MEDIA IN THE CLOUD Silver Trak Launches in

MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MAM MEDIA IN THE CLOUD, STORAGE & MAM

Silver Trak Digital Launches in New Zealand New GM for Silver Trak’s new Auckland office, David Elder.

GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH and as part of the company’s continued expansion across the Asia pacific region, Silver Trak Digital has established a new office in Auckland, New Zealand. According to Silver Trak COO Christian Christiansen, “As we were when we opened our offices in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur and to meet the unprecedented demand for our services, we are delighted that we are now able to offer to the full range of Silver Trak solutions to all customers across New Zealand from our Auckland office.” Christiansen says the main services offered from the NZ office will be digital cinema mastering and management, including duplicating and distributing content via hard drives or IP delivery to NZ cinemas, working with DAMsmart to provide digitisation services and Media Room to provide advanced asset management services to the NZ market. The NZ office will also be a hub for technical assessment QC for SD, HD and 4K SDR/HDR content, preparation and packaging services for OTT and broadcast, general broadcast services and a variety of audio services. Heading up the newly-established Auckland office is industry veteran and technology specialist General Manager David Elder. Elder brings with him over thirty-two years’ executive leadership and senior management experience, reporting at CEO and director level and leading diverse teams in 24/7 mission critical operations. He has held roles as principal of DECompl3x, Head of Business and Product Development at MediaHub Australia, On Air Services Executive and Head of Presentation and Programme Traffic at SKY TV NZ, and Head of Presentation at TV3 in NZ. “With New The Silver Trak NZ GM role sees Elder actively pursuing new business Zealand’s success in opportunities for the company whilst simultaneously implementing business suppressing spread growth strategies throughout the region. He will develop and manage customer of the COVID-19 relationships with new and existing clients and oversee all required business virus, many areas of operations. Elder will also manage all Silver Trak NZ personnel to ensure that they are content production able to give the company’s clients the very and distribution have best possible service and solutions. According to Elder, “The New Zealand rebounded more media industry is going through a massive change and restructure at the moment, quickly than in other with almost every broadcaster looking at significant change currently. TV3 up for territories. sale, Sky TV is doing a massive restructure, TVNZ and Radio New Zealand are being looked at by the Government at the moment, and the Maori Media is also being examined, so there is massive change happening in the industry currently. “Silver Trak is in obviously an awesome position now to step in and help in that industry. We’re ideally suited for what’s going on. We’re available. We have a massive range of products that look like they will certainly be needed going forward. “Basically, we’re offering the full range of services that we currently offer in Australia and Malaysia. For some of those services we would be operating directly out of New Zealand, and some of them we would be simply providing a portal into the already-built infrastructure that exists for Silver Trak.”

Part of that infrastructure is Silver Trak’s recently expanded MediaTrak workflow management solution. MediaTrak collects a range of information for Silver Trak and turns it into a day to day manager for staff and equipment resources, client portal for complete visibility “The New Zealand as well a database of IP for the services that Silver Trak has to offer. Its cloud-based, media industry is web interface allows clients to place an order for any number of services, track the going through a order’s progress and watch it be delivered to a variety of broadcast and distribution massive change and outputs. MediaTrak works in parallel to Silver Trak’s Media Room, an advanced asset restructure at the management solution available as a SaaS platform, to ensure every piece of content moment, with almost including film, TV and music masters, trailers, every broadcaster graphics, photos, metadata, captioning, subtitles and audio streams are digitally looking at significant archived in one place keeping tracking and access simple and secure. change currently. With New Zealand’s success in suppressing spread of the COVID-19 virus, many areas of content production and distribution have rebounded more quickly than in other territories. According to David Elder, this will provide further impetus to the new office. “Cinemas are all open here now,” he says. “I got an email that the only cinema in Reefton, which is pretty much the middle of the southern alps, desperately needed a copy of Trolls and so, us being us, we went the extra mile. So, the first thing we did was got one [copy] into the couriers for them, but the second thing we did was started ringing around all the other cinemas within 200km of them and started trying to source a copy for them to get it to them faster than we could get the courier there, and succeeded. We’ve done it a few times now. When somebody wants something really last minute, we’re in the position that we’ll just make it happen.” And in the case of sporting clubs and the content they produce, Elder says, “At this point, they’re back up and running, everything’s coming together. Now the Aotearoa Super Rugby is in process. Even small club games, everything is as normal here now. In terms of Silver Trak’s relationship with them, they’ll be hearing from me in the near future. They’re definitely people I think we can do a phenomenal amount of work for and make their lives so much easier. The systems that are onboard at Silver Trak and are now coming onboard at Silver Trak should make life far, far more pleasant for anybody with an archive. “Digitisation of archives is a huge, huge opportunity for Silver Trak and for DAMsmart because Joe Kelly and those guys are the experts in it, and have a phenomenal reputation, so I’m sure that’s something else that I’m definitely going to be pursuing here.” David Elder can be contacted at Silver Trak’s New Zealand office by visiting 3D Delta Avenue, New Lynn, Auckland, 0600, New Zealand, emailing david@silvertrak.co.nz and by calling +64 21 025 00969.

