CODEX products are firmly established at the very high-end as a first choice storage and workflow solution used by Marvel and for Disney+ The Mandalorian, for example. The CODEX storage and workflow ecology has it all - robust, elegant, efficient, secure and fast. Because CODEX products and solutions are so good they have also carried a premium cost, but with DYNAMIC Rentals’ involvement this cost is set to reduce and open up the CODEX workflow protocols and benefits to a broader user base.
DYNAMIC on Data
AUSTIN RIOS, Chief Executive Officer (AR) We define DYNAMIC as a progressive, ever-evolving solutions provider in the film and high-end television industry. As business opportunists we’re always looking for gaps to try and fill needs. We approach the challenges our customers face differently. Traditionally you’ve got to capitalise a lot of high-end equipment. Working with both the vendor and the customer, we disrupt the market. We make the product available and affordable.
BRANDON ZACHARY, Chief Operating Officer (BZ) This is what we did with the sub-rental market. Before DYNAMIC entered the market, the sub-rental model was very inefficient and expensive. We created those efficiencies and passed on the savings and with CODEX we’ll be able to offer that on the workflow side.
BZ It’s not just the cost of the storage per TB. It’s the processing of that storage that carries an exponential cost. That expands in the cloud as well with every file transfer and download you request. The additional cost of that data storage travels throughout the pipeline and then the additional time to move it around has a people cost. That speed is so important on set and that is why High Density Encoding (HDE) has such a huge value as well as a data savings of up to 50%. It’s about DYNAMIC fitting in to create those efficiencies as an operational partner.
AR It’s an area where costs can run out of control. Looking forward, the world of virtual production requires more and more data - and data processing - again and it requires a simple unified, robust and fast workflow.
"WHAT WE SAW WITH CODEX WAS A PREMIUM, GOLD-STANDARD WORKFLOW AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DYNAMIC TO TAKE A STEP INTO THIS WORLD AND MAKE THAT GREAT WORKFLOW A LOT MORE AVAILABLE"
Support
AR We do everything in lockstep with CODEX. They’re providing us support and they’ve been closely involved in training our team and we’re always linked in globally. When you’re getting CODEX products from DYNAMIC, it feels like you’re getting it from CODEX themselves and with ARRI’s camera growing even more popular, it enhances their cameras’ workflow.
BZ Support has never traditionally been linked to sub-rentals and this has always been a mainstay of DYNAMIC. We changed that. Any extension of the DYNAMIC portfolio has to carry that support, that brand value with it.
AR CODEX is offering the support and the user education alongside us. It’s not just CODEX selling us some products but about making it available to this market.
BZ CODEX isn’t just for the big studios and our goal is to broaden CODEX use as it offers so much to a broader cross section and once they fully understand it, they can adopt it.
TOM JAY SMITH, Chief Sales Officer The way it works is that if a customer takes a 12-month contract, once a project has finished and they’ve backed up the data, we take the units back, clean them and set them up and deliver them ready-to-go for the next project. We’re providing this high-end luxury hardware to give them the most seamless experience without the responsibilities.
Cinematographers love to shoot on the ARRI Mini LF but they are data hungry. With HDE, CODEX have taken that data challenge and reduced the burden by 40 to 50% in simple storage terms and that data saving travels with the data the whole way through the pipeline. CODEX have the best storage solution in the market that bridges on-set with post and you don’t have to worry about buying it anymore.
The CODEX Perspective
“Seeing the difference in media processing between seasons 1 and 2, when HDE became widely available was fantastic. HDE helped the workflow tremendously, not only to speed up the process of managing the media but by improving the turnaround time to get the CODEX capture drives back to the Camera department for reuse.”
Eduardo Eguia, DIT on Disney+ The Mandalorian, Seasons 1 and 2
“FotoKem could deliver the turnovers [of ARRIRAW at 50-60% of the original size] quicker with the nextLab system, since the files were effectively smaller by 2:1 in data footprint.”
Jon Rocke, Dailies Colourist at Fotokem on Disney+ The Mandalorian, Season 2
“The CODEX RAW workflow has become ubiquitous due to its reliability and support for High Density Encoding. We are very excited to be working strategically with Dynamic Rentals to be able to deliver this workflow as a standard for SONY, ARRI and RED based cameras.” “As the data flows, the storage grows on a production as the data is migrated from set to post-production. Just as DYNAMIC Rentals has been there for their industry rental partners, supplying the latest cameras and capture media, now they can provide the production and post-production companies with shared storage, dynamically delivered, to any of our customers on a global basis.”
Brian Gaffney, VP of Business Development at CODEX
