DUBLIN, December 2nd, 2010: Tyrell CCT, a leading supplier of digital media solutions in Ireland and the UK, today announced that the company has provided broadcaster UTV Television with an intelligent archiving solution, consisting of Marquis’ Parking archive and retrieval software and a three node MatrixStore cluster from Object Matrix. Powered by Marquis Broadcast’s Media Highway Technology, the new solution takes advantage of Parking’s easy to use edit sequence archive and restore functionality and MatrixStore’s secure, cost efficient near-line storage array enabling UTV to move forward rapidly with their transition to tapeless technology.

UTV needed fast, un-hindered access to their digital news packages whilst also requiring a large volume of archive material to be available at their fingertips. They wanted to avoid adding more capacity to their production storage network and consulted with Tyrell CCT to identify an archive solution that required minimal management, could scale quickly and be available across their entire Avid news production systems. The integrated Marquis and Object Matrix solution allows UTV to move entire sequences, including edit decisions, subclips and metadata, from dedicated Avid ISIS storage to the MatrixStore environment in a simple one-click process. No specialist knowledge of storage or archive management systems is required. At any time in the future, sequences, together with all metadata including media and edit decisions, can be retrieved and dropped directly into the editing system.

The solution greatly improves workflow efficiency and resource management for UTV as valuable online edit storage is freed up. The process of archiving is fast and easy as Parking wraps the sequence elements and metadata into a standard TAR file as they are transferred to MatrixStore. Similarly, the process of file restore is also fast and efficient as Parking eliminates the need to re-ingest and conform media before editing can begin. The MatrixStore provides a self-managing nearline archive that compliments UTV’s online Avid workflows and manages the availability, protection and longevity of their digital content. This node based clustered storage array will initially provide UTV with 33 TB of nearline storage and combined with the unique object based architecture of MatrixStore, it provides an incredibly secure environment to build UTV’s digital archive.

“We see this as a perfect example of the synergies and cost efficiencies that can be achieved by combining key technologies,” commented Stuart Lawn, Technical Director, Tyrell CCT. “The joint Marquis and Object Matrix solution presents broadcasters and post facilities with a greatly simplified and flexible approach to the management of the ever increasing volume of digital content.”

“The combination of Object Matrix and Marquis gives UTV a robust and flexible solution that is easily scalable and allows us to accommodate and manage our rapidly growing digital news archive,” commented Sean Ferrin, Head of Operations, UTV Television. “The solution brings significant cost savings and efficiencies, freeing up valuable resources and greatly reducing the requirement for large quantities of tapes and associated physical storage. Content can now be moved with minimum effort and it is instantly searchable, easily retrievable and totally secure.”
About UTV

UTV Television is part of UTV Media plc and is the Channel 3 licence holder for Northern Ireland. UTV is the most watched channel in Northern Ireland and its award-winning team produce the UK’s most watched local news programme, UTV Live. UTV Television recently celebrated its 50th birthday and launched the first High Definition service on the island of Ireland.

About Tyrell CCT
Tyrell CCT is the leading creative technology solutions provider for the broadcast, post production, education and corporate sectors in the UK and Ireland. Established in 2000, the company provides complete digital media solutions for the creation, manipulation, management and delivery of digital content. Tyrell CCT represents leading global suppliers of video, audio, storage and media streaming solutions and also provides consultancy, system integration and technical support services. For more information, visit Tyrell CCT at http://www.tyrell.ie

About Marquis Broadcast
Founded in 1998, Marquis Broadcast provides a range of media integration products designed for the data-intensive and challenging requirements of today’s fast-paced broadcasting environments, enabling broadcasters and other users of digital media to achieve maximum efficiencies from their workflow processes. The company has considerable experience in integrating an extensive range of broadcast systems and devices, providing easy to use workflows via Medway, Marquis’ widely installed interoperability engine. http://www.marquisbroadcast.com

Cardiff, UK, 10th November 2010 – Object Matrix, a developer of secure archive and retrieval software, has supplied Porth based post production facility Avanti Media with its pre-production and nearline archive solution, The MatrixStore. The multi-purpose data management solution provides an audited, secure archive for the Panasonic P2 rushes that enter the facility and also a safe place to keep finished AVID projects online.