AI Workflows Portal from Digital Nirvana

DIGITAL NIRVANA’S MEDIASERVICESIQ is a suite of cloud-based microservices that leverage advanced AI and machine-learning (ML) capabilities to streamline media production, postproduction, and distribution workflows. MediaServicesIQ provides a comprehensive, one-stop portal by which users can access Digital Nirvana’s high-performance, AI-powered technology solutions: speech-to-text, content classification, closed caption generation and conformance, and a video intelligence engine that can detect ads, logos, objects, and faces. “The promise of AI and ML is being touted throughout the media industry, and these technologies do offer powerful potential for new efficiencies, time savings, and expanded potential for monetising valuable content. But AI and ML tools need to be accessible and easy to apply in order to see widespread adoption in the media industry,” said Russell Wise, Senior Vice President at Digital Nirvana. “That’s exactly what we’ve done with MediaServicesIQ. We’ve created a set of core AI capabilities and made them available in a layer that can be easily accessed by newsrooms, live sports and entertainment productions, post houses, and other media operations to expedite critical processes, reduce mundane tasks, and free creative personnel to do their jobs.” Building upon internal custom or industry-standard production and monitoring workflow platforms, MediaServicesIQ provides access to a collection of high-performance AI capabilities in the cloud that encompass speech-to-text, video intelligence, and generation of metadata that can be orchestrated to provide intelligence and actionable insights. These capabilities enable intelligent and immediate logging and feedback of content quality and compliance, better positioning broadcasters to meet regulatory, compliance, and licensing requirements for closed captioning, decency, and advertising monitoring. MediaServicesIQ provides an easy-to-access portal to these services through custom-developed workflows or through seamless access to Digital Nirvana’s range of applications, including MonitorIQ 7.0, MetadatorIQ, and Trance. An integration of the AI microservices with Digital Nirvana’s MonitorIQ 7.0 compliance logging system enables powerful insights and video intelligence applications, including: • The ability to record, store, and retrieve content for compliance, quality of service, and insights into broadcast content. • Automatic transcription of content from live broadcasts and commercials. • Automated detection of logos, objects, faces, and shots. • Automatic extraction of on-screen text. • The ability to identify ad breaks in logged content. • The ability to identify restricted words or topics in recorded/logged content, as well as the classification of incoming ad material for restricted content. • Generation of automated reports for loudness compliance, QoE, SCTE inserts, and ad detection and identification. • Automatic content classification. • The ability to assess the quality and conformance of captions. MediaServicesIQ integrates with Digital Nirvana’s MetadatorIQ to provide automated metadata creation in preproduction, production, and live content workflows. Optimised for Avid MediaCentral | Production Management assets, MetadatorIQ applies advanced AI- and ML-based content analysis for automatic generation of better-structured, more detailed, and more accurate metadata. Media operations benefit in two key ways – first, with tremendous time savings in up-front metadata generation, and then by giving producers the ability to zero in on the assets they need right away. For automatic closed caption/subtitle generation and closed-caption quality conformance, MediaServicesIQ provides seamless access to Digital Nirvana’s Trance 3.0 toolset. Trance unites cutting-edge STT technology and other AIdriven processes with cloud-based architecture to bring metadata generation and closed captioning into existing operations, enabling media companies to radically reduce the time and cost of delivering accurate, compliant content for publishing worldwide. They also can enrich and classify content, enabling more effective repurposing of media libraries and facilitating more intelligent targeting of advertising spots. Visit https://digital-nirvana.com

