Samsung: Stream if you want to go faster!
Posted on Feb 14, 2025
Nine-camera coverage of a sporting event proved the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield is a fast mover
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You might think few things match the intense pressure of producing a live, multicamera event broadcast streamed online to a pay-per-view audience – complete with graphics and a pundit show from a makeshift studio on location. But for Hereford-based Bubble Production, raised on shooting live TV news, it’s just part of the job.
For their very toughest productions, this relatively small crew not only takes total care of the live stream but also a separate video feed for big screens viewed by the on-site audience, all while recording everything in high resolution for later edits.
“The stream has to go out, there’s no second chance. We come from a TV news background, so it’s a world we’ve all grown up in. It’s part of the adrenaline buzz,” reveals Bubble Production boss Graham Essenhigh.
“We use a powerful, integrated system for our end-to-end workflow, and one of the benefits is that the cameras can save their footage to a PSSD. We have relied on Samsung portable drives for many years, and they have never let us down. It’s one less thing to worry about.”
When given the chance to try the current Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield, the crew jumped at it. The team relies on a range of high-performance cameras, vision mixers and various recording and switching devices to create a seamless workflow. “We use small clamps to safely fasten the portable drives to the sides of the cameras to keep everything secure,” says Essenhigh. And with the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield available in up to 4TB, there’s no worry about running out of space – even on long shoots.
The portable drive is fast and tough enough for the most demanding jobs, featuring an aluminium body which also aids heat dissipation, even when shooting high-bit-rate or Raw footage. It provides high-sustained write performance, enabling the recording of 8K or even 12K video. With read and write speeds of up to 1050MB/s and 1000MB/s respectively – around ten times faster than most external HDDs – there’s no waiting for footage to save from cameras, audio or the mixing desk.
That’s crucial since the Bubble team operates nationwide, producing large multicamera outside broadcasts. Their work includes classical and pop music festivals, gigs and even live TV coverage for the annual Remembrance Day on 11 November, from the Western Front or Whitehall in London for the BBC.
For the team’s test of the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield, they chose the Arenacross World Tour. Starting in Birmingham, then Wembley in London and ending in Abu Dhabi, these events are live off-road motorcycle racing complete with a show including pyros, presenters and commentators.
“Most of our productions deploy between four and six cameras, but this one is more complex with nine, including a pole cam and wireless radio-linked camera,” says Essenhigh.
“It’s all handled by a crew of eight. I’m here in the main production centre with my senior vision tech, who manages the cameras and switching. Behind us, we have an engineer who oversees exposure and colour, making sure all the cameras look the same.
“Out on the ground we’ve got three manned cameras in main positions, four other fixed cameras plus the pole cam and roving cam,” he continues.
The team handles live vision mixing for two different outputs — one for the arena screens and another for the live stream. Apart from the radio camera, all the signals come back to the mixing truck via fibre cable. To get the arena fully cabled up, the camera podiums in position and everything tested, the crew came in at noon on the Thursday – two full days before the Saturday night show. The signal is then broadcast over the internet using a bonded system that combines the venue’s internet with Bubble’s own 4G bonded backup.
It’s a large and complex operation, with extensive equipment transported in the team’s mobile production studio. Everything must perform reliably and not fail under pressure. The rapid and durable Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield fits the bill. With a rubberised cover, it can withstand the occasional bump or drop – even fighting off rain as it’s water and dust resistant, rated to IP65.
“We’ve used it in outdoor shoots, high-humidity environments, even during fast-paced rigging changes, and it’s held up impressively,” Essenhigh concludes.
It’s also compact, a crucial feature when there’s so much kit to be hauled around. Each portable drive weighs just 98g and is 88mm long and 13mm thick. It’s plug-and-play ready for Macs and also comes with drivers for PCs, and the software allows you to apply a custom name and password. The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield also comes pre-installed with Samsung Magician software, which monitors its health for added peace of mind, as well as letting users adjust all settings.
With a long history of making the fastest, highest-performing portable drives that last and deliver great results, the Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield gave all the protection the Bubble crew needed to ensure their fast-paced production remained glitch-free.
Find more information at samsung.com/uk/memory-storage/portable-ssd
This story appears in the February 2025 issue of Definition