Avanti Media use The MatrixStore to manage the many terabytes of content that they work on every week, it looks after the location, authenticity and availability of the content so that the editorial staff can get on with more relevant tasks. The solution consists of a three node MatrixStore cluster, Dropspot and MxFS client applications from Object Matrix.

Rhys Bevan, Operations Director, “Due to the nature of the business we need to support the production effort both in-house and off-site. It is therefore crucial that any technology that we bring into the facility both adds value to our process and does not hinder our ability to work. In that respect MatrixStore so far has fitted perfectly into our workflow.”

Located at the historic Corona pop factory in Porth, Avanti is Wales’ premiere entertainment producers. Credits include Jonathan, which is filmed onsite, Wakestock and an impressive mix of live events, documentaries and weekly shows for clients such as S4C, BBC, ITV & Sky including the recent Welcome To Wales – Ryder Cup concert from the Millennium Stadium.

“The MatrixStore is an essential bit of kit for us given the current workload and the cost of our online storage. The local support we have received from Object Matrix has also given us the comfort factor that we know they will be on hand should we need them for anything.” added Rhys.

The MatrixStore vault functionality allows the team at Avanti to manage client content in their own distinct areas whilst using the same physical platform. it also allows them to protect rushes in a secure area where it cannot be deleted either accidentally or maliciously.

“Like to many of our clients the team at Avanti are coming to terms with content coming into the facility on tapeless media which have until now been clogging up there AVID Unity. With shooting ratios sometimes in the range or 60-1 keeping all that raw footage on the Unity is neither cost effective nor practical. Avanti also need a place to keep content at their fingertips so editors can quickly find content from the current series of a long running show which is why The MatrixStore is such a good fit for them” added Nick Pearce, co-founder of Object Matrix.

About Avanti
AVANTI’s Post Production is all done in-house at The Pop Factory, Porth. The department consists of 4 HD Avid Adrenaline suites and a Pro-Tools based Dubbing and Voiceover studio, each housed in individual, spacious rooms with plenty of natural light. With each room overlooking views of the Rhondda hillside, there is no better place to edit the wide range of programmes that we produce here at AVANTI.
The Pop Factory also houses three large recording studios as well as the loft and the tower which offer a more intimate recoding space.
www.avantimedia.tv

Cyfle/S4C/Boomerang/Mwnci

File Based Production Seminar

• Cardiff (November 10th) (Who: Nick Pearce & Mark Andrews)
• Caernarfon (November 24th) (Who: Mark Andrews)

Tyrell From File to Workflow Event

Join us at Tyrell CCT’s Integrated Workflow event where we will be showcasing MatrixStore along with the latest solutions from Avid, MOG Technologies, Aspera and Marquis.

Date: November 18th, 2010

Time: Afternoon Session (1-4pm) / Evening Session (5-7pm)

Locations:
Dublin:
Fitzwilliam Suite
Fitzwilliam Hotel
2 St. Stephen’s Green
Dublin 2

London:
Soho Theatre Bar
21 Dean Street
London
W1D 3NE

NMR – Tools On AIR

Date: Thursday 25th November, 2010

Time: 6.00pm

Venue:

1 Hanover Street
London
W1S 1YZ

Register here: http://www.nmr.com/events/index.html

The View From OM

Mark and I are  in London most weeks so give us a call if you want to have a meeting or chat about storage and archiving.

While many media companies wonder how they are going to migrate their large tape archives based on Beta, VHS and early LTO iterations, the MatrixStore allows organisations not to be locked into a specific hardware vendor or hardware technology. This allows them to take advantage of evolving and more cost effective technologies as they become available. It prevents them having to go through the pain of a costly migration exercise especially when the hardware to read old media has often become very hard to support.

As well as hardware, applications also come and go and that includes asset management systems for searching and easily finding assets.  Any platform that can be searchable independently of the original application that wrote it ensures that the archive can be carried through application and operating system obsolescence.

