FAREHAM, ENGLAND—After announcing that Masstech and SGL would be combining into a single entity, the newly formed Masstech Innovations is primed to make its first exhibition stop at IBC 2017. The unified organization intends to showcase equipment that addresses media asset management, newsroom content archiving and exchange, archive management, transcoding, syndicated content aggregation and disaster recovery.

MassStore

Chief among the products set to be displayed at IBC 2017 will be SGL’s FlashNet content management system and Masstech’s MassStore media management and workflow platform. Each product now offers expanded cloud support, including Amazon S3 storage support. In addition, FlashNet has also added Glacier storage as an archiving destination and MassStore is now able to be hosted on public or private clouds.

Individually, the FlashNet Infinity has a new user interface that includes Navigator, which provides a visual file explorer view of all archived assets; Disk Explorer for archiving selected files and folders; and Verify to validate the presence of expected content in the archive and identifying assets that need to be updated from disk. There is also now integration with Sony’s Optical Disc Archive system for users to store media on optical disc-based cartridges with 100-year shelf life and 3.3TB data capacity. This also provides the ability to read and process AXF objects and DPX format support.

MassStore will have a redesigned plug-in for third-party newsroom computer systems will makes its debut at the show. The plug-in is based on HTML5 and brings media management, advanced searching and embedded video manipulation capabilities to users within their NRCS interface. The company will also preview upcoming functionality that streamlines the integration of video with stories from third-party newswire services. In additions, new features like speech-to-text capabilities and intelligent metadata extraction were added to make stored content easier to find.

Masstech Innovations will also highlight new integrations with third-party partners, including Avid’s MediaCentral framework, Sony’s cloud-based Ci creative collaboration platform and SAM’s VIBE News Solution.

IBC 2017 runs from Sept. 15-19 in Amsterdam. Masstech Innovations will be located at booth 7.J15A.

TORONTO & FAREHAM, ENGLAND—Masstech and Software Generation Ltd. (SGL) are joining forces to form a new company, Masstech Innovations. This new endeavor will serve the broadcast and media industry as a provider of technology for the management of media assets, per the official announcement.

Left to right: SGL co-founder Bernie Walsh, Masstech President and CEO Joe French, and SGL co-founders Paul Moran and Dave Bray.

Masstech President and CEO Joe French has taken an increased ownership position and will run the combined business from the U.K. headquarters. SGL founders and directors Bernie Walsh, Dave Bray and Paul Moran will eventually retire after a period of consulting with the combined entity. FPE Capital will be the majority shareholder in the new company.

“The merger provides us with an opportunity to grow and develop solutions, particularly on-ramps to the cloud and managed services, faster than we could have done as two smaller independent companies,” French explained.

Financial terms of this deal have not been disclosed.