Harbor Picture Company extends partnership with Avid

Global full-service post-production house Harbor Picture Company has extended its relationship with Avid to become the first facility in the UK to install Avid’s state-of-the-art shared storage engines – Avid NEXIS | F2 SSD™ – for audio production. 

The installation of a two-media-pack Avid NEXIS | F2 SSD system provides Harbor with a sizeable 76TB of storage, capable of playing back up to 10,000 audio tracks simultaneously via a 100GbE high-speed network connection. Adding the NEXIS to the existing toolset helps Harbor to meet all the demanding production requirements from the five studios of its London facility – including a theatrical Atmos suite, two Atmos Home Entertainment suites and two ADR rooms. 

Harbor is a premium end-to-end post-production studio, specialising in feature films, episodic drama, documentary and advertising. Launched in 2012, it has facilities in London, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Atlanta. In the UK, its recent productions include Eric, True Detective: Night Country, Star Wars: Acolyte, Scoop, Heart of Stone, The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die and Great Expectations. 

Alongside Avid, Harbor has worked on the installation with HHB Communications – Avid’s pro audio channel partner – which has ensured all product specifications are correct for the performance and workflow Harbor wants to achieve.  

Harbor Head of Post Technology Paul Sisley said: “We are thrilled to continue our long-term relationship with Avid and HHB enabling us to continue delivering premium content to our clients with even the most demanding of audio workloads and delivery schedules across geographies depending on our clients’ needs.” 

Avid’s Chief Sales Officer Tom Evetts adds: “With a reputation as one of the industry’s leading post houses, Harbor has been a longstanding customer of Avid since it began in 2012. We’re delighted to continue our relationship, helping to provide Harbor with world-class equipment.”  

Avid NEXIS is the media industry’s most comprehensive and reliable shared storage solution, offering flexible, scalable storage tiering on premises and in the cloud. Optimised and powered by Avid NEXIS | VFS™ (virtual file system) software, the latest release enables audio and video post-production teams to deliver unique, premium content faster with a tightly integrated picture and sound workflow.

This industry-proven and trusted storage platform now significantly improves the collaboration between audio and video creatives providing easy access to audio clips, session files, and video sequences for faster project turnaround. The entire music and sound library is easily accessible to accelerate sound design workflows and capitalize on remixing, reissue and music licensing opportunities. Avid NEXIS safeguards sessions and audio files with reliable disk protection, automatic drive rebuilds and high availability.   

Harbor’s installation of Avid NEXIS | F2 SSD storage engines follows the post house’s investment last year in an Avid dual-operator 48-fader S6 console, two single-operator S6 consoles and an S4 console all running Avid’s audio production software Pro Tools®. 

HHB Communications Chief Technology Officer John Johnson explains: “Adding the NEXIS F2 SSD to the installation, Harbor can work faster and more efficiently than ever before. They can now run the industry-standard DAW – Pro Tools – on more than 15 rigs across five studios, paired with the most versatile control surface range, thanks to the high-speed EUCON™ protocol, all while being able to move projects easily between different studios to suit their clients’ requirements.”