As the custodian of the company’s archive, the MatrixStore offers the following digital preservation functionality:-

• It can utilise evolving and innovative hardware from different vendors over time . These can be mixed and matched and virtualised as one storage pool.
• Open interfaces to read and write content with no change or modification to the stored content.
• As with any archive strategy, an exit strategy needs to be considered from the start if the product is discontinued – the open nature of The MatrixStore mitigates that risk.
• A system that fully authenticates files at ingest and continues to ensure authentication over the over the life of the asset.
• As Robin Harris describes in his blog, a system that can automatically migrate in-place to new storage nodes automatically, or as a single click, with no downtime or loss of availability of data, is required for systems to scale.
• A system that when hardware dies unexpectedly, no data is lost. This can be used to “sweat” more life out of older assets without risk of losing files.
• Full storage management functionality that can be implemented by non IT people. This includes adding retention periods to assets allowing the administrator to know when it’s safe to delete assets or conversely to prevent accidental or malicious deletion.
• A system that can be fully replicated to a second site for business continuity or disaster recovery reasons.

The point of a digital preservation system is keep data safe and available. When comparing different solutions one needs to ensure that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of any archive system does not result in a very expensive data migration requirement further down the line with a potential loss of assets. This can be very true of tape based systems.

The functionality stated for MatrixStore as a preservation platform is in addition and complimentary to its other core features.  These features include being a performant, secure, easy to use, searchable, cost effective and fully supported nearline and archiving platform.

Caerphilly, Manchester, UK, 30th September 2010 – Object Matrix, a developer of rushes and nearline archive software, has been chosen by Manchester based post production facility Sumners for its pre- production archive solution, The MatrixStore. The low touch data management solution provides an audited, secure archive for the increasing volume of file based projects that enter the Sumners facility on a daily basis.

Consisting of a three node MatrixStore cluster the solution perfectly compliments the incumbent AVID workflows, allowing content to be available to editors whenever they require it without putting unnecessary strain on the editing and production storage platforms.

Brian Hardman, Technical Director at Sumners stated, “Fundamentally what we want, as do many other post houses in our market, is robust technology that has relatively low entry level cost, but that is inherently and easily scalable. The MatrixStore architecture provides the scalability we require and also it’s flexible data protection approach allows for project based data protection schemes to be set up.”

Located in the center of Manchester Sumners has a strong reputation for providing a creative, professional and reliable environment in which their clients can work. Programmes post produced at the facility include Waterloo Road, The Royle Family and Childrenʼs Hospital.

“Most of the other options we looked at did not meet our criteria by cost, scalability, architecture, metadata handling or suitable architecture for post.” added Brian.

The MatrixStore vault functionality allows Brian and the team to manage client content in their own distinct areas whilst using the same physical platform. It also allows them to protect rushes in a secure area where they cannot be deleted either accidentally or maliciously.

“Brian and the team at Sumners have been at the forefront of the AVID post community pushing products to find their limitations and subsequently innovating workflows to ensure their clients have the best environment possible. We are very pleased to be working closely with Sumners to further refine how MatrixStore solves a crucial part of the file based workflow, namely ensuring rushes are available, authentic and protected. ” stated Nick Pearce, co-founder of Object Matrix.

Sumners ordered the MatrixStore through UK reseller Root6 who also provide consultative and support services to the leading Manchester facility.

ʻIt was great working with Brian in resolving issues in their workflow which not only complimented their existing workflows but also enabled future expansion. MatrixStore fitted the storage and workflow requirements perfectly whilst balancing their business modelʼ stated Mark Jackson, Sales Director

The View From OM

We are very excited to be working with a facility with a strong reputation for innovation and quality delivery. Working  with Brian, Roger and the team we aim to further improve our integration with AVID tapeless workflows.

The Need
Dinamo require fast, un-hindered access to their digital assets whilst also requiring a large volume of content to be available at their fingertips. They wanted to avoid adding more capacity to their more expensive rendering and compositing storage and started to look for a archive solution that did not require any management, could scale and be available centrally on the network.
The issues they faced included:

• Finding content on the many separate RAID silos acquired over time.

• Managing the protection and location of terabytes of content.

• Procurement and administration of 3rd party storage management tools.

• Locating and loading clips from previous work when new series are commissioned.

• Moving content to and from tape was laborious and error prone.

The Solution

After working with different technologies and managing the many silos of content Dinamo selected Object Matrix’s secure and scalable MatrixStore solution to act as a nearline repository for all content that they require to be available on demand.

