accelerated file transfer in live sports production

Webinar: Accelerated File Transfer in Live Sports Production

Introduction

• John Tkaczewski, President and Co-Founder

• Christian Charette, Director of Software Development

| © Copyright FileCatalyst, 20132

[email protected]

[email protected]

Overview

• Challenges of Live Sports Production

• Accelerated File Transfer Introduction

• Accelerated File Transfer as a Solution

• Live Sports Production Specific File Transfer Features

• Demo


Challenges of Live Sports Production

• Video files tend to be very large in size, up to 100 GB for a full resolution video file making file transfers lengthy

• Geographical distances when editing from remote locations further slow file transfers

• Non-standard MXF (Material Exchange Format) files are extremely difficult and unreliable to transfer using traditional file transfer methods

• Large sporting events often require multiple files to be transferred simultaneously

• Transferring dynamic file sets (transferring video files as they are still being recorded)


Accelerated File Transfer Software as a Solution

• MXF issues encountered:– File is growing for long periods, and needs to be followed during

growth so that it arrives soon as it finishes writing to disk on source.• Transfer using “progressive” feature. After every transfer, transfer checks

for growth and restarts transfer until file does not change.

– Multiple growth files in progress. Don’t stop transfers while tailing a specific growth file.• Multi-client transfers allow tailing of multiple concurrent files while still

allowing static contents to go through.

– Proxy file (low res) are slow to grow compared to network throughput, meaning growth file may be interpreted as static file.• Provide a file filter (ie: for all *.mxf files) and a pause duration, where a

transfer will wait to see if the file grows before considering the file to be static and complete.



• MXF issues encountered:– Headers in MXF file are updated after completion of the file.

This causes issues, as headers are found in the first few blocks of the file, and have already transferred across when they are modified.

Two solutions are provided to resolve this issue:

• Wait until a file is completely written to disk before transferring. Provide a file filter (ie: for all *.mxf files) and queue up files until the timestamp sufficiently old enough before starting a transfer.

• Transfer the file using progressive (tailing the file), wait a specified interval (ie: 60 seconds), then initiate a retransfer using Deltas (RSYNC feature) to capture all binary changes in the file. While computationally more expensive, it allows for any types of header changes to be performed and properly captured, while minimizing network utilization.


Speed Gains with Acceleration vs. FTP


HotFolder v3.3.1

What is File Transfer Acceleration?

• File transfer acceleration technology allows large files, or “big data” to be sent quick and in many cases over large geographical distances without being impeded by network impairments such as latency and packet loss

• This is accomplished by transferring files using the UDP protocol instead of the TCP protocol, the protocol used for FTP

• The main difference between UDP and TCP is that UDP wastes no time communicating about the receipt of a block of data so that regardless of network latency, data transmission remains constant, thus overcoming the peak and valley effect that occurs with TCP based protocols on links with high latency

• Application layer protocol can be added to UDP to add a layer of reliability and rate control while not sacrificing its the other desirable properties


Speed Gains with Acceleration vs. FTP



• While a high bandwidth link and an accelerated and managed file transfer solution in place is a good start for live sports production workflows, there are still certain distinct challenges that must be addressed

• These challenges can be addressed with specific software features tailored specifically to sports & events production




Challenge Solution

Video files tend to be very large in size, up to 100 GB for a full resolution video file making file transfers lengthy

Standard accelerated and managed file transfer solution & high connection speed

Geographical distances when editing from remote locations further slow file transfers

Standard accelerated and managed file transfer solution & high connection speed

Non-standard MXF (Material Exchange Format) files are extremely difficult and unreliable to transfer using traditional file transfer methods

Special rules to handle dynamic files which have non-standard behaviour.

Large sporting events often require multiple files to be transferred simultaneously

Extreme concurrency transfers feature

Transferring dynamic file sets (transferring video files as they are still being recorded)

Transfer growing files feature

Live Sports Production Specific File Transfer Features

Partial deployment for major sporting event


About FileCatalyst

FileCatalyst technology is developed by Unlimi-Tech Software Inc., a world leader in file transfer solutions. Founded in 2000, the company has more than 1000 clients with a user base of over 1 million. FileCatalyst provides software-based solutions designed to accelerate and optimize file transfers across global networks. Being immune to packet loss and latency, FileCatalyst can send files much faster than methods such as FTP, HTTP or CIFS, while adding security and reliability.

To learn more visit www.filecatalyst.com


http://www.filecatalyst.com/

Thank you!

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