F1: Drive To Survive will be available on Netflix from 19 March.
The Collectv has revealed its work on Netflix Formula One documentary F1: Drive To Survive.
Available on Netflix from 19 March, it is the third season of the Box to Box Films production. Covering the 2020 Grand Prix calendar, it airs just a week before the start of the 2021 season in Bahrain.
For production, Box to Box deploys anywhere between six to nine 4K camera crews at each race, which can generate in turn anywhere between 7TB to 12TB of data between them over the course of the race weekend. With the F1 Broadcast Compound shutting down and packing away shortly after each race due to the demanding schedule, The Collectv has devised systems to handle the throughput in the timeframe required and that adhere strictly to Netflix’s backup criteria.
LTO and near-line storage is used on-site, and one or two types of transport drive, typically G-Technology or Lacie are maintained. Material is transcoded into DNxHD 36 before being sent on drives to The Farm in London for post-production (though as the production schedule ramped up towards the end of the 2020 season this was switched to a direct 10GbE connection).
Taking up two racks in Box to Box’s production area, The Collectv’s system was initially based on rack-mounted Dell 7920 workstations, but has recently been re-engineered around HP Z2s to take advantage of their smaller form factor.
Chris Sarson, managing director and co-owner at The Collectv, said: “Our new equipment means that we can be based at the circuit and we can also be based out of a hotel room if need be, which is an important consideration in this era of biosecure production.
“Also, for the last three races last season we added somebody on via a remote connection. As always, we had a person on the ground who was getting those cards, putting them in the card readers, and copying those onto machines. Then when they went off shift, we could have someone back at base transcoding, copying those files off the drives ready to be delivered to The Farm for post. It’s a big saving both in production costs and in efficiencies and is something we’re looking to do more in the future.”
The Collectv has a long association with Formula One, having also been involved with Sky Sports and Whisper for Channel 4’s content sicne 2012.
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