Shared Storage Solution: GVG Media Area Network

In response to the differences that currently exist between what you have and what you actually need from shared storage products, which also limit users' ability to have simultaneous access to high-quality video and the tools to manipulate that video, Grass Valley Group GVG announced the launch of the Media Area Network (MAN) option. It is a real-time shared storage solution, based on the Profile XP platform of the same house. This alternative offers an uncompromising response to the shared storage demands that content creators are currently demanding.

MAN provides users with simultaneous access to tools that reside in conventional networks based on the Windows NT standard, such as editors and connections between networks (gateways), and access to broadcast-quality video recordings from Profile devices.

Within an available infrastructure built on high-speed Fibre Channel technology, Media Area Network MAN, is a wide-bandwidth real-time solution that offers more than 40 video channels and more than 300 audio channels that share a common storage network, protected by arrays with capacity for thousands of hours of premium video and audio materials. Currently, it is the only solution on the market that offers shared storage with the possibilities that allows real-time operation and the degree of accessibility of Windows NT. Its architecture is designed to support future applications such as streaming video for the internet and interactive television.

The idea of removing compatibility barriers in networks so that digicasters can extract the best levels of efficiency from their production workflows, from capture, editing and searching to web publishing or streaming, is the raison d'être of this option. Grass Valley MAN allows the seamless integration of applications from other developers and reduces disk requirements for storage, offering centralized asset management and other functionalities such as remote monitoring based on Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and diagnostic capabilities, all this, while delivering real-time quality of service for final over-the-air playback and recording activities.

This system offers a flexible solution for adding Storage Area Networks (SAN) appliances. This approach greatly improves workflow in environments where audiovisual assets are shared between various video servers, editors and other devices.

But the heart of Grass Valley MAN is the compatibility it offers with the Windows NT operating system. Any type of mechanism or appliance such as a media server, editing station, or any type of gateway that supports Windows NT can use the Media Area Network (MAN) option to create access to shared media files. File management is simplified as there is only one example of any asset and it does not need to be copied in order for it to be available access.

It is a solution built on an infrastructure configured on industry standards such as Windows NT, Fibre Channel and Ethernet technologies and makes it a flexible option that allows for growth programmed over time.

Users can have confidence in their investment because MAN has the best of technologies from both media production and the systems and computer industry, enabling the reconfiguration or expansion of the system according to the needs of the market and its operations.

To support both the bandwidth needed for standard definition and high definition signals (up to 80 Mbps), the MAN option relies on the high speed of the network built with Fibre Channel, which provides a wide-bandwidth disk storage solution with 1Gbps connections between any Profile server and each array of disks (RAID) installed in the MAN option. Achieve this capability through redundancy options that support the flawless design that is crucial to meeting the demands of content creators and broadcasters. It has the possibility of dynamic expansion of both capacity and video channels and supports MPEG and DVCPRO formats.

Called ContentShare, from GVG as well, this technology is complementary to the MAN option and is the tool offered by this company for the management of audiovisual assets. It is a software platform designed for the correct management and administration of media assets that allows the increase of efficiency in the processes in a media environment, removing the obstacles of the incompatibility of the applications and the expensive process of writing custom interfaces to facilitate communication between platforms, development that, in addition, demands a lot of time.

The MAN option has also included in its design the rapid detection of faults and the function of notification and diagnosis of problems through NetCentral, which is another software solution for remote monitoring based on SNMP of Grass Valley Group. If there is a problem, the NetCentral app has the ability to alert a team member through a graphical user interface, or by sending an email, or message to a locator or communicating directly to their mobile phone. In the case of the Grass Valley MAN option, the NetCentral software sends an alert warning when drives in a RAID subsystem are detecting higher than normal media error rates, typical precursor to a failure in one of them.

Finally, this option allows broadcasters and creators of high-value content to make significant inroads in their search for new income opportunities, while maintaining an increase in investment through compatibility with the Profile XP media platform. It is an ideal solution for those who need to share media assets and access them with a wide variety of tools.

It is the basis of the system that allows you to share files. The Profile XP media platform is actually a high-performance video server, with the ability to support the highest standards required for the broadcasting of television signals and, also, for the supply of low-resolution signals required for internet streaming video operations. Similarly, it is enabled to handle formats such as MPEG, DVCPRO, High Definition HD and MPEG Transport Streams MTS formats.

Profile XP offers a modular upgrade path from standard definition SD to HD. It is open to new applications within and outside the facility such as news production, interactive television, digital cinema and the internet. It is a solution that seems to have no limits in its expansion capabilities, supports high-speed networks and already has more than 50 software developers around the world.

On this platform operate other solutions of Grass Valley Group such as the automatic mirroring software InSync, the encoder for internet Aqua, the software platform for file management ContentShare and the non-linear editing system for news NewsEdit.