Pinnacle Micro - The Optical Storage Company

Multimedia The world of multimedia continues to define itself with new capabilities and technologies and the results are more demanding in terms of storage. With DAT or 8mm tape backup, speed and random access are sacrificed for cost and the media starts to degrade after just a few hundred read or write passes. A full length MPEG encoded movie can be stored on just one side of virtually indestructible Apex media. This makes Apex ideal for data intensive multimedia applications, with the added benefit of cost effectiveness. Adding 10 GB of Apex media costs a mere 3.7 cents per megabyte (MSRP).

Case Study: Robert Perless

"The Pinnacle Micro Apex stole my heart immediately," said Robert Perless, a famous sculptor and 3-D digital artist based in Greenwich, Connecticut. "My biggest issue was always storage...until now. The 4.6 Gigabyte capacity media allow us to store digital video clips of my work which are then used in documentary films for television, museums and universities, such as the University of Connecticut and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. I also use the Apex as a library to categorize and easily locate specific clips. The Apex absolutely takes the complexity out of computer work, it's a true delight. Pinnacle Micro has exceeded its promise to deliver this wonderful product. As far as I'm concerned everything else out there is inferior."

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Archiving And Back-Up Data Warehousing When data must be trusted for years to come, tape and other removable media are too vulnerable to heat, magnetic fields, head crashes, over-use and dust. Apex media is immune to all of these risks while performing reliably for more than 30 years. Optical media is the preferred storage medium of the US Government and the US military, because of its high data integrity and long life span. Software from companies such as Seagate Software and Dantz Development makes archiving and retrieval easy, and Apex drives improve access and retrieval time to approximately 8 seconds.

Case Study: Sumner, Inc.

"With the growing popularity of amateur golf worldwide, our company developed one of the first golf handicap and tournament systems to be placed in public and private golf clubs for calculating and managing individual player scores," said Bob Ostrom, director of corporate communications for Sumner, Inc., the second largest provider of golf handicap and tournament services in the United States, headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. "The Pinnacle Micro Apex enables us to access millions of archived golfer scores in 'real time' for over 1000 golf clubs throughout the United States and Europe. We also use the Apex to backup our golfer away score posting network, the golfnet.com internet site, and our in-house servers. In the past we had used tape, but found the reliability, transportability and access were not satisfactory. When a club calls to verify a golfer's score, we can service that customer quickly and efficiently without waiting to restore data from tape. And compatibility with the 2.6 GB Vertex allows our remote offices to simply send the disks to our corporate office so we can do statistical analysis on golfer scores and rounds played. The Pinnacle Micro Apex has greatly contributed to the continuing success of our company in a time when the information age determines your company's future."

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Internet, Intranet And Networking Solutions As the World Wide Web becomes a basic necessity of corporate life, reliability, longevity and future expansion must be considered long before they're needed. Demand for more space continues to grow to accommodate larger web sites and on-line databases, and as users download entire web sites for later viewing. For internet, intranet, LAN and WAN requirements, Apex technology is fast enough for on-line retrieval or near-line storage with an average 21 millisecond access time. As space and cost effectiveness goes, optical libraries provide one of the least expensive and most expandable solutions. Pinnacle's libraries are built to handle hundreds of thousands of accesses, accommodating thousands of users per day.

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Using Apex Drives For Multimedia Solutions; Reliability Is Key
It was the data throughput speed of Pinnacle’s Apex drive that initially caught Bryan Baker’s attention. Baker is partner and director of engineering at World Media Inc., a company that has spent 20 years building TV and radio systems and more recently developing broadcast automation systems. However, it was the 4.6 GB capacity and the unmatched reliability of optical technology that ultimately convinced him to incorporate Apex into his Airshow 2000 system, a state-of-the-art television automation system. "The data throughput speed of 65 to 75 KB per frame makes the Apex drive ideal for use in delivery systems for commercial spot play and 15 minute news segments," said Baker. "The 4.6 GB media holds up to 50 commercials per disk enabling the Airshow 2000 to run hours of automated programming without interruption." The Airshow 2000 is not just for spot play -- it’s a total automation system which enables a TV station to run unassisted. It can store 3,600 commercials and control 128 external machines for videotape systems, satellite dishes, satellite receivers and other required equipment. Each video engine has its own JPEG CODEC, a separate SCSI channel and its own CPU to control audio and visual functions. Each video channel uses a proprietary operating system to accommodate the video feed. These multiple systems are controlled by a PC-based system that also has embedded proprietary CPUs and some portions of a DOS-type management system to control the traffic system interfaces and non-video data storage.

