Post-Production System

Post Control Helsinki is a modern post-production house. At PCH, they produce commercials, TV series, documentaries and movies. Post Control, founded in 2009, has rapidly established its position in the Finnish post field.

We designed and implemented a comprehensive turnkey post-production system for Post Control. At the heart of the system is a high-performance SAN hard disk system to which workstations are connected via 4 / 8Gb fiber, 10 / 20Gb infiniband, and 1Gb Ethernet networks. The SAN is the best performance system in the Nordic countries, enabling a 10bit 2K DPX workflow for all online and color specification workstations. Also, the 4K workflow has also been tested to work.

Data transfers are also optimized so that production-related data can be quickly transferred to SAN disk surface and there out, e.g. to FTP. In addition to the great performance, the SAN system has focused on backup; the entire system is equipped with data tape backup that secures important production data. The data tape system also allows for automatic archiving of productions once they have been completed.

There are over ten workstations; from offline Final Cut units to Autodesk Luster Color Definition units. Almost all workstations are equipped with the latest Final Cut Studio and Adobe CS5 software. Two Autodesk Smoke on Mac workstations act as online inots. 3D is handled by both Mac OS X and Windows-based tools.

The color specification unit is Autodesk Luster, a Linux-based resolution-free system. The Lustre is located in the theater, which has the largest screen for post-production in Finland (width 6 m). The calibrated Christie DCI projector ensures that the final product looks exactly the same on the screen as in a movie theater, which is very important for post-production quality and control. Luster and Christie are also fully 3D-ready, so post-production can also be taken to the third dimension if needed.

“I am a color grader by profession and I had the privilege of being able to freely dominate the best possible tool on the market. I got a well-functioning and modern system as well as skilled people.”

Marko Terävä,
Post Control Helsinki Oy

The majority of the system is based on the Mac OS X platform, but there are also Linux and Windows-based servers and workstations. The most important thing in the integration was to make all the different platforms and software “talk” to each other smoothly. With the new and modern system, working methods and workflows could also be streamlined.