Sony, Pinnacle Partner For Optical Disk System

Sony Electronics and Pinnacle Systems are launching five joint initiatives that the companies hope will speed up the development and introduction of digital systems for U.S. broadcasters and video professionals. Key to their partnership is the development of Sony's optical disk systems for ENG applications with Pinnacle's Vortex news system and Liquid blue non-linear editing system.

Pinnacle said its products will offer native support of both DVCAM Material eXchange Format (MXF) and MPEG IMX MXF formats. The other projects, which also feature interoperable Sony and Pinnacle products, span editing for TV programs, commercials and news content, graphics production, media management, archiving and content play-out and distribution.

For users that require broadcast on-air servers with near- and off-line ability, the companies will offer integrated systems based on Pinnacle's MediaStream servers and Sony's PetaSite mass-storage systems.