System architecture

To install this software you should be able to administer as root a Linux system. If you plan to reconfigure your workstation or your storage, knowledge of computer hardware, storage and networking in a professional video/film production environment is recommended. The default root account password on an Autodesk workstation is password.

Wiretap

Flame communicates with media and metadata databases through their Wiretap server, typically an Autodesk Visual Effects, Finishing, and Colour Grading workstation. The Visual Effects and Finishing Wiretap server (ifffsWiretapServer) is installed automatically with Visual Effects and Finishing applications, and requires no modification for Flame. The server runs automatically and independently of the Visual Effects and Finishing application. Each workstation is listed in the Flame network tree as a member of the Wiretap network.

Wiretap Central

The Flame Web server receives requests from the Flame UI, and routes them to the appropriate Wiretap server. Media is transferred from the media storage through a GigE or InfiniBand network to Flame where it is converted to an .FLV thumbnail and/or preview, as required. Flame also performs media encoding, and stores the exported clips and export packages. The Flame UI is an Adobe Flash Player compatible rich Internet application (RIA) that runs in a standard browser. It communicates solely with the Flame Web server. Once Flame has converted the high-bandwidth media from the framestore into a light-weight .FLV clip, the only media transaction that occurs between the Flame Web server and UI is a progressive download.

Wiretap Gateway

The Wiretap Gateway is a Wiretap server that exposes any mounted standard filesystem as a Wiretap hierarchy of directories, files, and clip nodes, which it automatically detects. The Wiretap Gateway reads image media in any format from any storage device, and streams it live as raw RGB to local or remote Wiretap clients, such as Flame. Any Wiretap-enabled application can use the Wiretap Gateway to move media. Visual Effects and Finishing applications leverage Wiretap Gateway though gateway libraries or indirectly through Flame to decode various media formats, including RED RAW and OpenEXR, or to move media from an Autodesk Visual Effects and Finishing application Stone storage to Autodesk Lustre direct attached storage. Wiretap Gateway is used by the Lustre file browser to browse files and decode/transcode media. You use Wiretap Gateway to expose the contents of a file system, for example RED (.r3d), QuickTime (.mov), and MXF (.mxf) media. Since decompressing compressed media is a CPU intensive task, performance may vary based on your system configuration. If Wiretap Gateway is installed on a Mac equipped with a RED ROCKET card, it can use the card to improve the speed of decoding and debayering R3D files. Wiretap Gateway machines in your network are labeled as such in the Flame network tree, or in the Lustre file browser. They act as gateways to the storage devices where the media to import resides. When you select a Wiretap Gateway machine, and initiate a media import operation, the media is read from the source storage by the Wiretap Gateway, processed by the Media I/O Adapter encoding engines on the processing nodes, and then written to the destination storage through the Wiretap server.

Autodesk Wire

This service enables high-speed transfer of uncompressed timelines, clips, and libraries between Autodesk workstations, on industry-standard TCP/IP and InfiniBand networks, preserving all metadata.

Autodesk Backburner

A queue manager used to submit, monitor, and control background processing and distributed network processing. Consists of the following components:

• Backburner Manager: Coordinates jobs submitted by Wiretap clients, and delegates them to the Wiretap servers on the Wiretap network.
• Backburner Monitor: Front-end interfaces for management and control of the Backburner Manager.
• Backburner Server: The job-processing component of Backburner that invokes the processing engine.
• Backburner Processing Engine: The server-side process responsible for processing frames. Processing engines integrate themselves in Backburner Server as plug-ins or adapters.
• Backburner Processing Node: Processing nodes are dedicated machines on the Backburner network that consist of a Backburner Server, plug-ins/adapters, and processing engines. The Backburner Server receives job assignments from the Backburner Manager, and passes them on to the correct processing engine through the plug-in/adapter.

For detailed information about Backburner components, see the Autodesk Backburner Installation Guide.

Media I/O Adapter

The Media I/O Adapter is a Backburner processing engine that reads media from a storage device or Wiretap server, processes it, and then writes it to a storage device or Wiretap server.