Arvato Systems Re-launches Vidispine

ARVATO SYSTEMS HAS ANNOUNCED that it will combine the synergistic product portfolios of its media & entertainment related Arvato Systems and Vidispine businesses, presenting them under a relaunched Vidispine brand. The move will bring the strengths of the two brands together in a more cohesive way, and give customers a clearer understanding of the product offerings. Arvato Systems, the IT specialist within the Bertelsmann Group, acquired media supply chain experts Vidispine in 2017 in order to strengthen the existing link between their complementary solutions and expand into new markets with a combined offering, working together to address the explosion in video content and the growth of cloud-based solutions for media. Behind the newly combined Vidispine brand is a complete ‘content ecosystem’ of the company’s own product portfolio and professional services together with a strong community of partner vendors, consultants and service providers and developers creating solutions for organizations. The restructured portfolio includes solutions for the broadcast and media & entertainment industry, including enterprise Media Asset Management, Content Planning & Rights Management and Ad Tech, as well as the cross-industry content platform, VidiNet. Visit www.vidispine.com/vidispine-arvato-systems-unite-strengths

Samsung 8TB Consumer SSD

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. has introduced its second-generation quad-level cell (QLC) flash drive, the 870 QVO SATA SSD, that is setting a new standard for high-capacity consumer storage. Featuring up to eight terabytes (TB), the new SSD delivers an uncompromising mix of speed, storage capacity and reliability for mainstream and professional PC users. In the past, consumers have had to choose between SSDs – which provide superior performance – and HDDs, which traditionally offer greater capacity. Samsung’s 870 QVO SSD, however, is able to reliably offer the best of both worlds, making it an optimal choice for mainstream PC users who prioritize performance and value, as well as for professional users who require high levels of capacity. The 870 QVO offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 560 MB/s and 530 MB/s respectively, with the drive’s Intelligent TurboWrite technology allowing it to maintain peak performance levels using a large variable SLC buffer. The 870 QVO also delivers a 13% improvement in random read speed compared to the 860 QVO, making it ideally suited for everyday computing needs such as multitasking, gaming and web browsing. The renewed Data Migration and Magician 6 softwares provide a host of improved and added features, enabling users to upgrade, manage and optimise their SSDs with greater ease. In addition to the industry-leading capacity and performance, the 870 QVO provides an exceptional endurance rating of up to 2,880 terabytes written (TBW), or a three-year limited warranty. The 870 QVO comes in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB models. Visit www.samsung.com/ssd

NAGRA NexGuard Forensic Watermarking Leverages AWS to Secure Content

NAGRA, THE PROVIDER OF content protection and multiscreen television solutions, has announced API integration of NexGuard forensic watermarking technologies into AWS Elemental MediaConvert, a file-based video transcoding service with broadcast-grade features from Amazon Web Services (AWS). The API integration provides content owners, and any third-party working on premium content, with an added layer of security and traceability for their valuable pre-release and early release content workflows, and simplifies the watermarking process for file transcoding and OTT content preparation. NexGuard forensic watermarking for prerelease, including the recently announced NexGuard ClipMark for short form content, as well as NexGuard Streaming for on-demand OTT content, is available in AWS Elemental MediaConvert, enabling full automation for the watermarking process from the cloud. No extra steps are required to apply forensic watermarking in the transcoding of pre-release content, such as full features, TV series or short clips, or in the preparation of content in the cloud, such as escreeners or direct-to-consumer OTT streaming. The API integration of NexGuard Streaming forensic watermarking with AWS Elemental MediaConvert enables OTT, direct-to-consumer, and video-on-demand platforms to apply a unique and imperceptible watermark per streaming session, leveraging caching in the content delivery network (CDN) and efficient stream control at the CDN edge. The use cases include tackling theft of premium content such as early-release of movies in some territories, original video-on-demand content, and business-to-business online screening. AWS Elemental MediaConvert is a file-based video transcoding service with broadcastgrade features. It allows content owners, post houses and video platforms to easily create video-on-demand (VOD) content for broadcast and multiscreen delivery at scale. The service combines advanced video and audio capabilities with a simple web services interface. Visit https://dtv.nagra.com

