September 10th, 1999

[12:15 PM]
New Solution For Real-Time Video Playback For The Mac
Hammer Storage Solutions has introduced a new solution for digital video playback called the MediaPlayer Digital Playback Software. Coupled with a RAID solution from Hammer, the new software allows for real-time video playback. According to Hammer Storage:

Hammer Storage Solutions today announced MediaPlayer Digital Playback Software for the Apple Power Macintosh G3/G4.

The MediaPlayer was designed and engineered as a productivity, visualization, and quality assurance tool for animation, film and video use. The MediaPlayer will accept most common file formats including TIFF, Cineon, Alias/Wavefront and all SGI frame formats, turn these frames into a movie that can be viewed in real time and uncompressed in 32 bit RGB color at either 24 or 30 fps. Frames sizes up to 1K (500k RGB Pixels) can be accommodated. The MediaPlayer is offered with the SledgeHammer Pro disk arrays as a turnkey system allowing virtually any standard G3/G4 desktop with no special hardware or video board to be turned into a viewing station allowing minutes to hours of uncompressed playback.

"The MediaPlayer was originally designed to significantly reduce the time needed by an artist to view animation sequences or digital dailies," said John Yarborough, Technical Marketing Manager at Hammer. "Most customers were loading up their machines with RAM to watch a few seconds of uncompressed playback. A few seconds was often not enough time, the other option was to render off to a DDR, a process which usually took hours. With the MediaPlayer and appropriate SledgeHammer array they can now watch an entire movie, real time and uncompressed, on their desktop as soon as it is created. This allows virtually instant feedback significantly improving workflow efficiency."

The MediaPlayer for Macintosh is available with either an Ultra2 LVD or Fibre Channel SledgeHammer Pro array in desktop, tower or rack mount configurations. It is compatible with Apple Power Macintosh G3/G4 computers running OS 8.0 or later.

Pricing for the solutions is as follows:

Model No. Storage Approximate 1k
Playback time
MSRP
SLPRO-36GB-AMP 36 GB 12 min $7,876
SLPRO-72GB-AMP 72 GB 25 min $10,988
SLPRO-144GB-AMP 144 GB 50 min $15,952
SLPRO-432GB-AMP 432 GB 150 min $44,304

The product is available now.

Hammer Storage