These two approached are:

• Distributed workflow environments
• Centralised 'hero' operations

In distributed workflow environments there tends to be a number of different systems all looking to work on the same project, with multiple creative operators for the various components of the environment.

The need for such an environment tends to be required due to the limited functionality of any single piece of equipment, with the DI systems used in such operations tending to be dedicated to 'colour' work only, without any additional functionality built in.

It has also been common to have local storage on many of the distributed workstation to prevent problems with shared access, and this obviously brings with it a need to copy data between the various systems.

Other systems, such as SGO's Mistika and Quantel's iQ Pablo, come fully loaded with much more functionality than the more limited colour only DI systems and require less 'assistance' in performing a DI workflow.

It is this 'hero' DI suite approach that has usually been taken by Light Illusion, and the one that has been adopted by most of Light Illusion's Post-Production clients, building a central DI system capable of far more than just simple colour correction, which is what the majority of alternative DI systems tend to be limited to, and which therefore demand a more distributed workflow approach.

The problems with a distributed workflow approach tend to be twofold:

Firstly, the facility needs to be large as there needs to be a high number of operators working each of the distributed workstations; data loading & conforming; restoration & repair; colour correction; vfx work; quality control checking; data & video deliverable export; etc.

Secondly, a distributed workflow approach takes a large network infrastructure, and demands a lot of data movement to enable each workstation to gain access to the material as needed, which is very expensive to setup and run.

The problem with this approach is the underlying business model and market value. The budgets in the majority of film projects don't tend to be huge, especially when the project gets to post-production - the last point in the production chain. Most money will have been spent during the production phase, on the lighting reflectors and costume stuffers (actors), and the basics of the shoot. The post-production budget will inevitably shrink, while the workload (fix it in post) will increase!

By using a more centralised 'hero' approach a small boutique facility, even a boutique DI facility within a larger post-production operation, can perform cost-effective DI work using a small creative team of staff. It is this approach that has been favoured by Light Illusion and many of its clients.

However, there is a problem with this 'Boutique Hero' approach as facilities grow their DI capabilities and look to perform more and more projects in parallel.

Hero suites, by nature, tend to be great at performing all the necessary work on a given project - one project at a time. They are less flexible when it comes to trying to run multiple projects simultaneously. Unless you duplicate the entire 'hero' suite again...

Centralised Storage Workflows
Because of these 'Boutique' operation limitations the post industry is now looking to adopt a Centralised Storage approach to workflow, with multiple workstations all accessing a shared central pool of storage: a SAN, or Shared Area Network.

This has become something of a 'holy grail' for post-production, and the similarity to the previous 'Distributed Workflow' model is obvious, but this time with no local storage, so no need to move material between workstations. But, it is only recently that a SAN workflow has become realistically possible, without very specialised SAN systems - which have been more proprietary in use than the concept of a SAN suggests.

There is also the issue of speed of access, or bandwidth, for the various systems connected to the SAN. The more systems connected, the less speed any one system can maintain, meaning that for 2K and 4K real-time playback there are limits as to how many systems one SAN can support. But, advances in SAN technology are rapidly making this a lot less of an issue.

For more information on build a SAN based central storage approach to workflows see SAN Workflows.

For further information on DI workflows please send an e-mail to steve@lightillusion.com.

Grading 'Silence Becomes You' on iQ at MotionFX.