Bernardo Almeida

Introduction

Bernardo Almeida is one of the most popular Portuguese YouTubers in the technology area. Always aiming to offer added value to his subscribers and stay ahead of his peers, Bernardo was also one of the first to create a workflow totally in 4K video – at a time when an overwhelming majority of the content creators on the platform were using 1080p resolution, four times lower.

Fulfillment

From the YouTuber point of view, 4K video sets challenges that go far beyond acquiring a camera that can record at UHD resolution. Setting up a 4K workflow also requires another type of equipment – from hardware and editing software to storage.

4K resolution also means that, in practice, the files will be four times larger and require at least four times more disk space. Bernardo Almeida was already using QNAP NAS for storage, but moving to a 4K workflow brought new challenges in terms of available power and storage capacity.

Solution

The Portuguese YouTuber opted for a QNAP TVS-672XT, a NAS with various functionalities and features that make it especially useful for integration in a 4K video production flow. The NAS was then equipped with six 18 TB disks configured in RAID 5, making 90TB available in total.

This model, based on an 8th generation 4-core Intel Core processor, offers Thunderbolt 3 connectivity – ideal for direct integration with the iMac Pros used in the editing work flow for 4K videos. A 10Gb network port also enables ultra-fast network connection and transfers.

PCIe cards, such as entry-level graphics cards, can be installed in the NAS to add potential functionality, while M.2 SSDs and up to 32GB RAM are also supported. With the TVS-672XT it is also possible to reproduce files directly in 4K and carry out video transcoding in real time; which along with the processing capabilities means it can be used to display creative work directly on an HDMI 2.0 display.

Benefits

Bernardo Almeida, who has opened a new studio in Lisbon to support his channel, says that the QNAP TVS-672XT NAS “is an essential piece to support my work and in the context of taking the channel to the next level”.

The Thunderbolt 3 connection allows the NAS to be connected directly to the video editing work station and to the 10 GbE network, and at the same time it offers enormous potential in terms of data storage capacity.

“Creating videos in a totally 4K workflow goes far beyond the need to back up the files that our subscribers and people who follow the channel receive every week”, he explains. “If you download a 10-minute 4K video from my channel, the resulting file is around 500 MB - that's a lot, but it's not an extremely high amount. However, this YouTube file is compressed after it's uploaded! Not only is the file sent to the Google servers much larger, it also needs dozens of minutes of 4K video to create the end result that's only 10 minutes long.”

“This is why it's important to have a system that guarantees secure storage of all videos – and respective files – produced; and this is what the 90TB available on the TVS-672XT guarantees me. The availability of mobile apps for the QNAP that allow easy access to all stored content is also a very useful advantage”, concluded Bernardo Almeida.