BLOOMINGTON, Minn.—Scale Logic has unveiled the company's new media-focused Object Storage platform. The new solution, powered by Object Matrix, is designed to benefit organizations financially and operationally by modernizing video workflows and providing instant access to all media assets.

"The launch of our new media-focused Object Storage and Private Cloud Solution marks another step in our evolving WorkflowConnect platform,” explained Robert Herzan, CEO, Scale Logic. “Our revolutionary platform is predicated on the idea of creating highly collaborative environments by architecting the ideal workflow solution and tailoring it to every user's needs. As a result, we partnered with leading provider Object Matrix to deliver seamless Object Storage and Private Cloud, enabling users to achieve even more when customizing their perfect workflows."

Scale Logic reported that its Object Storage solution is built on mature, feature-rich, and future-proof object-based storage technology, delivering operational efficiencies and full digital content governance. In addition, the solution provides multiple media-based workflows and secure access to all archived content anywhere.

With its active archiving functionality for long-term data retention, the solution enables users to offload, migrate, store, and centralize files from various sites within a less expensive, secondary tier, the company said. 

This functionality frees up valuable space while decreasing costs and the need for additional IT resources. Moreover, its many security features ensure controlled access and protect against threats resulting in data loss. The solution also includes built-in support for WORM and S3 object locking to enable continuous data integrity.

Aside from the new Object Storage and Private Cloud Solution release within the WorkflowConnect Platform, Scale Logic also continues to work with companies seeking future-resistant, media production storage and workflow orchestration solutions, the company reported. .

More information on the new Object Storage and Private Cloud Solution is available at www.scalelogicinc.com.

Those attending the 2022 NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 23 through 27, can book a demo at www.scalelogicinc.com/NAB.

LONDON—Object Matrix and Blackbird have announced a new partnership that will see the integration of Object Matrix’s MatrixStore cloud storage platform with the Blackbird cloud video editing and publishing platform.

Blackbird’s browser-based editing toolset enables users to create clips, highlights and longer form content with limited bandwidth. By integrating MatrixStore, users can now keep content secure while providing easy access and discoverability.

In addition, Blackbird allows media assets to be published in high-quality outputs to multiple digital channels, including social, OTT, web and back to MatrixStore.

“Integrating with Blackbird will give our customers true cloud native video editing and publishing capabilities, enabling them to access, enrich and distribute their content faster and at a much lower total cost of ownership,” said Jonathan Morgan, CEO, Object Matrix.

For more information, visit www.blackbird.video.  

CARDIFF, U.K.—Object Matrix has rebranded its managed storage service to MatrixStore Cloud. Formerly the MatrixStore as a Service, the new name comes as a result of the addition of new clients and a surge in demand for managed cloud-based object storage, per the company.

MatrixStore Cloud enables creative and production teams to self-serve access to content from work or remotely from anywhere. It also features intuitive media focused interfaces designed to make protecting, finding and sharing content easier.

The platform also includes continuous and non-proprietary future proof access to media content with third-party integrations, seamless scaling and inclusive data movement to a public cloud.

For more information, visit www.object-matrix.com.  

CARDIFF, U.K.—Signiant and Object Matrix have announced a new collaboration that integrates Signiant Media Shuttle with Object Matrix’s MatrixStore to assist users with the transfer of large files and data.

Signiant Media Shuttle is an SaaS system for sending, sharing and accessing any-size files from anywhere, all from a secure, intuitive web interface. MatrixStore, meanwhile, is a media-focused private and hybrid cloud platform built on object storage technology to keep content secure while allowing for easy access.

In integrating these two platforms, a MatrixStore secure vault acts as a Signiant landing zone to ensure DMZ security without additional storage systems. MatrixStore vaults can be configured to restrict access, ensure data is immutable and audit each management and data operation, ensuring content can be transferred between locations.

In addition, Media Shuttle can use SMB, S3 or MXFS (MatrixStore File System) to access MatrixStore object storage. By using MXFS, users can automatically mount MatrixStore vaults as local drives to directly access content delivered to the facility.

For more information, visit www.signiant.com.  

LTO is under attack from a wide variety of new technologies that challenge the very existence of the format and its relevance. Coupled with the fact that many broadcasters are pushing more of their archive content onto local or private cloud platforms, it is hard to see how LTO is still standing.

For sports broadcasters, it is more important than ever to be able to see the content you have then consolidate it to create a meaningful archive that can be accessed at any time for replays or clips from old matches. And furthermore there is a strong desire to re-archive older tape formats before those tapes become unreadable and sports events of the past become completely lost. Is it relevant to put those old tapes back on to another tape format?

