Another eventful NAB Show is behind us. Once again, the media and entertainment masses ascended upon warm Las Vegas to attend the industry’s largest tradeshow, the National Association of Broadcasters, to learn about new technologies and trends, in the hopes of gaining a leg up on the competition. There were four main buzzes in the Spectra Logic booth to be noted: Cloud, BlackPearl, migration and integration.
Cloud
Everyone is all about the cloud, and it was no different at NAB. So what exactly is it? Plain and simple, its hosting. Cloud is someone else hosting your applications, your computing your storage, etc., on a device somewhere else via https. Essentially, it means users don’t have to own hardware or physical space to accommodate processing or storage. Including cloud as part of a hybrid storage strategy is commonplace today. Spectra’s BlackPearl hybrid storage ecosystem accommodates cloud mandates by creating a storage environment that stores content both locally, on-premise, as well as in the public cloud. The mix of storing assets on-premise and in the public cloud provides layers of protection for content and the most effective means to accessing assets affordably when they are needed.
TMD has over 20 years of experience delivering software solutions and services for MAM, DAM and Content Supply Chain Management solutions to a global blue chip client base. TMD clients include organisations in the evolving new media sector, as well as those in the traditional media, broadcast and audiovisual archive sectors. TMD’s Mediaflex-UMS (Unified Media Services) platform provides a comprehensive business solution that can be implemented as a Cloud hosted, on-premise, or in a hybrid configuration, providing both CAPEX and OPEX licensing models. Mediaflex-UMS is the media sectors most powerful, flexible and configurable workflow orchestration and automation application, found in any media-aware software platform available today. The Mediaflex-UMS MetaServer database environment has the media sectors most comprehensive and flexible data model, providing extensive metadata tagging, AI and discoverability for users and automated processes alike, whilst delivering the capability for complete and scalable end-to-end workflow solutions. Mediaflex-UMS supports the management of both physical media, such as film and tape, as well as all formats of digital content. Headquartered close to London in the UK, TMD’s global reach includes office locations in the USA, Malaysia and Australia.
Tiger Technology designs, markets, and supports innovative shared storage solutions that maximize workflow, performance and value. Our mission is to empower world-class organizations to share, manage and migrate their data more easily. Our range of solutions suit any application or deployment and lets you extract the maximum system performance possible, whatever the platform. They include simple project, media and data management workflow tools for shared storage (SAN, NAS) administration, clustering, pooling, hierarchical storage management and tiering, for use with enterprise data, editorial, visual effects and animation, and surveillance and medical applications. They are available in appliance, software-only and enterprise-class server forms. 
Imagen helps businesses, sports organisations and media companies to manage and distribute their ever growing media libraries. This ensures fast, easy, secure and controlled access to content through a highly-customisable content portal. With video representing 60 percent of global data – and set to grow further – Imagen Ltd ensures companies can preserve their valuable content for the future and enable them to maximise its value. Imagen has over 1 million hours of video stored on behalf of leading brands.
Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, future-proof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission-critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. 
BlackPearl for VSNExplorer
Vizrt provides real-time 3D graphics, video playout, studio automation, sports analysis, journalist story tools, and asset management tools for the media and entertainment industry. This includes interactive and virtual solutions, animations, maps, weather, story and video editing, compositing, and multiplatform VOD and live playout tools. Vizrt has customers in more than 100 countries worldwide and the list keeps growing each day. This is made possible by nearly 600 engaged and very competent employees in 40 offices around the world. Vizrt’s business model provides its customers with complete packages, including hardware, professional services, installations, support, etc. Vizrt’s products are used by the world’s leading broadcasters, including CNN, CBS, Fox, BBC, BSkyB, Sky Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Al Jazeera, NDR, ITN, ZDF, Star TV, Network 18, TV Today, CCTV, NHK and the list keeps growing. Furthermore, many world-class production houses and corporate institutions such as the London Stock Exchange use Vizrt systems.
Focused and dynamic, Suitcase TV is a UK company specialising in software solutions for the broadcast industry since 2000.
The BlackPearl and Ngenea integration provides seamless storage tiering from primary storage to BlackPearl within user’s Spectrum Scale and PixStor environments, without having to rely on complicated software packages. Providing a single, simple ingest point, data flow is managed to each storage tier, while preserving easy access to content.
Providing Integrated & Automated Data Governance Platforms
NL Technology is an award winning innovator of solutions that bring cost efficiency and automation to file based acquisition and digital content management workflows since 2000. The talented development team at NL Technology continues to put forth solutions that bring efficiency and cost savings to their customers with tools that enhance and simplify operations.
Marquis moves media and metadata between different systems in broadcast and post-production workflows.
Levels Beyond is the Denver-based company behind the software platform Reach Engine that allows companies to create and curate video content on new era tools and enable smart, secure and elastic cloud services in sync with media workflow. With Reach Engine, Levels Beyond has created an evolvable and customizable system serving more than 70 Tier One clients internationally. Levels Beyond partners with companies of all sizes to create innovative solutions that advance media businesses. Learn more at 
Komprise, the first intelligent data management service, empowers businesses to efficiently manage today’s massive scale of data growth while unlocking its value. The Komprise mission is to radically simplify data management through intelligent automation. The Komprise team has a successful track record with two prior businesses of eliminating storage/IT cost and complexity. Backed by Canaan Partners, Komprise was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, go to 
The free, open-source Java Command Line Interface (CLI) is a simple tool to move files between local storage and BlackPearl. The Java CLI can be used to move files manually or automatically on a scheduled basis.
IPV Curator helps content creators to save time while creating more media. It enables users to make their content-oriented workflows more efficient, from ingest, to tagging, editing, file delivery and archiving. Curator is used globally by all kinds of content creators including traditional broadcasters, colleges and houses of worship. Its advanced capabilities include intuitive searching, remote cloud editing, and working on live growing content.
The free, open-source Eon Browser provides a simple drag-and-drop interface to move files between local storage and BlackPearl.
Cyberduck is a free, open source client for transferring files between servers, including both public and private cloud environments. The user interacts with the interface, including file transfer, by drag and drop and notifications via Growl. Cyberduck includes a bookmark manager and supports Windows system tray notifications and Apple’s Keychain and Bonjour networking. It supports over 25 different languages, allowing for rapid deployment into existing workflows.
CatDV is an easy to use yet uniquely powerful media asset management system used across a wide range of industries as a media database, logging, automation and collaboration tool. Ultimately CatDV helps companies find and reuse their media assets, helping teams collaborate, getting more done, saving both time and money.
Avid is the world’s leading provider of audio and video technology for media organizations and independent professionals. Avid solutions allow for the creation, distribution, and monetizing of the most prestigious and award-winning films, videos, music recordings, TV shows, live concerts, and news broadcasts.
Arcitecta specializes in data management systems for large-scale distributed data. Our core product, Mediaflux™, is an operating system for metadata and data enabling distributed groups of people to share, manipulate and manage any type of data.
ArcaStream enables companies to cost effectively store and manage their data assets. They provide highly scalable, efficient, enterprise class storage, network and archive solutions for the Oil & Gas, Life Science, Education and Research sectors. Their data centric approach simplifies data management within existing workflow and makes them the perfect partner for the supply and support of software defined storage solutions.