Massive HD DDR Event Review

Drastic together with NASA has integrated 44 frame synchronized Drastic DDR recorders and 10 DrasticDDR players at the Orbital Sciences/Cygnus Mission in Virginia to implement the world’s largest HD DDR event recorder.

The System

The above diagram shows Drastic's SyncControl Pro controlling a number of Drastic DDRs to frame accurately synchronize the start and stop of capture or playback. The MediaReactor Workstation plugin allows editing while record, within most popular editing software packages. The DDRs may be outfitted with local storage so captured media may be offloaded between events, or records may be made directly to a dedicated storage array.

The Drastic DDR system allows NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to record the full 72 hours of the launch, starting up to two days before and ending hours after the launch. Cameras, control room and Drastic DDRs are located off island a safe distance from the launch site.

Each camera is connected through an Evertz IRIG inserter to a Drastic DDR device.  All Drastic DDRs are capable of synchronized recording and playback, but normally the Krayken 1U or Typhon 4U are used:

The Drastic DDRs can record the signals in a variety of formats including Uncompressed, DVCPro, AVCi-100, MPEG-2 and JPEG-2000.  The files are stored as standard MXF, MOV, AVI, YUV or other standard types.  The IRIG time code is embedded into the file as readable metadata.  For monitoring and control all the DDRs are are connected to Drastic's SyncControl Pro software:

SyncControl Pro provides configuration, video and audio meter monitoring, record start/stop, and real time play while record control of all the Drastic DDR systems.  It connects via standard gigabit ethernet lines, and controls both players and recorders, allowing for quick changes of sync grouping and recorder loading via drag and drop or keyboard controls.

The Workflow

The workflow starts with setup, making sure all previous video is cleared from the DDRs. Record countdown may begin up to 36 hours prior to launch. File type and input selection are confirmed, and the DDRs are placed into simultaneous record. Playback DDRs are assigned to the recorders and selected video may be reviewed without interrupting the capture process. Once the event has ended the record DDRs are stopped, and video associated with the event may be immediately reviewed, moved to a SAN, or archived in offline tape storage.

At any time during and after recording, up to 10 channels can be played back in sync at any speed from any time of the launch. IRIG time code is embedded in all of the recording channels, and the material is also available during record to their Adobe Premiere editors using Drastic's Edit-While-Record MediaReactor Workstation plugin. All material is moved off to a 144TBs EzHDSAN Shared Storage and the system is ready to record again within 24 hours. 2 LTO5 LTFS 24 tape Robotic Libraries are used for archiving.