- 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)

Marquis Broadcast, specialist in content workflows and media integration software, and Object Matrix, a leading developer of media archive systems, have announced a joint technology partnership. The two companies are providing a new cost-effective solution for broadcast and post-production workflows, using Marquis’ Parking archive and retrieval software and Object Matrix’ MatrixStore near-line archive system. Powered by Marquis Broadcast’s Media Highway Technology, the new development takes advantage of Parking’s easy to use edit sequence archive and restore functionality and MatrixStore’s secure, cost efficient near-line storage.

Users are able to move entire sequences, including edit decisions, subclips and metadata, from dedicated Avid or Final Cut Pro 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 essence and edit decisions, can be retrieved and dropped directly into the editing system.

The joint development offers a number of significant benefits to broadcasters and post-production companies, for example, workflow efficiency and resource management are improved 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. Furthermore, by providing easy access to media, the Parking/MatrixStore system provides customers with a very productive and flexible working environment. This means that more time is made available for the creative processes and therefore the final product is often of a higher quality.

“We are delighted to be working with Object Matrix,” said Granby Patrick, Technology Director, Marquis Broadcast. “Customers are always looking for ways to improve the cost efficiency of their broadcast and creative workflows while maintaining a flexible approach to resource management. We believe that the Parking/MatrixStore solution will improve workflow efficiency by simplifying the storage and retrieval of content, giving users the ability to respond to their customers’ requirement quickly and easily.”

Full press release here..

The View from OM

As I mention in the press release we are delighted to be working with the team at Marquis. The ‘ecosystem’ around MatrixStore is expanding allowing customers to ensure their content is protected from ingest to archive using existing systems in their workflows.

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.

Boosting productivity and simplifying the protection of digital assets for broadcast and creative workflows

Munich, Germany & Caerphilly, UK 25th May 2010 – Backup, archive and storage vendors Archiware and Object-Matrix today announced a cross-product support partnership between the company’s successful PresSTORE Backup and MatrixStore solutions. The joint implementation of PresSTORE and MatrixStore enables an extremely secure yet simple route to managing on/off-site repositories for all digital assets in a Mac- based workflow and is proven to address the challenge of efficiently backing up 100TB of data to an offsite location.

Archiware and Object-Matrix’s sophisticated Mac-based backup solution is particularly appealing to the video production, media and creative industries. These creative businesses rarely have an in-house IT team/person, so a non-specialist is usually left to struggle with effectively managing and storing the vast terabytes of data coming into their organisation. PresSTORE Backup and MatrixStore help to facilitate one multiple tenancy platform for archive, ingest and backup that users don’t have to worry about, allowing them to focus on the more creative elements of their job.

Advertising implementation agency Hogarth Worldwide, part of the WPP Group, is one of the first working implementations of the joint PresSTORE and MatrixStore solution in the UK. Hogarth has a 100TB Xsan in-house with a 1Gbit link to its 125 terabyte MatrixStore hosted by Global Switch.

“PresSTORE Backup and MatrixStore compliment each other perfectly and provide a highly effective disk-based solution ecosystem that is very enticing for the customer,” comments Archiware CEO Josef Doods. “PresSTORE seamlessly manages the backup of content to the MatrixStore repository, including workflow, emails, documents, where it can be securely stored and then re-accessed in a very fast and convenient way, all without the need for specialist skills.“

Nick Pearce-Tomenius, Co-Founder of Object-Matrix said: “The way companies capture content has changed, with everything now tapeless and file-based. Creative organisations have to store and manage hundreds of terabytes of data and rarely have the in-house IT expertise to do this productively or effectively. What we’re doing with Archiware is helping customers to move away from having separate silos for different parts of their storage and backup. We’re offering a single centralised solution that consolidates and protects customers’ data in a self-healing, self-managing way that theydon’t have to touch or worry about. We like to think we’re offering a virtual storage geek so that the client doesn’t need to be one and can get back to their real job of being creative.”

Full press release here: PresSTORE MatrixStore

The View From OM

We are pleased to be working with the Archiware team and hope that our continued efforts produce solutions that customers can use with the minimum of effort coupled with the peace of mind that their working data is protected.

• 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.

• 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.

Cardiff, UK – Object Matrix, a developer of secure asset archive and retrieval software, has today supplied Cardiff based content creator and post-production facility Boomerang Plus Plc with its rushes, nearline and library archive solution, The MatrixStore. The multi-purpose data management solution provides a secure archive for client owned content that enters the facility and also keeps content available to be re-purposed, re-used or monetised.

Paul Owen, Head of Post Production at Boomerang stated, “In line with the rest of the industry we are facing up to the challenges of tapeless and HD production. We manage a mixture of studio and post content which must be protected and available on demand. The solution from Object Matrix provides the peace of mind that the content that comes into the facility, or that we produce locally, is authentic and protected at the highest levels. ”

Boomerang is largely an Avid facility that produces its own content for clients such as the BBC, S4C and Channel 4.

“Boomerang owns a lot of content that it has created over the years which is mainly tape based and less accessible when we need to re-purpose content. We will use the Vault functionality of MatrixStore to keep legacy content available online to all authorised personnel which means we will save time and money when a request comes in for content.”, added Paul.

More here: Press Release: Boomerang

The View From OM:

We are gaining a lot of traction in AVID and Final Cut workflows, both of which face the same challenges of implementing a repeatable, audited process for content ingest and exploiting legacy content by sweating the value of assets.
Please contact us for more information on the use of MatrixStore in an AVID tapeless workflow.

The video (HD version available here) provides a high level view of The MatrixStore in this role:

As shown in the video there are 4 main benefit areas:

• Guaranteed Ingest - MatrixStore generates a hash (digest, digital fingerprint) of the content on the client and also on the two MatrixStore nodes the content lands on. Three different places where the content is checked ensuring the content in MatrixStore is bit for bit the same as came off the P2 or SxS card. Because MatrixStore keeps that digest/fingerprint as metadata with the content we are able to automatically, periodically and systematically (insert line from Grease here) ensure the content on disk matches the digest kept with it. Forever.. and ever.

• Secure Protection - MatrixStore provides the option to keep content in vaults that can have retention periods set upon them. No deletion or modification before the retention date. End of. This helps not only for the long term retention of content but also as a highly secure ingest vault for rushes/dailies coming into the post process. Set a one month retention policy on an ingest vault and that content will be secure from the accidents that do tend to happen.

• Searchable Metadata – “If you can’t find it you don’t have it”. DropSpot harvests metadata contained within the P2 (and other formats) media and creates a searchable rushes (dailies) repository allowing producers or editors to find and retrieve clips in an instant.

• Making use of the content – Now that the data is online and protected at the highest levels you can now access the data. Using either DropSpot or MxFS from any authenticated client content can be copied to and from the archive or can be accessed from within applications like Media Composer or Final Cut Pro. Using MxFS, The MatrixStore is perfect to provide quick access to content to browse or perform a quick edit before working ‘online’.

The View from OM

There is currently no de-facto standard or best practice defined for the safe ingest of tapeless content. The MatrixStore offers the ability to provide guaranteed ingest coupled with an audit trail from ingest through to archive in AVID and Final Cut Workflows.

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.