iconik Adds Transcription and Annotation

ICONIK HAS ADDED TRANSCRIPTION and draw-on annotation features to the latest version of its cloud-based media management hub. iconik allows organisations to securely manage, edit and share their media remotely, using a single interface for both local and cloudbased assets. The transcription feature uses AI to convert audio dialogue to text, and attributes it to a speaker. The transcriptions are displayed as closed captions in the iconik player but are also visible in formats which separate the text by speaker or display individual lines of text against a time code. With the transcription function, users can search through all the spoken dialogue stored in the asset’s metadata. This enables them to easily search for the best clips of an athlete, actor or location, just from audio mentions. The iconik review and approve function, which enables teams to feedback on projects remotely, has been enhanced. The draw-on annotation feature includes free-line and shape-based drawing tools, a colour chooser and a select and move tool. This enables reviewers to visually manipulate and draw directly onto single frames of video and images. These annotations help the reviewer to quickly clarify any amendments they are requesting. The annotations can be turned on and off when the user previews the content. This helps teams to communicate changes visually, in addition to time-based comments. The iconik team has also implemented some additional enhancements. Folder uploads allow for many files to be uploaded to iconik at once. Azure Blob Storage support has been added for uploads, downloads and the iconik Storage Gateway (ISG). The cloud scanner in iconik can now support partial scans offering more control over the management of cloud resources. Collections can be transferred while maintaining their directory structure, ensuring consistent asset organisation. Finally, the iconik links have been shortened to streamline the sharing process. Visit https://iconik.io

EditShare Straps on MoovIT’s Helmut to Supercharge Adobe Workflows EDITSHARE AND MOOVIT GMBH have formed a global partnership to transform Adobe enterprise workflows. MoovIT’s Helmut solutions are used by leading broadcasters, newsrooms, sports leagues, corporations and new media organisations for their robust project management and administration, enhancing creative workflows for large distributed Adobe workgroups. The two companies have worked to integrate EditShare’s EFS shared storage solution and FLOW media management with the Helmut suite of products to form a comprehensive project management and remote editing workflow solution for enterprise Adobe workgroups. Scalable to the enterprise level, the EFS, FLOW and Helmut integrated workflow offers a media technology foundation that combines storage, media management, workflow automation, and workgroup management for a proven all-in-one solution. “To succeed in the evolving world of video production, our customers are looking to EditShare to provide open solutions that allow them to rewire their workflows and adapt,” states Tom Rosenstein, Vice President of Business Development, EditShare. “EditShare’s expanded partnership with MoovIT allows us to bring to our Adobe customers a powerful, adaptable set of tools to address those challenges head-on. The Helmut platform coupled with EFS and FLOW, embodies the workflow structure users require. Powerful, yet simple, collaborative Adobe Premiere Pro project management alongside adaptive media production management. It’s the complete package professional editors have been waiting for.” Visit https://editshare.com and https://www.moovit.de IMT Streamlines Cloud Data Transfers INTEGRATED MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (IMT) has announced the general availability of SoDA, an enterprise software application that streamlines the process of intelligent data transfers to and from the public cloud. Designed for media and entertainment workflows and other unstructured data environments, SoDA provides predictive, actionable cost and data transfer metrics for optimising on-premise and cloud storage. “SoDA predicts the cost and speed of data movement between on-prem and cloud solutions, giving customers the tools they need to control their spend and understand the time it takes for data movement,” said Greg Holick, vice president of product management for software at IMT. “SoDA data management software gives users unprecedented insight into their total cloud storage spend.” Technologies partners contributing to the platform include Dalet, reachENGINE, IPV and CatDV. SoDA delivers unprecedented simplicity, insight and control, enabling users to manage the operating costs of their storage and cloud services more efficiently. Key SoDA benefits include: • Simplicity. Install and configure in minutes • Unlimited Data Movement. On-prem, hybrid, or cloud movement • Fixed Monthly Rate. SaaS model The launch of SoDA comes as IMT also announces the expansion of its advanced software development division to bring to market innovative software tools and applications that automate and simplify business operations, workflows and hybrid cloud data management. Visit https://cloudsoda.io

