News

Marquis Enhances Medway with Full Support for Avid Interplay, Extended HD Support, and New Metadata Functionality (24/7/2008)

Marquis Broadcast, specialist in broadcast workflow studies and software integration solutions, will be launching a new version of its Medway interoperability engine at IBC 2008. Medway 2.3 will be demonstrated with a range of new features including seamless integration with Avid's Interplay digital production environment, wider support for HD formats, and more powerful metadata handling capabilities. The new features will bring higher levels of systems integration to today's challenging broadcasting workflows by enabling a greater range of best of breed systems to exchange media between processes in a powerful, smooth and secure environment.

"Medway is consistently chosen by broadcasters who need fast and reliable delivery of content for infrastructures where multiple hardware platforms and software architectures are interconnected," said Granby Patrick, Partner Director, Marquis Broadcast Ltd. "At IBC 2008, we are proud to present the broadcasting community with the most mature, feature-rich version of Medway yet."

Marquis will be highlighting Medway integration with Avid Interplay web services API. In addition to transferring media directly into an Avid NLE system it will be possible to write metadata directly into the Interplay database, in a pre-configured folder in the Interplay tree structure, using the Interplay GUI. It will also be possible to configure folders in the Interplay tree structure so that clips and sequences can be automatically transferred to the required destination. Medway V2.3 has extensive metadata handling capabilities for the creation, capture and movement of all types of metadata in and out of Interplay. This can also be customised for integration with third party MAM systems.

Increased support for a range of manufacturers' hardware platforms will also be demonstrated, including Apple MAC OS X Leopard (10.5) support for Medway clients, and implementation of Medway genealogy functionality and native DVCPRO-100 HD on Final Cut Pro. The addition of genealogy gives users the ability to investigate the history and parentage of source content and clips relating to an edited sequence. This includes source video tracks, slow-mo or off-speed sequences, audio tracks, FX processing as well as other XML metadata. A beneficial spin-off of this feature is the creation of information that can be compiled for usage, performance, royalties or rights billing reports. Medway V2.3 will include an updated API that enables operators to extend integration options and increase functionality when integrating with external broadcast automation systems.

Marquis will be demonstrating Medway's enhanced support for HD formats, including DNxHD, MPEG-2 HD long GOP, MPEG-2 HD I frame, DVCPRO-100 HD and Sony XDCAM HD 50 422, and additional flexibility for bidirectional transcoding from DNxHD to either MPEG-2 long GOP or MPEG-2 I frame. These new expanded HD capabilities provide broadcasters and content producers with more flexibility when migrating their workflows from SD to HD processes.

Medway V2.3 will feature an extended, highly sophisticated set of metadata handling capabilities that will enable operators to achieve more tightly integrated media transfers between a broader range of broadcasting, postproduction and back office administrative systems. These will be of particular benefit when using the EDL transfer capability to restore high resolution files back to a craft edit seat based on a Marquis EDL. New features include support for handles and bridges in the EDL; support for audio levels and video FX; and sub-clips back into Avid editing systems. Support has been added for EDLs with no wrappers, ie separate raw video and .WAV files.

Finally, Medway V2.3 also has new metadata functionality that sees the creation of temporal metadata that can be used to drive downstream process. By identifying and extracting pairs of 'locators' or 'markers' to derive media segments, Medway can capture and handle temporal metadata that can be used to initiate or trigger downstream processes such as advertising and spot inserts in multi-platform, multi-channel broadcasting environments.

www.marquisbroadcast.com  

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