Is there even a point to the tape format anymore or is it only surviving because of “better the devil you know”; doomed to disappear altogether once people become educated to alternatives?

DEMAND FOR ONLINE SPORTS

Many stats point to a shake-up in traditional TV for sports coverage. Take the NFL, for example, where, according to Nielsen, viewing is down 8.2 percent from the same period last year. And, last year Sky in the U.K. stated a strong shift of viewing of the Premier League to their online platforms. Amazon are rumored to be bidding to show future Premier League seasons. Undoubtedly, the shift is set to continue, as younger viewers in particular are more likely to watch sports on digital platforms.

For digital viewing, instant access to content is a must. No wonder broadcasters are pushing more content onto on-premises or off-premises (private or public) cloud platforms. The benefits can be fantastic: with instant access to catch-up reels and to pull out historic content. What other type of content suddenly prompts the need to find something that was aired several decades ago? But that happens all the time in sports, whether that be a rundown of all the tries scored by a retiring rugby player, the re-run of a historic win, or the moment a team was promoted or even demoted.

[Read: LTO Program Introduces Generation 8 Of LTO Ultrium]

Sports broadcasters need superfast access, and not just the low-resolution proxies, to make effective use of these moments. At a recent Amazon seminar in LA a number of speakers, from global broadcasters, explained how the need for instant access meant they were hammering their LTO libraries in such a way that failure rates inevitably rose dramatically. They determined that for frequent, fast access LTO is not the appropriate platform.

Or course, tape used to be the only real option for media libraries. However, now the cost of both disk and cloud services have come down a great deal, which makes me wonder whether anyone actually prefers LTO to disk for an active archive.

TAPE WILL LIVE ON

While it is true that new formats are being released all the time and tape can’t efficiently do all that disk storage can do, it isn’t dead yet. Not only that, I believe it will live on for the foreseeable future. Given the low costs of the tape media itself, it is easy to see why it has a place for “fire and forget” workflows. Of course, there are a lot of those types of workflows, even in the sports arena. Let’s face it, we all know there are matches we never want to watch again. Even sports entertainment eventually has a shelf live, and being able to literally put a tape on a shelf with a low dollar per gigabyte cost makes a lot of sense for that content.

LTO can also integrate quite nicely with other storage solutions. For our part, our solution is used in a number of deployments with LTO partners, where MatrixStore is an active cache and the LTO is used for the “dormant” assets.

The argument will likely continue over coming years, with some stating content is more secure on tape, while others argue the opposite. The argument around cost is also a hotly debated one, with many conflicting studies on whether or not the cost gap is closing.

Ultimately, I believe a number of things:

1. Tape will be around for many years to come, however it will be used in fewer use cases than today.

One example is that it might have been previously been OK to keep old footage on the shelf just-in-case it is needed; now, old footage is sold to sports teams and is looked at for analytics and AI metadata extraction. Assuming that footage won’t be re-used at all after the live event is a dead concept. However, it could be that there is footage from minor sports events that after a certain period of time is deemed to have a low probability of being looked at again.

Maybe those use cases will be cause for a lot of tapes to be sold making the tape industry appear “steady” but only in the context of a world that is storing increasing amounts of data.

2. Tape will only really be chosen on the basis of financial reasons, as there are very few valid technical reasons to consider it.

The pure fact that tape has to wind its way through to a file, over disk, which can get to the file in nanoseconds is the clear and simple problem. Add to that problems of maintaining tapes, problems of migration between formats and problems of tape versions going out of date and it is a technology that a few love but many hate.

3. More sports broadcasters will be looking for the value than an active archive can bring.

An active archive adds value to an organization, making it much easier for broadcasters to monetize content. This is because it is much easier to find and extract at any given moment and it also enables automated workflows which make the whole process much more efficient. An archive at rest cannot add value in this way and purely adds cost. For example, a Swedish minor league football broadcaster now sells the footage of the games played by their rivals to the clubs for the purpose of analytics. Furthermore, old games can be purchased for viewing by fans. Although the turnover for lower league teams is fairly low it still funds the broadcasting and archiving operations.

Essentially, the right storage really depends on what your priorities are. If you need deep cold storage, LTO or optical disc archive (ODA) may well be less expensive. However, if you need instant or frequent access to your content, then LTO simply won’t cut it.

Jon Morgan is the CEO of Object Matrix.