Movie Video Storage by the Numbers

By Chris Preimesberger

25 million: The number of CPU hours it took to make DreamWorks’ latest computer graphics film, “Kung Fu Panda,” which debuted June 6. “Kung Fu Panda” was created in a three-dimensional-like style and took about three years to make. That compares to about 5 million CPU hours and four years to make the original “Shrek” (2001), which was the last of the 8-terabyte movies. CG movies now commonly take more than 40TB of storage.

Approximately 10,000: The number of processor cores in the DreamWorks data center at the moment. DreamWorks Senior Technologist Skottie Miller said that, in 1999, when he arrived at the company, “we had a total of 140 cores, and now we have more than 10,000 of them-

129,600: The number of video frames in one 90-minute movie. Most scenes are 5 minutes or less in length. But there’s much more artwork created that goes into the process before it’s finally cut down and melded together into a cohesive movie. Basically, DreamWorks artists do file-based supercomputing every day.

500: At both Industrial Light & Magic and at DreamWorks, this is the number of full- and part-time artists who pour out a terabyte or more of raw video each week. This data will eventually be edited into video entertainment for one medium or another. It all has to be saved somewhere-

90: The average number of days in between each new storage hardware purchase by most CG companies.

25MB: Approximate amount of digital space that 1 second of high-definition video consumes.

96 hours: Approximate amount of digital video that fills 1TB of storage.

50 to 60 percent per year: Rate at which data is accumulating for storage in the video business-

$20 billion: Estimated size of worldwide external disk storage market in 2006, according to IDC.

$65 billion: Estimated size of worldwide external disk storage market in 2010, according to IDC. This market is expected to triple its size in a mere four years.