Video is motion JPEG compressed and written directly to the Apex SCSI channel. The Apex drives are connected to the video engine CPUs for direct communication. During playback, the data is decompressed and written directly to the CPU and video output board. For real-time recording, the disk is pre-erased and recorded in one pass directly to the Apex."In comparison to alternatives, the Apex drive best suited my needs," said Baker. "Downtime is not tolerated by our viewers, not even for a second -- That’s why I chose optical technology over RAID." Baker had witnessed several customer situations where RAID systems had failed. Although these multiple drive systems provide mirroring capabilities, it takes time to bring them back on line once down. "My customer lost a second drive while trying to bring the system back up," said Baker. "Two strikes and you’re out. They lost everything. With an optical drive, if the unlikely occurrence of a failure happens, your data remains intact." The proper handling of storage is fundamental to the overall functions of an Airshow 2000 automated broadcast station. In comparison to other storage alternatives, the Apex offers the speed, reliability and capacity needed. In fact, the last commercial you watched may very well have been delivered by an Apex drive.

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Solutions: Multimedia & CD Authoring
At Berklee College of Music, one-time students like Quincy Jones and Branford Marsalis, Melissa Etheridge, Donald Fagen and Patty Larkin, to name a few, had to learn their instruments the old-fashioned way: With written sheet music. Nowadays, there is an entire department, Berklee Press Publications, dedicated to developing instructional material for a wide range of instruments and competencies.

The school also has Digital Media Development Specialist (and alumni) Doug Roerden at work developing instructional CDs for Berklee Press that let you "take your teacher with you." Jim Kelly, Berklee’s Professor of Guitar, has provided the instructional material for the first two CDs. Jim Kelly’s Guitar Workshops are integrated, interactive, instructional book/Enhanced CDs (ECDs) for Macintosh and Windows featuring on-screen sheet music with pop-up video instruction (over 60 minutes of instruction in more than 50 video clips). When you click a video icon in the written music, Jim pops up to guide you along.

Enhanced CD, or CD-EXTRA as it’s sometimes known, is a compact disc format adopted by the Recording Industry Association of America that lets users play discs containing computer data (in addition to the audio files) on their regular audio CD players without the former risks of damaging their stereo equipment (which was sometimes the case with data/audio hybrid discs of yesteryear). Software developers and record companies have a great deal of freedom in how to divide the available space. Most ECDs sold at your local retailer (some of the audio CDs you think are just audio CDs are actually ECDs!) are about 80–90% audio with room enough for some graphics, pictures, and video. Doug uses half the disc for music, half for educational information.

The workshops comprise songs and studies in rock, blues, jazz, funk, latin, R&B, and more. In the book, each song appears as a lead sheet with style, tempo, form, and CD track indications. A description of the tune — as well as practice ideas — accompanies each lead sheet. You can practice the songs straight from the book if you like, but the ECDs will greatly enhance your learning and enjoyment. The ECDs contain each song as performed by Jim Kelly and his band and each study as performed by Jim. Each band piece also includes at least one play-along track. The play-along tracks use the exact same mix as the performance tracks, so you can hear how you sound with the band. In addition, you’ll find MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files for each song and study: One at full tempo and others at practice tempos. Even if you don’t have MIDI hardware and software, you can still play these files on your computer.

One of the biggest challenges in the development of these titles is dealing with the technology — not only in the complex harmonzing of hardware and software from many different vendors to create the desired result, but in finding enough space to store everything before burning the final CD. That’s when Doug turned to Pinnacle’s Apex technology. "Prior to receiving the Apex, we burned four dozen CDs as intermediate storage," Doug recalls. "We had limited Jaz cartridges and at $99 each, they were too expensive. All the hard drives were full so we used CDs. Not only was this a waste of write-once media, but the time it took to sort, transfer, burn, log, and file the data was pulling us away from the project at-hand."

Doug uses a Sony Hi8 video deck (EVO-9850) to capture Jim’s instruction to his PowerTower Pro 225 Macintosh with a 4GB striped array. All editing is done directly on the Macintosh and converted to digital via Adobe Premiere and Radius’ VideoVision Studio. All the clips — ranging anywhere from 10 seconds to four minutes in length (at 100 MB per minute), are stored on the Apex drive. "The Apex cartridges have about 6 months worth of clips on them," says Doug, "Using Jaz, we ran out of space too soon. We’d inevitably want to fit one more clip on a cartridge and couldn’t find one the right size, so we’d leave 100 MB or more empty and/or we’d take a clip out of sequence. Once we burned our intermediate storage CDs, we had an awful lot of clips scattered about an awful lot of discs. With Apex, that’s not nearly such an issue. If we leave 100 MB of unused space on an Apex it’s not a big deal."

Doug stores the video data at 30 frames per second in 24-bit color using 320 x 240 pixels (1/4-screen) so that he can take advantage of new developments in audio-video processing without having to redigitize each clip every time something better comes along. The final files are compressed and optimized for CD-ROM playback at 15 frames per second and weigh in just over 10 MB per minute. The clips are then output to Enhanced CD and may even be used on the web. Doug has completed the first of these new interactive CDs, scheduled for release in September this year, and is in the midst of completing the second.

