MatrixStore » Events

Post WIG2010 Post

NPT — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:14:58 +0000

An excellent day in Cardiff last week for the inaugural Workflow Innovation Group session with an impressive 90% turnout for an event held outside the M25. The main feedback was that the event should be expanded to use the whole day allowing people to spend time with the technology (video of the tech room here for those who missed it!) as well as absorbed in the discussion sessions. The Mediasmiths team will post more content about the event in the next few weeks but I wanted to mention the main themes that were discussed:

- Preserving and managing rushes and work-in-progress in tapeless environments

- Tracking and exploiting metadata through workflows, including multi-site, multi-vendor workflows

- Cost effective production and media asset management in multi-vendor (Avid, Apple, Adobe, Autodesk to name just the “A”s) environments

- Multi-platform production/project management

Click below to see a time lapse video from the tech room:

The View from OM

This event was the first of many and the feedback was very encouraging in that our community consisting of technologists and creative professionals is ready and willing to collaborate to produce solutions that work.

Thanks to the Mediasmiths (Steve in particular) for running the event and to the other tech companies who took time out to share their thoughts and skills. (Gridiron Software, Vidispine, MXFServer, First Person and the BBC Ingex team)

(Music in video: Chepstow Male Voice Choir)

Meet Object Matrix in June

NPT — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:32:27 +0000

As the storage requirements for tapeless workflows intensify and organisations continue to look for processes, workflows and solutions to solve this particular problem Object Matrix has been asked to participate in the following events this month:

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.

WIG2010 (Workflow Innovation Group)

NPT — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:53:51 +0000

Our friends at the Mediasmiths are hosting a workflow technology event in Cardiff on the 29th June that brings together four companies that offer solutions (in isolation and in perfect harmony) that can help organisations facing workflows that put increased pressure on both their personnel and IT infrastructure. The first WIG event (Workflow Innovation Group) will focus on securing, managing and tracking assets throughout a tapeless workflow and will comprise of:

Object Matrix showing The MatrixStore archive in a number of workflows (Final Cut Server, Avid, Pre-Production, Nearline, Backup etc)
Vidispine showing its new Media Asset Management platform
Gridrion Software showing Flow
ERA will be demonstrating MXFServer from Film Partners.

The View from OM

We are looking forward to getting together with the likes of Simon, Eric, Isak, Sean and the Mediasmiths. The technologies are totally complimentary and offer the ability to automate end-to-end workflows with repeatable results. The blog from Steve is here and the invite to the event is here.

Object Matrix at NAB 2010

NPT — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:57:33 +0000

Object Matrix will be attending NAB next week for a few days to walk the halls and meet with our US partners. Drop us a line if you would like to hook up to talk about MatrixStore for:

Secure, Searchable Rushes/Dailies Ingest and Protection (Panasonic P2 etc)
Nearline or parking space for AVID or Final Cut workflows
Local Library, keeping assets alive to be re-purposed/re-used

The View from OM

NAB is always an experience and shows how niche storage vendors can dominate in a space not yet penetrated by the big tin companies (thought they all claim to be there). Please do get in touch if you would like to have a chat with Mark or myself.

What’s the Buzz at BVE 2010

NPT — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:48:34 +0000

During BVE last week I spent time chatting with Larry Jordan for the ‘The Digital Production Buzz’ podcast talking about:

The two maxims .. now three…
Highly secure protection of file-based rushes/dailies
MatrixStore as nearline or parking space
Keeping legacy assets online in order to re-use or re-purpose

We also touched on the integrations with CatDV/Final Cut Server and disk based archiving in general.

Click on the image to to to the website:

Larry is an internationally-renowned consultant and Apple-Certified trainer in digital media with over 25 years experience as a television producer, director and editor with national broadcast and corporate credits. Based on Los Angeles, he’s a member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America. Jordan is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Edit Well, the rich-media newsletter for Final Cut Studio, published by Peachpit Press. He is the author of hundreds of hours of online training, published by Lynda.com and two books on Final Cut Pro, published by Peachpit Press. Visit his website at www.larryjordan.biz.

The View From OM

I would like to thank Larry for once again giving us the opportunity to talk about MatrixStore and it position in video workflow. I will post about other nice stuff at BVE in another post.

The MatrixStore at BVE 2010

NPT — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:28:15 +0000

We will be showcasing The MatrixStore, in tapeless/file based workflows in its first appearance at BVE.

The OM team will demonstrate how The MatrixStore can protect content from ingest to archive:

- Guaranteed ingest with metadata harvesting (Panasonic P2)

- Secure Ingest Vaults (Lock down from accidental deletion)

- Production/Project parking to a Nearline Vault in AVID and Final Cut Workflows (one click operation)

- Archiving Legacy assets to an online Library Vault using DropSpot, Final Cut Server and CatDV

Implementing a tapeless or file based workflow has been highlighted as one of the top challenges facing creative organisations in 2010. With no tape to put on the shelf broadcasters, post-production facilities and creative agencies are looking for a solution to keep their assets secure and more importantly available throughout the production process. A single MatrixStore cluster acts as pre-production, nearline or local archive allowing content to move seamlessly through any digital workflow from ingest to delivery.

