By Jonathan S. Abrams

That’s right. We are still taking NAB. There was a lot to cover!

So, the first appointment I booked for NAB Show 2018, both in terms of my show schedule (10am Monday) and the vendors I was in contact with, was with StorageDNA’s Jeff Krueger, VP of worldwide sales. Weeks later, I found out that StorageDNA was collaborating with Imagine Products on myLTOdna, so I extended my appointment. Doug Hynes, senior director of business development for StorageDNA, and Michelle Maddox, marketing director of Imagine Products, joined me to discuss what they had ready for the show.

The introduction of LTFS during NAB 2010 allowed LTO tape to be accessed as if it was a hard drive. Since LTO tape is linear, executing multiple operations at once and treating it like a hard drive results in performance falling off of a cliff. It also could cause the drive to engage in shoeshining, or shuttling of the tape back-and-forth over the same section.

Imagine Products’ main screen.

Eight years later, these performance and operation issues have been addressed by StorageDNA’s creation of HyperTape, which is their enhanced Linear File Transfer System that is part of Imagine Products’ myLTOdna application. My first question was “Is HyperTape yet another tape format?” Fortunately for myself and other users, the answer is “No.”

What is HyperTape? It is a workflow powered by dnaLTFS. The word “enhanced” in the description of HyperTape as an enhanced Linear File Transfer System refers to a middleware in their myLTOdna application for Mac OS. There are three commands that can be executed to put an LTO drive into either read-only, write-only or training mode. Putting the LTO drive into an “only mode” allows it to achieve up to 300MB/s of throughput. This is where the Hyper in HyperTape comes from. These modes can also be engaged from the command line.

Training mode allows for analyzing the files stored on an LTO tape and then storing that information in a Random Access Database (RAD). The creation of the RAD can be automated using Imagine Products’ PrimeTranscoder. Otherwise, each file on the tape must be opened in order to train myLTOdna and create a RAD.

As for shoeshining, or shuttling of the tape back-and-forth over the same section, this is avoided by intelligently writing files to LTO tape. This intelligence is proprietary and is built into the back-end of the software. The result is that you can load a clip in Avid’s Media Composer, Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve or Adobe’s Premiere Pro and then load a subclip from that content into your project. You still should not load a clip from tape and just press play. Remember, this is LTO tape you are reading from.

The target customer for myLTOdna is a DIT with camera masters who wants to reduce how much time it takes to backup their footage. Previously, DITs would transfer the camera card’s contents to a hard drive using an application such as Imagine Products’ ShotPut Pro. Once the footage had been transferred to a hard drive, it could then be transferred to LTO tape. Using myLTOdna in read-only mode allows a DIT to bypass the hard drive and go straight from the camera card to an LTO tape. Because the target customer is already using ShotPut Pro, the UI for myLTOdna was designed to be comfortable and not difficult to use or understand.

The licensing for dnaLTFS is tied to the serial number of an LTO drive. StorageDNA’s Krueger explained that, “dnaLTFS is the drive license that works with stand alone mac LTO drives today.” Purchasing a license for dnaLTFS allows the user to later upgrade to StorageDNA’s DNAevolution M Series product if they need automation and scheduling features without having to purchase another drive license if the same LTO drive is used.

Krueger went on to say, “We will have (dnaLTFS) integrated into our DNAevolution product in the future.” DNAevolution’s cost of entry is $5,000. A single LTO drive license starts at $1,250. Licensing is perpetual, and updates are available without a support contract. myLTOdna, like ShotPut Pro and PrimeTranscoder, is a one-time purchase (perpetual license). It will phone home on first launch. Remote support is available for $250 per year.

I also envision myLTOdna being useful outside of the DIT market. Indeed, this was the thinking when the collaboration between Imagine Products and StorageDNA began. If you do not mind doing manual work and want to keep your costs low, myLTOdna is for you. If you later need automation and can budget for the efficiencies that you get with it, then DNAevolution is what you can upgrade to.

Jonathan S. Abrams is the Chief Technical Engineer at Nutmeg, a creative marketing, production and post resource, located in New York City.