Press Release: DriveSavers: Nearly Died Getting X Games Footage

Two years and 8TB of irreplaceable live HD video footage retrieved by DriveSavers

Las Vegas, NV (NAB 2008—Booth SL8009) – April 14, 2008 – DriveSavers, the worldwide leader in data recovery services, today announced that it successfully recovered two years and 8 terabytes (TB) of priceless HD video content for Mad Media, a San Diego based youth marketing agency. Mad Media stores valuable content including live video clips from major sporting events such as the ESPN Summer X Games and hundreds of hours of editing work on a Sonnet Fusion® D800 RAID 8TB system. The RAID system became damaged due to power surges from the southern California fires and the irreplaceable video content including the X Games video footage became inaccessible. Mad Media turned to the experts in data recovery—DriveSavers—for help.

“It was gut-wrenching! We sweat, bled and nearly died getting some of that footage,” said Joshua Martelli, director of TV & film production at Mad Media. “The scope of work that we execute is at a very advanced and professional level. We couldn’t imagine telling a client their footage is lost. Every project we work on has a deadline and we can’t afford to miss a single day of post production because of equipment failure.” Mad Media specializes in action and motor sports HD production and produces branded advertising and web-based viral film campaigns for sponsor companies such as Red Bull, DC Shoes, Element Skateboards and Subaru of America. Production came to a grinding halt when its system was damaged. The file directory was corrupted which made it impossible for the agency to access its irreplaceable data. Referred by their Sonnet representative, Mad Media called DriveSavers to recover the data.

Within two days, DriveSavers enterprise system engineers rebuilt the file directory and fully recovered all 8TB of Mad Media’s critical data. Proficient in all leading audio and video editing technologies, the engineers were able to test and verify the recovered data, returning it to its original state before the crash. “DriveSavers enabled us to get back to work with our clients the day that we received the recovered drives because the data was in the identical state it was in before the crash. It was as if nothing had ever happened,” commented Martelli.

Martelli continued, “The cost of HD production equipment and storage gear has dropped substantially in the past year. So a growing segment of producers, designers and production groups are now storing multiple terabytes worth of valuable and, in many cases, irreplaceable work. That means we are all tasked with protecting this critical data and ensuring that we have reliable recovery partners because, let’s face it, problems do come up.”

For over 30 years, major film and television companies, global enterprises, financial institutions and government agencies have turned to DriveSavers for data recovery. DriveSavers Digital Arts Division caters to the growing number of artists, graphics, film, and audio professionals who rely on technology to create their work.  With combined expertise, proprietary tools and knowledge of the industry, DriveSavers excels in data recovery for customers working in the digital arts field.

The Digital Arts Division of DriveSavers works closely with hardware and software developers and has proven success in restoring data lost in the most challenging ways. DriveSavers engineers have extensive experience in working with Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, Digidesign ProTools, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Final Draft, Alias Maya, and many others.