The View From OM

We are very much looking forward to the show so come along and see us on stand C10!

The MatrixStore at IBC

NPT — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:59:36 +0000

Jon and I are at IBC this weekend so come along and say hello. We will be on stand with Video Rescue (one of our reseller partners) ready to chat from 11AM today (Friday 11th September). So come along if you have an interest in discussing:

File based/Tapeless workflows (P2, Sony, JVC)
Automated Digital Asset Management (Final Cut Server, CatDV etc)
Digital Preservation
Disk based archiving
Pre & post production archiving
Rugby (Nick)
Fooseball (Jon)

So pop over and say hello : Video Rescue Stand (6.C28d)

Cheers

A4: Tapeless Workflow Seminar (Cardiff)

Jon — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:29:51 +0000

Object Matrix will shortly be helping to host a seminar and panel discussion on digital file based/tapeless workflows in the media and Creatives industries. The event will be hosted in Cardiff, and will be in a similar format to the preceding events held in London and Manchester.

The seminar looks at the full digital production workflow, taking in: Acquisition, Assets, Archiving and going out to Air, aka .. A4 and is held in conjunction with Skill Set, Panasonic, Apple and Bectu.

Attendance is by invitation only and numbers are strictly limited, but please feel free to contact us if you feel the seminar would be appropriate to your organisation.

A4: Tapeless Workflow Seminar (Manchester)

NPT — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:30:16 +0000

The second on the series of file based/tapeless workflow seminars, this time in Manchester. Object Matrix will be featuring in the seminar on digital production workflows taking in Acquisition, Assets, Archiving and going out to Air aka .. A4.

A4 Invite

The theme of the event is again based the emergence of file based content and moving towards tapeless, commoditised workflows.

The View from OM

The next event is expected to be in Cardiff :

A4 – Cardiff

30 April 2009

The Sandringham Hotel

21 St Mary Street

Cardiff, CF10 1PL

Broadcast Video Expo Review

NPT — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:39:57 +0000

Broadcast Video Expo 09 is a few weeks behind us now so I thought I would try to pickout the highlights of the event for OM:

Turn Out

Better than I/we had expected. Quiet in the mornings as expected and also a good smattering of students/obligatory random people but in general impressed by the numbers of quality/relevant people hitting the two stands we stood on (thanks NMR and Video Rescue).

Topics

Archive. Convenient I know but true. We had dozens of conversations based on people really struggling with the “IT” side of their creative flow. Creative pros from one person outfits, to small audio shops through to the big broadcasters are all coming to terms with the fact that they need to do something with all the content they are creating. Even in these uncertain times content is being created more than ever which is driving organisations to look at more cost effective alternatives. Tape is just not appropriate for many so they are looking to disk for the answers. With disk sizes and efficiency increasing this trend is set to continue.

Unexpected

OK, maybe I should have known but a tonne of organisations are moving creative in house that once would have been contracted out. In doing so they are looking for the best edit and asset management workflow to fit a reasonably small budget which leads them nicely down the Final Cut Pro and Server path. We are talking about big name banks, utility companies, charities, hospitals etc all with 10 to 40 FCP seats, a growing XSAN and now moving towards FCS.

The potential for FCP/FCS is much bigger than we anticipated now that take up is being witnessed outside the traditional creative spheres.

Potential Partners

Met with some great companies with great tech, here are a few:

Company : Gridiron

Product : Flow

Description : Flow is a very powerful visual workflow manager, it gives you a total understanding of your project, visually and intuitively. In one simple interface, you’ll see all your project files, how they’re related to each other, and where they’re located—on a local drive, on a network volume, and hopefully soon on a MatrixStore cluster.

Company : Square Box

Product : CatDV

Description : Digital Asset Management suite that provides workflow to mixed environments (Avid and FCP). The first app I am aware of that can service both in the same workflow.

Company : Active Storage

Product : XRAID

Description : Ok, we knew the guys from Active when they were at Apple and we both have the same disty. Their kit is shiney and new and the interface experience is very very nice. We expect to see customers using their tin deployed in the SAN very soon.

Cool Tech

Apart from the tech mentioned above we also stumbled upon some other very interesting and relevant kit:

3D Television – OK apologies for not having the names of the companies or the tech here but I was totally blown away by the 3D TV experience. the depth of field when watching sports events was just .. cool. I want one. Also this tech will for sure push the bounds of storage capacities for anyone aiming to produce content for this market.

File Transfer Speeds

Signiant have some very impressive performance figures for pumping large files over long distance wires. Maybe an opportunity to work with this in the future.

The View from OM

Content is being created. Lots of it in fact and increasingly captured on disk in HD format. This drives the need for cost effective, management free clustered storage that can allow organisations to realise the value in that content. A game we play very well.

Thanks to NMR and Video Rescue for showing off our tin and getting the message just right. It was very nice to meet up with Mr Wiggins at long last and also many thanks to Mark at Hogarth Worldwide for showcasing our tech during his presentation on the Apple stand (very much appreciated).

Oh and I must buy some “conference shoes”