Grupo Imagen Prepares for Major National Network Expansion with EditShare

EditShare, a technology leader in intelligent shared storage and media management solutions, announced that Mexico-based media conglomerate Grupo Imagen is implementing EditShare XStream EFS 450 scale out production storage, XStream EFS 40NL parking storage, and Flow media asset management to support content automation and fast turn-around workflows. Grupo Imagen was recently awarded a nationwide broadcast television license that expands its current broadcast network to over 190 transmission sites with its multiplex signal across the Mexican national territory. The opportunity requires the broadcaster to build out a network of brick and mortar stations in some of the major cities across Mexico, and thus reinforce its Mexico City hub with an infrastructure that can support connected workflows. The installation of EditShare will aid in the production of the broadcasters telenovelas and news packages; providing a tiered storage environment for fast online production and parking storage with automation that moves media across post production systems and third-party storage platforms, optimizing collaboration and media sharing across workgroups.

“Our expansion strategy is to make Mexico City the hub of the operation, feeding national news programs, entertainment and sports content to our soon to be created local stations,” comments Andres Gómez Jiménez, TV workflow director, Grupo Imagen. “To do this, we require a no-fault, high-availability foundation for managing content, and this is where EditShare comes in. It’s open, fault-tolerant platform and versatile capabilities gives us the security and performance we need to advance our production workflows and sync media across what will eventually be many sites. EditShare also gives us a way to optimize our current workflows, especially with telenovelas. The seamless integration and file automation across post and storage systems will allow us to manage last minute content editing and delivery much more efficiently.”

Grupo Imagen operates TV and radio stations and produces news, sports, telenovelas and thematic programs. Over 80% of the content is produced from the broadcaster’s seven studios in Mexico City, requiring a sizeable infrastructure to support the mass content production. The installation design and delivery is spearheaded by EditShare business partner Escape Audio.

The Foundation for Expanded Productions and Workflows
Grupo Imagen will appoint new tasks to its EMC Isilon and Quantum storage solutions and will use the performance power of the EditShare XStream EFS 450 288 TB enterprise scale-out storage solution for online production editing and an EFS 40NL ¾ PB for nearline parking storage. EditShare Flow will also be implemented for content automation and migration, advancing production workflows for the news, sports and entertainment departments. “The price performance of EditShare solutions is truly unbeatable,” comments Fernando Riestra, Escape Audio. “The great capabilities and powerful bandwidth of EditShare will support fast turn-around of projects with less than half the price tag of their competitors with no built-in media management capabilities.” EditShare XStream EFS solutions deliver blazingly fast speed when dealing with HD and Ultra HD content; delivering over 80 streams of production quality DNxHD 145 (1080i/29.97) in an EFS 450 set up.

“The online production and parking workflow capabilities with Flow automation will allow Grupo Imagen editors to work more efficiently, especially with fast turn workflows like news and telenovelas,” comments Diego Buenaño, Sales Manager, Latin America. “At times, the staff is editing a chapter of a soap opera in the morning that needs to air that afternoon. The EditShare integration with Avid editors combined with the online and nearline storage structure eliminates production bottlenecks completely, facilitating a faster content transaction, which makes a difference in fast turn situations. A really nice added bonus is the EditShare advanced Avid project sharing for situations that require collaboration.” EditShare Flow will be used to manage content from ingest, proxy creation and transcoding from incoming feeds to the EditShare storage platforms, ensuring that the content is correctly logged and properly stored for fast access by various departments.

About EditShare Flow Production Asset Management
The expansive Flow MAM solution adds an intelligence layer to EditShare shared storage solutions, offering extensive content indexing, search and automation capabilities to productions. The open platform also integrates a wide range of third-party solutions including QUALES Quality Control (QC) and file verification system, making sure content adheres to broadcast standards throughout the production process, from ingest to delivery.

For remote workflows, Flow includes the web-based AirFlow and Flow Story applications. AirFlow allows staff to search, log, edit and play proxies in a web browser from any location. Users can securely download and upload proxy or high-resolution media from on-premise EditShare storage systems from anywhere in the world. With the same remote yet secure access to on-premise EditShare storage, the new Flow Story application lets editors and production teams directly assemble content, add voiceovers and collaborate with other NLEs for finishing, delivery or playout of packages beyond the borders of the facility.

About EditShare XStream EFS Scale Out Storage
The premium XStream EFS storage platform is a powerful distributed scale-out file system combined with a highly resilient architecture, specifically developed for media intensive workflows. It’s designed from the ground up to support large-scale workgroups requiring high-bandwidth, high-volume media ingest, transcoding, online collaborative editing and multiplatform distribution of HD, 2K, 4K and beyond. Whether a one-node or multi-node system, every XStream EFS model can easily be expanded to increase capacity and bandwidth. For ease of use and administration, all XStream EFS systems present a single namespace, regardless of the system size. And unlike many SAN storage solutions, the performance of XStream EFS does not decrease as storage use increases. Its continual, optimal performance and outstanding reliability are backed by RAID 6 technology.

The new XStream EFS 40NL scale out storage model is designed to deliver the performance and economics of traditional nearline storage with the scalability, fault-tolerance and ease of use of the proven EditShare EFS shared storage solution. Administrators can easily add one or more EFS 40NL nodes of cost-optimized storage to an existing XStream EFS storage cluster as well as configure the EFS 40NL as an independent storage cluster for disaster recovery or media backup purposes. Each XStream EFS 40NL 4U storage node provides 240TB of raw capacity and, when configured appropriately, can protect against the loss of one or more nodes.

About EditShare
EditShare is the technology pioneer in networked shared storage and tapeless, end-to-end workflow solutions for the post-production, TV, and film industries. EditShare's ground-breaking products improve efficiency and workflow collaboration every step of the way. They include video capture and playout servers, high-performance central shared storage, archiving and backup software, media asset management, and Lightworks - the world's first three-platform (Windows/OS X/Linux) professional non-linear video editing application.

©2017 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare LLC. All other trademarks mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.

Press Contact
Nick Govoni
Zazil Media Group
(e) nick@zazilmediagroup.com
(p) +1 (617) 834-9600