NAB: Panasas and axle Video Together

Panasas, Inc., in scale-out NAS, and axle Video, LLC, in storage-agnostic media management software, announced that they will be demonstrating, at NAB show in Las Vegas, NV April 24 – 27, 2017, Panasas’ ActiveStor with DirectFlow for Mac along with axle 2017, the latest edition of axle’s media management software.

ActiveStor with DirectFlow for Mac is a combination of scale-out NAS with a parallel data protocol for the Apple Mac platform. axle 2017 is a media-management solution for post-production teams.

The joint demo will highlight an acquisition-to-post-to-delivery workflow that illustrates what some post-production facilities are calling the Fastest in Hollywood media production experience. The demo features ActiveStor and DirectFlow in conjunction with the axle 2017 media-management software. This software, which includes axle’s browser interface and ingest clients, swiftly finds, organizes, shares and optimizes media. Other demo components include a Linux-based encoding server as well as Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Avid Media Composer.

Because axle 2017 employs the Mac Pro as its server platform, it integrates with the Panasas storage solution via DirectFlow. The axle software runs on a dedicated Mac in the network, cataloging media assets on ActiveStor via DirectFlow. In addition, axle 2017 presents a browser interface to Macs, PCs and mobile devices and serves the axle Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro CC on Mac and PC.

“Creative work teams in search of a high-performance experience for handling modern-day media and entertainment workflows within an easily managed and effortlessly scalable storage environment need to look no further,” said David Sallak, VP and CTO for media and entertainment, Panasas. “From visual-effects rendering, to post editing, to active archiving, Panasas and axle deliver the performance advantage and radical simplicity that allow editors to focus on their craft, not on the storage.“

“Production acceleration and the empowerment of every team member are what axle media management is about,” said Sam Bogoch, CEO, axle Video. “Combining axle 2017 with the high-performance storage environment from Panasas delivers a uniquely powerful production workflow solution ready to manage even the most complex media assets across all your storage locations.“

DirectFlow for Mac
Designed as part of the integrated ActiveStor scale-out storage solution, DirectFlow brings the performance benefits of parallel, distributed I/O over Ethernet to media production facilities using the Apple Mac platform and macOS. Teams achieve faster media ingest, process and delivery by being able to handle their media of choice, up to 4K UHD resolution. The ability to flexibly scale bandwidth and capacity for larger high dynamic range (HDR) and virtual reality (VR) projects helps future proof the system as new media formats and more-complex workloads are introduced, while unifying all Macs under a single namespace simplifies system management and reduces TCO.

Hollywood post-production and animation facilities as well as major broadcasters have already deployed ActiveStor to re-render entire movies in record time, replace outdated scale-up archive infrastructure and accelerate production workflows with DirectFlow for Mac.

axle 2017 Media Management Solution
axle is a software for managing video files through any web browser. It connects with the storage you already own and uses your existing folder setup. It is optimized for media libraries with up to two million plus assets and features the latest technology developments in axle transcode, metadata and hybrid cloud capabilities. Using axle’s simple browser interface, it’s easy to search, comment, mark, approve and annotate assets from any location. And unlike traditional media asset management (MAM) systems, which impose a check-in/check-out workflow where the storage is largely hidden behind the media management, axle allows users direct access to their media and other files at the highest bandwidth and lowest latency supported by the storage device. axle’s scalable transcode and AI modules also run on Linux, a platform also supported by DirectFlow.