Sony and French Dalet Collaborate

Sony Corporation announces its strategic partnership with Dalet Digital Media Systems (based in France) as part of the ongoing mission to develop high-capacity archiving solutions, named Optical Disc Archive for the video and broadcasting industries.

Optical Disc Archive offers file-based solutions by storing data in a compact cartridge with 12 optical discs. Dalet is a developer and supplier of media asset management (MAM) applications, with a customer base in video production and the broadcasting markets worldwide.

Sony is working towards solutions that integrate the Dalet Media Life MAM software with the Optical Disc Archive product line. Moving forward, Sony and Dalet will jointly propose　archiving solutions for a range of areas, including news and sports production, media digitization, and DR. The two companies will also collaborate in Solution Selling, System Integration/Delivery and Contract Services in order to provide customers with efficiency, benefitting from both application system to service and support.

"Sony continues to be a leading manufacturer of products that have contributed greatly to the broadcast industry," said Stephane Schlayen, COO, Dalet. "We are very pleased to provide the Dalet MAM platform as an integral part of Sony’s advanced archive system. MAM plays a critical role in managing media and metadata. Our combined best-of-breed technologies bring a versatile and sophisticated solution to the market."

The partnership will firstly start within the US and European markets and then will progressively be introduced to other areas.

Demonstrations of Dalet Media Life were available on the Sony booth at NAB.

Expansion of Optical Disc Archive Product Line-up
At the NAB show, drive units and extended libraries currently under development were showcased as a technical exhibition in order to propose faster and more extensible systems. In particular, the forthcoming ODS-D77U/F drive systems are to deliver double the read and write speeds of the current drives, making them for storage of high-bit-rate movies, TV shows, and commercials. ODS-L30M, ODS-L60E, and ODS-L100E extensible libraries provide sufficient capacity to meet the demanding requirements of broadcast studios and other high-volume data users. They are planned to be launched to the market in autumn, 2013.

Collaboration with Middleware Companies
Regarding middleware which connects Dalet Media Life and Optical Disc Archive, Sony will collaborate with middleware companies. Namely, Front Porch Digital and QStar Technologies have announced their plans to support Optical Disc Archive in 2013. Sony showed technology demonstration of content storage management with Front Porch Digital’s DIVArchive, which works with Optical Disc Archive at the NAB 2013 Sony booth in collaboration with Front Porch Digital.

The Optical Disc Archive Advisory Group
Sony has been organizing The Optical Disc Archive Advisory Group open to participation by media and entertainment companies from across the globe to further build the market for video image archive solutions. The role of the group is to provide a solution and application software environment that proposes specifications and system architectures, among other responsibilities, while anticipating future trends and demand in the archive solutions segment.

Sony continues working with a number of broadcasters to support them make the transition across to Optical Disc Archive:

• TV Globo, broadcaster for Brazil and the worldwide Portuguese/Spanish communities, has selected Optical Disc Archive ODS-D77F and Petasite Library products ODS-L30M, L30E/100E as main archiving format for their enterprise Archive & Digitization Project. It will start archiving to Optical Disc Archive over time, while disruption of its daily operational workflow will be kept minimal. Installation will begin in the Winter 2013.
• IMAGICA Corp., a production company in Japan, has introduced Optical Disc Archive Verification system using Optical Disc Archive as archival media in their production workflow. Durability, reliability, generational compatibility and efficiency coupled with smooth migration from current media asset played a key role in its decision.