We've previously written about some of the technology powering the Las Vegas Sphere, including the 16K internal LED screen and ultra-high resolution 18K camera system. Now details have been revealed about the storage facility being used at the massive music and entertainment arena east of the Las Vegas Strip.
Everything about Sphere is state-of-the-art, and Hitachi Vantara is excited about how its software technology processes and streams Sphere's original immersive content to both its 160,000 square feet of indoor LED displays and its 580,000 square feet of Exosphere. It explains in detail how it can help you.
Hitachi Content Software for File is an integral part of what Hitachi describes as a “high-performance, software-defined distributed parallel file system storage solution.” It consists of 27 nodes with 4PB of flash storage for playback within Sphere.
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The system streams content to 7thSense media servers in real time, with each server streaming 4K video at 60 frames per second. As you can imagine, this is a world first in terms of technological capabilities at this scale.
“Sphere represents a completely immersive and visually powerful new entertainment experience,” said Octavian Tanase, Chief Product Officer, Hitachi Vantara. “To ensure that the technology behind it is ready to meet this challenge, Hitachi Vantara is working closely with the Sphere team to test, measure and test how data is processed, streamed and projected. Quality-wise, the resolution and colors are second to none, and this project has exceeded our already high expectations.”
In Darren Aronofsky's original immersive film, postcard from earththe system needed to handle a throughput of over 400 GB/s with less than 5 ms of latency and a 12-bit color display with 444 subsampling.
“Sphere has many firsts, one of which is streaming immersive high-definition video content at a scale never before done,” said Sphere Entertainment's Head of Show Systems Technology. added Alex Luthwaite, Senior Vice President. “Hitachi Vantara worked with our team to develop a solution that is fast, reliable, and efficient.”
