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From the IBC Daily 7th September 2007 by Farah Jifri

Suitcase TV is demonstrating three new products at the show in the form of its Aqua, MediaStor and MediaXchange data management, transfer, monitoring and logging products.

MediaStor brings together storage technology media management software in one product. It acts as a fast buffer between specialist servers and can transfer data between most well known servers, enabling the system to store material from ingest, through media transfer between edit suites and playout. It can also act as a conduit during archive to and retrieval from tape storage devices.

The storage platform used by MediaStor is Suitcase TV's TeraStor, which was developed for broadcast logging. The system is easy to expand - requiring the simple addition of another TeraStor node, each offering between 6 to 12TB of storage.

Other features include data transfer rates in excess of 600Mbps; open-industry standard FTP communication; integration with tape storage without needing middleware; compatibility with their party servers such as Omneon, Seachange, Quantel, SGI and Avid; and optional integration with automation systems such as Omnibus, Pebble Beach and Harris Automation.

Also new from Suitcase TV is the Aqua range of software applications designed to tackle specific tasks within the broadcast production environment. Each application is simple to use and there is a consistent style and feel of operation across the Aqua range of applications making it easier to use and navigate.

Aqua modules can be acquired separately or combined with other modules allowing broadcasters to design their own customised workflow.

Aqua devices include Aqua Device Director for remotely controlling a variety of devices such as routers, logo inserters, VTRs and video servers; Aqua Ingest, which enables ingest from camera, tape or file in a multitude of formats from SDI to IMX; Aqua QC Analysis which examines video and audio files and prepares a report of the potential errors against timecode for operator intervention; Aqua TrakStacker, designed for simple addition and adjustment of audio tracks for broadcast; Aqua Metadata Editor, a fast and easy way of adding, editing and deleting the metadata associated with your video and audio content, including subtitles; and Aqua Content Browse, for browsing content at various resolutions, including 50i, directly from the server.

MediaXchange is the company's new format conversion, transcoding and video analysis toolset. It can work as a set of standalone applications or as part of a larger system such as MediaStor.

MediaXchange helps to simplify production workflows by eliminating the problems of file incompatibility between different broadcast servers, edit systems and storage devices. As a result, processing times can now be vastly reduced.

The system is operated within the Suitcase TV Aqua environment making the GUI instantly recognisable and easy to use. Aqua, MediaXchange and MediaStor are all fully mutually compatible and can be readily combined to create flexible media storage and management solutions.