April 19, 2009
Grass Valley has announced news and production workflows based on the company’s K2 workgroups and Apple Final Cut Studio. The full integration of Final Cut Studio across Grass Valley’s K2 product line enables a K2 storage area network (SAN) to act as a broadcast-quality storage system for the software. 
“Final Cut editors experience a tremendous performance enhancement because the Mac now has direct access to the shared storage drives as if they were its local HDD,” said Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Grass Valley. “The integrated system delivers true, broadcast-level quality of service for a rock-solid real time editing experience independent from the number of editors who access the same body of storage at the same time.”
“Final Cut Studio is the editor of choice for broadcast and postproduction professionals around the world,” said Richard Townhill, Apple’s Director of Video Applications Marketing. "Grass Valley has used Final Cut's open architecture to enable seamless integration with K2, so editors working on shared media can immediately begin editing, even while the media is still being created."
Final Cut workstations are mounted via Fibre Channel or iSCSI directly to the K2 SAN. Journalists working with Aurora Edit LD low-resolution proxy editors can now create rough cuts and send them to Final Cut Studio for finishing. Activities such as opening K2 files or opening Aurora Edit decision lists as well as sending files to K2 clients for playout have all been seamlessly integrated into Final Cut Studio.
At NAB, Grass Valley will show:
• Final Cut Studio connectivity with K2 using Apple’s Xsan for direct-block level access over Fibre Channel and iSCSI.
• QuickTime reference files support for K2 Clips and Sub-Clips. Formats supported include: DV/HDV at 25-, 50- and 100 Mbps, XDCAM HD, and IMX.
• Final Cut Pro editing of growing K2 clips directly from K2 storage (no transfer or transcode needed).
• K2 Connect Final Cut plug in, providing the ability to instantly locate and view K2 or Aurora assets eliminating the need to browse large lists of clips and files
• import one or many clips directly to a project
• export one or many sequence (in the HDV/DV25-, 50-, 100, XDCAM HD, and IMX format) to the K2 servers
• direct integration from the Final Cut Pro user interface
Other supported Final Cut Studio connections are:
• CIFS for lower bandwidth or connection to a standalone K2 Media Client
• Fibre Channel for connection to K2 SAN
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