GB Labs Strengthens Security for CORE.4 and CORE.4 Lite

THE DEVELOPER OF INTELLIGENT storage solutions, GB Labs, has announced that its proprietary CORE.4 and CORE.4 Lite operating systems have been upgraded with additional security benefits designed to augment existing performance, analytic, and real-time data monitoring and display features. GB Labs’ Chief Product Officer, Howard Twine said, “We have been anything but idle in recent months and have used our time to further improve our already market-leading storage system OS with a range of security enhancements. “Some of what we have done will mean little to the casual observer, but to everyday users, we have again practically reinvented what is possible to do with a well-designed storage system.” Twine said, “Security has always been crucial for protecting valuable assets, and with increasing numbers of people moving files around from a variety of remote locations – including home – and between various platforms, we knew it was important to revisit our operating systems to exploit or improve every aspect of their protective environment.” The CORE.4 UI has been improved with a range of auditing features, both historical and real-time. Data columns can be sorted to indicate how users have interacted with files as well as the type of protocol; login confirmation; shutdown and restart; file transfer status and location details; in addition to report creation and delivery tools. The real-time data is displayed in a timeline along with a pie chart that includes protocol data, all of which can be viewed for detailed analysis of precisely what’s taking place with the data at any time. “It is, of course, common to monitor a system and resolve security problems after the fact, using accumulated data, but what isn’t common is our ability to automatically monitor a system’s data – live – and flag up anything extraordinary. This is highly valuable in showing how people interact with a system and in identifying where any bottlenecks may be, unnecessary downtime is being wasted, or further efficiencies may be found. All of these tools are useful in helping an organisation achieve its aspirations.” Twine added, “The in-built System Security Analyser in CORE.4 and CORE.4 Lite is a tool that actively looks for potential security issues and, if detected, makes appropriate recommendations. The upgraded CORE.4 OS with advanced security is currently being rolled out to existing GB Labs storage system users and will be available in all new systems from August 2020. Visit www.gblabs.com

EcoDigital Launches ECOPro Managed Services for Advanced Media Support

ECODIGITAL HAS ANNOUNCED the release of ECOPro Managed Services, a new offering that delivers digital ecosystem management, storage infrastructure optimisation, and workflow improvement for users of the company’s DIVA Software Suite for digital asset management. Through ECOPro Managed Services, a team of highly trained, qualified, and experienced EcoDigital engineers conducts proactive monitoring, reporting, automation, and technology maintenance so that users of DIVA (originally developed by Front Porch Digital) can focus more resources on their core business. “Knowing how to build workflows efficiently, properly maintain infrastructure, and refine digital asset management strategy can be a challenge,” said Geoff Tognetti, Chief Technology Officer at EcoDigital. “ECOPro Managed Services are designed to protects users’ digital assets, mitigate risks, reduce operational costs, and increase efficiencies, ultimately simplifying and streamlining digital content management so that users can spend more time on the activities that build their business.” Allowing users to strengthen their technology strategy, increase their operational efficiency, and extend their team’s capabilities, ECOPro Managed Services enable users to get the most out of their DIVA Software Suite. The service also provides cost-effective access to engineers and other subject matter experts who not only assist in optimising storage and workflow, but also help the business grow and evolve its DIVA system. The combination of 24/7 monitoring with proactive ticket generation and patch installation minimises risk of operational downtime, giving users confidence that the right people always have access to the right assets at the right time. “As they expand their operations, most businesses can’t afford to get bogged down by the details of adding, managing, and training internal IT infrastructure,” added David Gonce, Chief Revenue Officer at EcoDigital. “ECOPro Managed Services allow these businesses to shift from a reactive model to a proactive IT approach that better supports efficient content creation workflows and frees up resources to grow and take advantage of new business opportunities.” Visit www.goecodigital.com