Out of the box The MatrixStore provided: • Centralised Vaults providing instant access to all assets. • A scalable solution that requires little or no management. • Capability to add and search on Metadata • Data Lock Down to stop accident deletes • High availability of data and automatic failover in the case of a hardware failure • Ability to add in future storage as and when they become available

MatrixStore allows Dinamo to pull content up when they need it, where they need it. They no longer have to go hunting around for clips from previous episodes, it is now available with a simple search operation.

The Process

1. The AVID media held on the SAN is moved to MatrixStore using DropSpot with rudimentary metadata added.

2. Historical episodes of programmes are also copied to a MatrixStore vault.

3. When content is required to be restored the editors use either DropSpot or MXFS (File System Interface) to pull content from MatrixStore on demand.

Comment

Aron Evans, MD of Dinamo Productions stated, “The team at Object Matrix clearly understand the technical and operational challenges faced by production facilities up and down the country, namely ‘doing more with less’. With the MatrixStore solution hitting an economic sweet spot and the team having the domain expertise we have the happy situation were we are doing more for less. The fact that we have local support is also a huge bonus”.

“Asset management and storage are constant issues in digital content creation. Every Animation and VFX project we work on need archiving to stable, accessible and expandable storage , this is where MatrixStore comes in” Ben Cawthorne, Head of R&D, Dinamo Productions

Case Study PDF

Get the full Dinamo MatrixStore Nearline Case Study.

The view from OM

It is great to work with local companies, especially ones who look to work with us to improve workflows and encourage innovation. We look forward to developing more solutions and workflows with Aron, Ben, Hywel and the team..

But moving data from digital media, PCs or SANs to secure data storage doesn’t need to be a time consuming, error prone nor a complex operation.

DropSpot (product data sheet pdf) is a simple yet surprisingly powerful asset manager application that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows and that allows you to quickly copy data between your digital devices and your MatrixStore archive as well as to handle, add to and search on metadata.

The DropSpot User Interface

DropSpot understands the digital media devices that it is reading from and optimises (e.g., through “multithreading”) its configuration appropriately to yield faster performance results. DropSpot then transfers the data using the most appropriate data transfer protocols, designed for internal, high latency  (e.g., internet) or secure channel based communication. Therefore, as well as a data movement tool, it is excellent when used as an ingest tool to move data into a MatrixStore archive, such as in this customer’s P2 and Avid workflow:

Workflow showing DropSpot used to ingest data

There’s no point keeping data safe unless you can find it and DropSpot can extract metadata from files to allow for instantaneous searching back of the data stored. It has a powerful facility to understand digital media formats such as P2 and is completely configurable to allow the administrator to enforce extra metadata (such as production names), which can then be requested to be added when users drop data. Below is an example screen that can be configured to pop up whenever someone drops data into the MatrixStore archive. From DropSpot v2.4 this is completely configurable and it can be modified to capture as much or as little data as you want to:

Furthermore, DropSpot provides job control, so that jobs to copy data can be later reviewed and if necessary, verified or restarted (optionally, from the point where the job stopped, avoiding the need to copy all the data again):

Jobs can be verified or re-run (from the point of failure) if for any reason there was an interruption to the data copying service

The view from Object Matrix

DropSpot is not trying to be a full blown DAM (such as Final Cut Server, Blue Order, CatDV etc), and it is not designed to replace the need for those types of applications in larger organisations. However, DropSpot provides secure, reliable data transmission via a simple to use yet surprisingly powerful interface. It provides lightweight asset management and strong metadata entry and search facilities. Furthermore, it’s free to install it on as many client machines connecting to MatrixStore as you’d like to.

