REV PRO is Grass Valley’s new media format designed for recording, editing, playback and archival of video assets. Developed jointly with Iomega, the REV PRO disk houses the recording platter and motor in the sturdy REV PRO disk cartridge, while the disk heads and interface electronics remain in the REV PRO drive. By isolating the recording media from the read/write head, REV PRO disks are sturdier and lighter than hard disks, while still retaining the random-access and speed benefits that make it better than tape-based media.

Grass Valley’s contribution to REV PRO consists of major optimizations for use in a video environment. The greatest enhancement to REV PRO is its multi-segmented cache – a REV PRO disk in a REV PRO drive sustains a 110Mbps transfer rate for a single stream and 55Mbps per stream for two streams. This cache optimization makes editing and recording directly on REV PRO possible. Another enhancement comes in the physical properties of the media – REV PRO disks are certified for use in greater temperature ranges and higher altitudes with greater shock tolerance, all ideal for video recording, editing and distribution environments. Furthermore, to ensure secure data transfer throughout the stages of video production and distribution, REV PRO supports master password security to ensure that assets are safe from unauthorized users while still accessible to administrators and authorized personnel.

While both devices are capable of reading from and writing to REV and REV PRO media, the Infinity Digital Media Recorder acts as a genuine VTR replacement, providing true device control functionality with recording and playback of the same digital video formats used by the Infinity Digital Media Camcorder on REV, REV PRO and Compact Flash media. The Infinity Digital Media Recorder also features an LCD panel for viewing the footage being played or recorded. A standalone REV PRO drive, on the other hand, simply acts as a data storage device that will support the video and data formats of the connected device, for example, an EDIUS or Apple Final Cut Pro workstation.

Tapes take time to capture and the data is not immediately usable in a digital workflow. Furthermore, tape is fragile and susceptible to dust and debris. Hard disk recorders, sometimes called Direct-To-Edit (DTE) devices, while providing direct random access to data, are expensive and risky to transport and cannot be secured with password protection. With REV PRO, video professionals get the best of both worlds plus more.

The added value of a REV PRO drive is that it gives NLE and desktop video users the powerful benefits of durable, removable, off-the-shelf media. The Grass Valley REV PRO solution also offers users other powerful benefits - including efficient file-based exchange and delivery of content, as well as supporting archival needs. In addition, Grass Valley REV PRO drives and disk media also help users better manage and support projects by enabling the storage of key project elements together on a single physical media. For example, in news applications using the Grass Valley NewsEdit system, the REV PRO disk can be used to carry scripts, shot logs, background information and other relevant data along with the video/audio essence. When craft editing with EDIUS, EDL data, project notes, rendered sequences and even the final master - along with the raw essence material - can all be stored on the same REV PRO disk media.

REV PRO is built into Grass Valley’s Infinity and Turbo-R product lines, as well as the NewsEdit and EDIUS turnkey systems based on HP workstation design. However, the scope of REV PRO doesn’t stop there. REV PRO drives are available in ATAPI, SCSI, USB and FireWire versions, which mean that you can connect REV PRO to any modern computer and use it with any video editing, cataloging or production application.

No, REV PRO is a data storage device without rules regarding the types of video, audio or other data it can store. This makes it ideal for video and audio use – you can store entire projects along with their associated assets, scripts, and other source files together. This makes moving a project as simple as moving a REV PRO disk from one system to another.

Each REV PRO disk has a storage capacity of 35GB. Since many of today’s popular video formats employ multiple or variable bitrate codec technology, often there is no fixed limit on how much video can be stored on a REV PRO disk. This means any disk can store over two hours of DV, DVCAM or DVCPRO 25 footage, anywhere between two and six hours of SD MPEG-2 footage, and over two hours of HDV MPEG-2 footage. Other high-definition video formats, such as HD JPEG2000, Canopus HQ and DVCPRO HD can also be stored on REV PRO disks, but are restricted to durations closer to 45 minutes.

In developing REV PRO, Grass Valley took a readily available, proven technology from the IT world and enhanced it to deliver the performance and reliability needed for professional video applications. While it is optimized for video and audio use, you can still use it for storing photos, documents, or general files. Being open also means that you can use REV PRO disks in standard REV drives, and standard REV disks in REV PRO drives. Although the use of a REV PRO disk with a REV PRO drive is necessary for the enhanced caching and security, standard REV and REV PRO disks and drives are compatible at standard REV functionality. If you’re out in the field and run out of storage, you can go to the store and pick up more REV media, or even a REV drive.

In the event that both the User and the Master password are forgotten, the media can be returned to Grass Valley where the Master password will be reset and thus allowing access to the data.