ACADEMIA

To help broadcasters and post production houses as they transition from analog to digital IT-based facilities, and from SD to HD, 2K and 4K resolution material, Silicon Graphics is introducing an open IT platform designed to bring greater efficiencies to their new digital workflows. Unveiled at NAB Booth SL1943, the Silicon Graphics Prism platform for Media employs the same architecture as one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, the SGI Altix system at NASA Ames. It also leverages SGI's 20+ years heritage in visualization and management of massive, complex data. Unlike previous generation proprietary systems, the new Silicon Graphics Prism platform delivers the power and performance of multi-pipe visualization using open-source standards and scalable, commodity graphics. By integrating industry standards-based, 64-bit Intel Itanium 2 processors, the 64-bit Linux scalability found in SGI Altix high-performance server products, and scalable ATI graphics processors (GPUs), SGI offers a system to solve the most demanding content creation and management at a dramatic new price point. "We envision partnering with non-linear editing, asset management, color grading, video server and other software companies as well as systems integrators to provide the SGI open IT platform as the foundation on which to build their products and solutions," said Chris Golson, senior director, Media Industries, SGI. "This is the same computer architecture used by rocket scientists to analyze super-high definition images of Shuttle launches for ice and debris. For media, Silicon Graphics Prism is a compact, cost-effective open architecture platform that has the I/O capability to handle multiple ingest channels and multiple uncompressed HD and 2K streams, or even the 4K requirements of digital cinema mastering and digital intermediates." For broadcasters, the SGI platform will offer the possibility of a fully integrated, multi-channel broadcast media gateway for ingest, editing and archiving. In post-production, the Silicon Graphics Prism platform will dramatically increase performance in data-intense creative processes, such as special effects based on massive data models, high-resolution finishing, and highly interactive, digital intermediate sessions. "Digital intermediate projects and the creation and management of broadcast news content place great demands on a processor's computing ability," said Melissa Laird, general manager of Intel's Developer Relations Division. "Intel Itanium 2 processor-based platforms are ideal for meeting these demands. The combination of SGI's high-bandwidth platforms and the raw computing performance of Itanium 2 processors can help film studios, post-production facilities and broadcasters reach new levels of system reliability and scalable performance." Through the SGI Global Developers Program, qualified application developers can receive assistance in their porting efforts as well as significant discounts on development systems through a special SGI sponsored developer program designed specifically for SGI Altix and Silicon Graphics Prism systems. The SGI Platform Architecture Silicon Graphics Prism is based on open standards: Intel Itanium 2 processors, 64-bit Linux OS, ATI GPUs, OpenML, MXF, high-speed networking including Infiniband, 10 Gig Ethernet and GSN, and high-speed interconnect to storage with 4Gb Fibre Channel. The platform will also focus on open partnerships as SGI continues its collaboration with companies such as Ardendo, Autodesk, InteractiveFX, Omneon and others. Silicon Graphics Prism is built on SGI's more than 20 year heritage in developing graphics and D-Media libraries. Leveraging the power of true scalability, Silicon Graphic Prism provides the ability to easily scale resources (processors, GPUs, storage) within a system to meet customers' needs. And its world-leading system bandwidth and I/O capabilities enable entire workflows to be accelerated by eliminating time wasted on waiting for data to be loaded, saved, or distributed. Three primary elements of the Silicon Graphics Prism platform make it unique-giving developers and customers three ways to solve a problem in a single platform: -- Itanium 2 processors: 64-bit data processing for higher performance, especially for large data visualization -- Scalable graphics with multi-pipe ATI GPUs: multiple HD streams all the way to 4K -- Reconfigurable Application-Specific Computing (RASC) with Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). By directly connecting FGPAs to global shared memory in Silicon Graphics Prism, RASC allows application developers to program to the best of three building blocks offered by processors, graphics pipelines, and FPGAs. RASC processors are being programmed for codecs and image processing, watermarking, motion estimation, and data conversion. It gives developers a third path for accelerating key time-consuming filters for DI or transcoding for broadcast. SGI anticipates that the complete Silicon Graphics Prism open IT platform for Media will be available in the second half of CY05. Systems with 2-8 processors and 2-4 GPUs start at under $US30,000. SGI intends to also make smaller configurations available.