Pharos launch Mediator 3 at IBC 2007
Stand 10.431, IBC, Amsterdam RAI, September 7-11
Pharos stand at IBC2007
Expand your Broadcast Horizon
Celebrating both its 10th anniversary and the release of Mediator 3 at IBC 2007, Pharos offers broadcasters and transmission service providers a unique combination of solutions for efficient multi-channel workflow.
Mediator 3 will be on show in conjunction with Pharos well established Playtime Automation and Pilot Reactive Desktop Control systems.
Following collaboration with several new customers in 2007 Mediator 3 delivers many new groundbreaking features for better media management in broadcast, IPTV, interactive and mobile content distribution. Pharos Mediator 3 is based on an all-new blade server platform and uses Oracle 10g enabling customers to cost effectively increase their output by improving efficiency within their existing technology infrastructures.
"Pharos Mediator 3 is a unique combination of the very latest IT power and Pharos own 10 years of experience in best-of-breed broadcast partners; technology. Using Mediator 3 and Pharos software integration services, broadcasters and transmission service providers can now bring previously disparate systems under one unified enterprise, adding desktop browse, advanced library management and new management reporting. Mediator can accommodate many customers own existing and future technology choices in areas like storage technology, media formats, transcoding and creative services. We are now turning our attention increasingly to direct integration with customers own in-house business management systems to offer very efficient end to end workflows.
"Mediator 3 offers a highly configurable and straightforward "roles and tasks" based approach to workflow design that provides each operator with the precise information required to perform their role and get media ready for transmission and publishing more efficiently. I would encourage customers seeking a mid or enterprise level media management solution to come and discuss their current requirements and proposed system architectures with us at the show" Says Russell Grute at Pharos.
NEW: Pharos Mediator 3 media management system
Enterprise integration for post production and creative services
Pharos Mediator 3 now integrates a wider range of post production and graphics systems to provide a better workflow for creative services departments. Systems including Apple Final Cut Pro, Quantel and Avid can be combined using Mediator 3s enterprise transcoding and transfer management to provide desktop browse for archive/library research shot selection and approvals for example. This enables more versions of programs and promotions to be produced within existing creative services infrastructures, to roll out new services such as multi-language, High Definition, IPTV, VoD, interactive and mobile. An enterprise Mediator workflow based around Final Cut Pro will used throughout the show.
Library and Ingest Management
Mediator 3 offers a wide range of new library management facilities including shelf management and new material handling devices to speed up ingest operations, reduce data entry errors, quality control and spot check at every desktop using browse and/or online viewing. The move to file based workflow still requires accurate management of many forms of physical media, with many different tape formats, plus new formats such as XDCam HD discs and P2 cartridges being used side by side. The new Pharos wireless handheld barcode scanner and rack-mount bar-code scanner are introduced to improve accurate registration of all physical media throughout the material lifecycle.
Mediators powerful Oracle 10g database keeps track of all physical media, shelf positions and out of the library locations alongside the many different simultaneous file based versions that are created in daily operations for multi channel transmission and publishing.
Intelligent Storage Management
The Mediator 3 Transfer and Storage Management layer balances the needs of bandwidth, capacity, expansion and resilience within the media management workflow. Media can be staged to the most efficient layer in the storage architecture as required. Mediator 3 allows an independent choice of multi tiered storage subsystems from both broadcast vendors and enterprise IT systems and can accommodate high performance disk and data tape based technology side by side. Intermediate high performance storage can be integrated with systems including Isilon IQ clustered storage and Omneon Media Grid and, for data tape the latest version of Front Porch Diva and Xen Data are already rolled out to customers. The integration and on-going support of all high performance storage sub systems can be handled in-house by Pharos and can now be covered under new Pharos Service Level Agreements.
Management reporting
Mediator 3 Management Reporting provides real time graphical reports to creative, operational and engineering supervisors of key system metrics such as workflow states and system performance. This allows better management and reconfiguration of the system in daily use, tracking workflow, multi tiered storage performance, transfer and transcode resources, allowing supervisors to inspect system performance at every point in the process chain. Mediator 3 Management Reporting is configurable and can be viewed securely at the both locally and remotely to complement the Pharos Infocentre web interface which gives an additional detailed real time technical audit trail for the entire system right down to device and driver level.
Component level media management
Pharos Mediator 3 using Oracle 10g has the power to manage media assets at a component level throughout their lifecycle. Mediator can track the thousands of video, audio, graphics and subtitles as components required in any size of multichannel and multi platform system. These components are combined for transmission and publishing using the unique Pharos "template" and "package" concept, established in Pharos Playtime Automation, as required by the particular distribution platform. Pharos "packages" are now used throughout Mediator workflows to combine media assets according to business rules generated by customers own business systems (such as schedules, pricing, availability or distribution rights). This can be used in transmission, for example, to power presentation systems architected from discreet devices or the increasingly popular channel-in-a-box solutions. The significant benefit however is in wider distribution such as interactive, IPTV or mobile, where the same media assets can be reworked and redistributed with new versions using any number of Pharos "Packages". By enabling the media assets, task workflow and business information to be de-coupled and combined from the database as required Mediator offers the most flexible and efficient workflow.
Mediator Export facility
The new Export facility is used to externalise media and files from the system to create intermediate copies of work-in-progress for operators who cannot be connected cost effectively to the browse system, such as outworkers and remote locations. Examples include tape copies and DVDs for approvals, subtitling and compliance operations. Exported materials or files can pass new metadata back to Mediator or be re registered and re ingested once the intermediate task is complete to allow workflow to proceed to the next stage. When using Mediator Export alongside the transmission operations and newer multiplatform publishing, Mediator 3 provides all the tools to streamline operations.
Blade Server platform for Mediator 3 with Oracle 10g.
Mediator 3 has been designed from the ground-up to use a new multiple blade-server platform to use enterprise strength IT and deliver a configurable and highly resilient architecture. To-date typical broadcast control and media management architectures have required an ever increasing number of individual application servers. This is often difficult to configure in 24/7 operations and usually requires an over-complex IT network architecture. Pharos has developed a solution to this problem by redesigning the Mediator architecture to use an all-new multiple blade-server system comprising a 64 bit SuSE Linux core. Common control layers such as transfer management and device control are clustered onto individual high performance blades whilst others deal with user interface management. The new platform also features embedded integration of Oracle 10g using the very latest "high availability mode". The integration and support of Oracle 10g is handled in-house by Pharos and can be covered under new Pharos Service Level Agreements removing the need for customers to have their own database administrator.
Pharos systems have always featured a unique mirrored X/Y architecture and new blade servers bring this architecture cost effectively to enterprise level. Easy to upgrade and support the unique X/Y architecture provides real resilience in 24/7 operations with easy switch over of users, services and devices. Pharos X-Y offers a truly redundant path for real-time parallel system testing and expansion in the Y side. This allows operational and technical managers to test new services, upgrades and configurations off-line but within their normal working environment with real devices and users before committing to air.
Staff attending IBC2007 will include: Roger Heath, Spencer Rodd, Russell Grute, David Barnes, Piers Bertrand, Andy Lambourne, Steve Robinson, Jason King, Nigel Haycock, Paul Scott, Emma Hurt, Hannah Trimble, Jon Smith, James Green, Danny Wozny, Rob Zebedee, Luke Garner, Alex Wilton and Michael Donovan
phpr-167
Pharos wireless PDA-based barcode scanner
Published on 25 Aug 2007