of the lowest paid positions on set (see: loader) — media management can be a great way to get on set, or at least near it if you’re starting out in the industry (even if that’s a “temporary offload location” set up inside an establishment whose name begin with “Star” and ends with “bucks”).

Part of the Media Manager’s job is to make backing up camera media a boring task, one characterized by a total and complete lack of drama and requiring little to no interaction from other members of the camera department or larger crew. Let’s take this opportunity to review what we see as an established set of practices for media offload, handling and backup on set.

When working on set as a Media Manager, or DIT — though we like to think of a DIT’s purview as encompassing a broader, more interesting range of tasks — one of the most important things, other than actually making the backups themselves, is having a system that you and the camera assistants agree on to distinguish media that is ready to be formatted in the camera from media that has camera original footage on it that may or may not have been backed up. Some people use colored camera or gaffer’s tape for this (for example, red tape applied to cards that have not been backed up and green tape for cards that are OK to format). Others put nothing on the cards themselves, since tape or residue can foul a camera’s media bay, and use colored bins on opposite sides of a cart or table for this (i.e. a red bin on the left-hand side and a green bin on the right side). It doesn’t matter what system you use, as long as everyone agrees and there is no confusion….read more

Review: If serious grunt and reliabilty in the storage stakes is what you need, we take a good look at G-Technology’s Thunderbolt 3 Shuttle XL RAID enclosure system.

If there’s one thing that you cannot escape from when working with video, it’s the issue of storage. Higher resolutions and bitrates have meant increased demand on our storage requirements. Not just that but we also require fast storage. Very fast storage.

SSD drives are an obvious contender for this, but as we all know, they can be hugely expensive in the sort of capacities you need working with uncompressed or extremely high resolution video. Especially if you want them in a RAID configuration. But if you are thinking about having a truly robust and reliable disk array, spanning, say 6-8 drives or so, then you probably should consider traditional HDDs for the purpose.

Here’s where the G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL with EV series bay adaptors comes in. The G-Speed Shuttle has been available for a good while now with Thunderbolt 2, but now it is also being supplied with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.

The system has a total of 8 hard drive bays with capacities from 24TB through to 72TB. Our sample came with  24TB of space via 6 drives. The EV Series bay adaptors are a really great workflow addition to the system, which I’ll go into a bit later.

It’s tough

The G-Speed Shuttle XL housing itself is a tough looking beast. It feels as safe as a brick house, while a nicely moulded in top handle allows it to be carried from place to place. Make no mistake, this isn’t a portable drive system designed to go alongside your computer in Star Bucks. But for moving from shooting location to edit suite it will work nicely, and is reassuringly robust feeling….[continue reading]

As video recording file sizes continue to creep up, so do our hard drive storage size, RAID and bandwidth needs. These days we are seeing a huge amount of recorded media needing to be offloaded, edited and color graded in the field. G-Technology has stepped up to bat with its 24TB G-Speed Shuttle XL with EV Series adapters, Thunderbolt 3 edition — a portable, durable, adaptable and hardware-RAID powered storage solution.

In terms of physical appearance, the G-Speed Shuttle XL is just shy of 10x7x16-inches and weighs in at around 25 pounds. It’s not exactly lightweight, but with spinning hard drives it’s what I would expect. To get a lighter RAID you would need SSD drives, but those would most likely triple the price. The case itself is actually pretty rugged; it seems like it could withstand a minimal amount of production abuse, but again without being an SSD RAID you have some risks since spinning disk drives are more volatile.

The exterior is made out of a hard plastic, and it would have been nice to have the rubberized feel on at least the handle of the Shuttle XL — similar to G-Tech’s Rugged line of drives — but it still feels solid. To open the Shuttle XL, there is an easy-to-access switch on the front. There is a lock switch that took me a few wiggles to work correctly, but I would loved to have seen a key lock that would to add a little more security since this RAID will most likely house important data. When closing the front door, the slide lock wouldn’t fully close unless I pushed hard a second time. If I didn’t do that the door would open by itself. On the back are the two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a power cable plug and a Kensington Lock slot. On the inside of this particular Shuttle XL are six 4TB 7200 RPM Enterprise Class HGST (Western Digital) drives configured to a RAID-5 by default and two EV Series Bay adapters….[continue reading]

G-RAID

G-Technology makes excellent hard drives, so it’s no surprise that its RAID systems make this list. The G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3 is perfect for your high-performance storage needs. The enclosure features two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a USB-C ports, and an HDMI port that supports 4K at 60FPS, as well as HDR. You get a drive speed of 7200 RPM and transfer rates of up to 500MB/s.

You can daisy chain up to five more of these puppies, and there’s a 5-year warranty should you experience any defects.

G-Speed Shuttle XL

The G-Speed Shuttle XL is for the professional who needs it ALL. It offers 7200 RPM drive speeds and transfer rates of up to 1500MB/s, as well as two Thunderbolt 3 ports. You also get eight removable drives and starting storage capacity is 24TB. It’s expensive AF, with a starting price of $2800, and you can go all the way up to 72TB for a whopping $7700.

This definitely isn’t a consumer-level product, but if you’re opting for the iMac Pro for your business, then this is a huge amount of storage and performance that’s nigh-unbeatable. It supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 configurations.

If you have a power- and resource-hungry workflow, then this might be the solution for you.

Click here to read the full article on iMore

The workflow is super-simple: Create a new library on the drive, import all media from the cards to it, and then when back in the studio, transfer it to the NAS for backup.

With a transfer rate up to 425 MB/s, Final Cut Pro renders as normal running off the drive (and so does Lightroom, and a Capture One Pro session), and it connects to a USB 3.0 port. I don’t use that feature, but larger studios dock the drive into a supported RAID to edit, share and back up. In their extensive product line, G-Technology also offers a more rugged and slimmer version, but I want the SSD speed, which is about 4X that of a hard drive….[continue reading]

Fashion photographer and GTEAM member Nino Leitner travels to South Africa for his latest photoshoot and gives an inside look into his studio workflow using the G-SPEED Shuttle XL with Thunderbolt.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

G-Technology: 1, 2, 3, 4 FREE!

G-Technology Promo:
Free 1TB G-Drive Mobile ev (up to 4) with Purchase of
ANY G-SPEED Studio XL or Shuttle XL
This offer is not able to be combined with any other promotion.
All products must be purchased and shipped by April 1, 2016

 Click Here to Download Spreadsheet

G-SPEED Studio XL Available in 32TB, 48TB, and 64TB MSRP Starting at: $3,999.95		G-SPEED Studio XL with ev Series Bay Available in 18TB, 24TB, 36TB, and 48TB MSRP Starting at: $2,799.95		G-SPEED Shuttle XL Available in 24TB, 32TB, 48TB, and 64TB MSRP Starting at: $3,499.95		G-SPEED Shuttle XL with ev Series Bay Available in 18TB, 24TB, 36TB, and 48TB MSRP Starting at: $3,299.95