"We did three rounds of video-processing and compression for Volume 1 and we’ve already done two for Volume 2." Doug expects to compress the video for Volume 2 using even later technology before the discs go to press. "If it wasn’t for Apex, I’d still be spending my time cataloging intermediate storage discs rather than making the video look and sound the best that today’s technology will allow."

Founded in Boston in 1945, Berklee College of Music is the world's largest independent music college and the premier institution for the study of contemporary music. The college's 3,000 students (40% international) and 300 faculty members interact in an environment that includes all of the opportunities presented by a career in the contemporary music industry. Guitarists make up one-third of the student body.

Doug Roerden has been producing disc- and web-based multimedia at Berklee for over three years — which includes launching the college’s premiere website. Since earning his bachelor’s in Jazz Composition & Arranging from Berklee in 1983, he has functioned as music director and drummer for a number of national acts. Doug's interests in computing and education brought him quickly to a parallel career in user interface and instructional design. His expertise is evident in the usability of dozens of software products for which he has played a leading role — most notably Coda Music Technology’s Finale and MusicProse. He has also contributed to several book publications — most recently to Net Lessons: Web-Based Projects for Your Classroom (from O’Reilly and Associates).

Jim Kelly is Professor of Guitar at Berklee College of Music. One of the cornerstones of the college's guitar faculty, Kelly has traveled the world on behalf of the college, teaching and performing throughout Europe, South America, and Japan in the college's "On The Road" series of clinics. Since 1973, Jim has worked closely with several thousand aspiring guitarists, building their technique, feel, and confidence. He has for many years been the most-requested guitar teacher on the faculty.

For more information on Berklee College of Music’s educational programs, visit their web site at www.berklee.edu.

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Solutions: Storage
After hearing resellers complain about failures with Iomega’s Jaz drive, Bear Stearns’ head of research and development became concerned. As one of the top five investment banking firms in the nation, its his job to qualify all PC hardware and software selected for company use.

"We were hearing about drive failures at rates of 20 to 35 percent," said one R & D analyst. "Even at the low end, one drive failing out of every five is not good enough."

Bear Stearns had recently authorized the purchase of 400 Jaz drives and was planning additional purchases. The drives were being used to handle high volumes of financial data and failures of any kind would cost the company time, money and customers. They needed reassurance from the manufacturer and called Iomega to talk.

Iomega actually admitted to one out of 10 (failures), and that was still too high for Bear Stearns.

They began searching for a new removable storage solution. Removable media is important to the company because it enables employees to send data to clients and transfer data between branches. More importantly, it provides security to users who need to know that even if the network goes down, they can still recover their data.

"It gives the user a sense of, ‘no matter what I will always have my data,’ and in the investment banking world that is very important," said the analyst.

The search for a more reliable solution led to Pinnacle Micro’s Apex drive. Bear Sterns was already a Pinnacle Micro customer and when the Apex drive was introduced they received an evaluation unit. Thus began a series of rigorous tests that are part of Bear Sterns’ standardization process.

"The unit performed very well. It was much more durable then any hard drives or Jaz drives we tested," said a company representative. "It was not subject to any temperature strain or dropping. Overall, it was an exceptional unit."

After testing the optical drive, the results were reviewed with industry contacts including resellers and colleagues from other investment banks and financial institutions. The findings were confirmed.

At about that time, Pinnacle Micro permanently reduced prices across the board on its optical drives and media. The new pricing structure made the decision easier.

"Price had been our only complaint," said analysts. "With the new pricing structure, we were ready to proceed."

Bear Stearns purchased 400 Apex 4.6GB optical drives and plans to purchase another 400 within the next 12 months. They have standardized on the Apex drive and will phase it in wherever users need a high capacity removable storage solution. Overall Bear Sterns has about 10,000 users in the US alone with offices also in Paris, London, Dublin, Brazil, Tokyo and Mainland China. The majority of their systems are Hewlett-Packard Vectras running Windows NT. Each user requires about one to two pieces of media per year. With 4.6 GBs on each, the company anticipates that’s all they'll need.

Kerins views his original purchase of 400 Jaz drives as a lesson in doing your homework. He plans to scrap these as they fail.

"We’re going to replace them all with Apex drives, especially given the price points."

In comparison to other removable storage alternatives, Apex optical technology offered the price, performance and, above all, the reliability required to meet the stringent demands of one of the nation’s leading investment banking firms.

Pinnacle Micro Inc. is a leading manufacturer of optical technology and storage systems for general data storage and data intensive applications. Products include the award-winning Vertex 2.6 GB and Apex 4.6 GB optical hard drives and a line of Apex-based optical library systems ranging from 40 GB to over 1 TB. Pinnacle products are idea for applications such as archiving and backup, network storage, imaging, desktop publishing and prepress, as well as digital audio/video editing and commercial multimedia. Found in 1987, Pinnacle Micro Inc. is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. with sales offices in North America and Europe.

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