Marquis Broadcast Joins With Isilon

Marquis Broadcast, specialist in content workflows and media integration software solutions, is joining with Isilon Systems (booth #2006) at SIGGRAPH 2009 to demonstrate Medway Parking and Medway Bridging, two new features of Marquis’ Medway media transfer and format conversion software. Both features provide broadcasters and facility managers with a more flexible, cost-effective approach to the use of editing resources.

Medway Parking creates an archive file in an open standard format that can be subsequently restored to any editing platform allowing editing to be resumed at a later date. The archived or ‘Parked’ file holds all the media and details of the edit enabling the resumption of the edit to continue without any file incompatibility problems or loss of detail. Parked files can be stored on low cost disks or moved to a tape archive system thus saving on local storage. Medway Parking brings a higher level of flexibility to editing workflows by enabling operators to share projects more easily.

Medway Bridging allows easy collaboration between Apple FCP and Avid editing systems. Editors are able to move an entire sequence timeline from one editing system to another in a single drag and drop operation. Medway Bridging translates the EDL structure, but more critically, also moves all the required media from one system to the other, carrying out file conversions during the move so that the edit can be continued once the media arrives at its new destination. Editors have more freedom in planning and organising projects and there is improved collaboration when a range of different systems are in use.

Medway will also be demonstrated at SIGGRAPH integrated with the Isilon IQ scale-out NAS storage systems. This tight integration enables users to move files between Isilon IQ systems and other ‘best of breed’ post and broadcasting systems, including those from Avid and Apple, and other applications such as MAMs, archiving systems and removable media acquisition devices. Medway moves files to and from the Isilon environment with all video and audio content correctly formatted and wrapped and with existing and new metadata correctly updated. This means that media is ready for use in the appropriate format as soon as it arrives at the destination application.

"All systems used for file-based content production and delivery must be tightly integrated in a seamless workflow so that media is able to move quickly and easily without any bottlenecks between the various processes," said Brad Winnett, Sr. Director of Business Development, Isilon Systems. "By combining Isilon scale-out NAS with Medway, broadcasters benefit from faster file and metadata exchange between Isilon IQ and other postproduction applications, including Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid editing systems."

Isilon’s scale-out NAS systems provide a single, scalable shared pool of storage that unifies stores of file-based data. Operators benefit from accelerated workflows and significantly reduced IT costs. Isilon IQ delivers up to 45 Gigabytes per second of throughput and 5.2 Petabytes of capacity in a single file system and single volume. When combined with Medway, Isilon’s storage products provide operators with easy, fast and reliable access to data, irrespective of differences in file structures.

Medway’s user interface and simple drag and drop control make it a very intuitive system for all skill levels. Designed specifically to meet the demands of the most challenging broadcasting and television production environments, Medway is also suitable for newsrooms, ingest, encoding, transcoding, asset management, editing, broadcast automation and finishing systems and playout servers.