Powerware Model V-2000B User Manual

96 = Network File Transfers 

 

 
Apart from recording and playing program content through composite video and SDI 

connections, the Image Server can also act as an FTP server, delivering program material across the 

room or across the country.  Its Gigabit Ethernet port is standard equipment, and provides reliable 

high-speed transfers at much lower cost than Fibre Channel. 

The actual network transfer rate  depends on the number of video streams also being 

played, and their bit rate.  To ensure that video recording and playback can always take place, the 

Image Server gives network transfers a lower priority than video.  In practice, broadcast content 

encoded at 12 Mb/sec should transfer at a 5X rate, even while the server is playing video. 

The Image Server supports FTP-based import and export of files in MXF format.  The applicable 

standards are SMPTE 377M, 378M and SMPTE 381M.  Operational Patterns 1a and 1b files are 

supported. 

FTP transfers to and from the Image Server are managed from an FTP client file transfer manager 

program running on a Windows® or Macintosh® computer.  This approach provides a rapid way to 
execute drag -and-drop file transfers; it can also manage many  Image Servers at once and does not 

tie up the Image Server GUI, which may already be in use.  Third party FTP manager programs are 

readily available for download through the Internet. 
FTP programs may also be used to move recorded or edited material between an Image Server and 

network attached storage (NAS) or a DVD-ROM library. 

From a networking or system integration viewpoint, the Image Server appears as a normal drive 

to an FTP server in any size network, with the exception that it may only send, receive, or store 

video files that are compatible with the Image Server. 

The Image Server sets MARK-IN and MARK-OUT points in a clip as “edit pointers.”  For all edit 

operations within a given Image Server, these pointers produce “virtual edits” that save disk 

space, and the time it would take to re-write the marked region as a new file. 
It is clearly impractical to transfer a long file to obtain a 30-second virtual clip marked within it.  

Therefore, the Image Server transfers only the region between In/Out points, and not the entire