DropSpot high-level features:

• One click archiving
• Simple search, find your data instantly
• Basic DAM/MAM functionality
• Reduces management overheads and processes
• Intuitive user interface. Easy to use without special training
• Linux, Mac and Windows versions
• Works as a GUI or from command line interfaces
• Options to review, verify or to re-run jobs
• Understands digital media such as Panasonic P2
• Automated metadata extraction
• Allows extra metadata to be entered by the operator to identify the data being stored
• Completely free to use on any number of client machines with a MatrixStore archive

We will be on stand with our partners MOG Solutions (Hall7 G39) from Friday to Tuesday showing various tapeless workflows and will also be taking part in various Apple reseller and partner events at their Amsterdam EBC. So, if you would like to learn more about any of the following please do drop us a line or come along to see us:

- File Based Ingest Workflows (manage and protect P2, EX3, XDCAM rushes using DropSpot, MXFS and also mxfSPEEDRAIL from MOG Solutions)

- Nearline Archiving (take the load off your ISIS or XSAN, put content somewhere more appropriate)

- Deep Archive (Keep your content alive and available for re-purposing or distribution. Use DropSpot, Final Cut Server or Vidispine to protect, find and use your content on-demand)

The View From OM

Three times a year the body and soul of Object Matrix toddles off to various locations across the globe, standing around for hours, miles of walking and yards of imbibing, all in the name of business. Is it worth it? We think so.

Caerphilly, UK and Stockholm Sweden, 26th August 2010: Object Matrix, a leading developer of scalable archive systems and Vidispine, innovators in media asset management software, have announced a joint technology partnership. The two companies have collaborated to provide an integrated solution between the Vidispine Media Asset Management technology and Object Matrix’s intelligent disk-based archive system, MatrixStore.

Object-Matrix and Vidispine’s sophisticated integration is particularly appealing to the media and creative industries. The organisations in these industries are facing complex workflows that have to manage process and deliver many hundreds of terabytes of digital content. Challenges include moving content across multiple disparate platforms and delivering content in a multitude of formats. Managing where content is and ensuring it is both protected and authentic has proven a very expensive problem to solve. The integration of Vidispine and MatrixStore goes a long way to solving many of those problems, allowing staff within those organisations to concentrate on core tasks that generate value for the business and not waste cycles managing data. The solution set also allows content to be accessed and used by RESTful (Web APIs) so that customers can instantly adapt to new workflows, production environments and distribution channels using tools that fully support open standards.

Next generation software will only be successful by being part of an eco-system of proven solution sets that support open standards and ease of use for day-to-day productivity and reliability. The collaboration between Vidispine and Object Matrix is a combination of best of breed products for a smarter and more competitive solution.

“We believe in software commoditisation and the innovation power it can unleash. The software developers in our fast growing eco-system need a robust, scalable and well designed architecture. With that, they can create the best software for rich media workflows, applications and services. We found that Object Matrix share this vision and it was a simple decision to partner with them” Erik Åhlin, CEO, Vidispine

The MatrixStore provides a very secure, scalable archive solution that protects the asset and its associated metadata for as long as an organisation needs access to that content. The integration with Vidispine ensures that organisations have a very elegant solution for putting data where they need it when they need it with very little management effort and utilising very economical non-proprietary platforms.

“No technology is an island when dealing with complex creative workflows. The benefits of MatrixStore technology are fully realised when integrated with 3rd party applications such as Vidispine that ensure customers get the workflow they need and not one that is dictated to them. Object Matrix and Vidispine have both brought disruptive technologies to market, we share similar values with regard to providing open, commodity platforms that scale in an economic fashionand have the domain experience required to help customers where they need help”. Nick Pearce, co-founder, Object Matrix.

Availability

The integrated Vidispine/MatrixStore solution is available now direct from Vidispine, Object Matrix and their worldwide network of business partners.

The View from OM

We are very happy to be working with the Vidispine team, Erik and Isak bring a wealth of knowledge and skills that compliment not only those at Object Matrix but also to the group of  other companies (WIG) bringing passionate technical innovation to the creative industries.

Adobe/Trams

Digital Workflow Event (15th June) www.trams.co.uk (London)

Who: Nick Pearce & Mark Andrews

Cyfle/S4C/Boomerang/Mwnci

File Based Production Seminar

• Caernarfon (June 22nd) (Who: Mark Andrews)
• Cardiff (June 24th) (Who: Nick Pearce & Mark Andrews)

EBU Technical Seminar – “Networked Content Exchange”

Geneva 22nd/23rd Jun

Who: Nick Pearce

WIG2010

Workflow Innovation Group. Cardiff 29th June.

Who: Jon Morgan, Nick Pearce, Mark Andrews

Feel free to sign up where appropriate and come chat!

The View From OM

June looks busy for both events, sales and technical progress. Exciting times.