The EditShare NAB 2015 showcase headlines include XStream EFS, the company’s new distributed, redundant “scale out” storage system that brings enterprise-class features to a broad range of facilities at breakthrough prices, and the latest release of the company’s media asset management platform, EditShare Flow 3.2.
New to EditShare’s shared storage product line, XStream EFS gives mission-critical media workgroups an open storage platform with smart collaboration features, such as project sharing, combined with blazing-fast performance, multiple levels of redundancy and tremendous scalability.
“XStream EFS is a game-changing product release for EditShare that brings ‘Enterprise Class Storage’ to even modest-sized facilities. It incorporates the clever media management tools EditShare is known for with an architecture developed from the ground up for large media workgroups and very large data volumes. And it’s ideal for mission-critical operations that require fast and reliable mass content management,” said Andy Liebman, founder and CEO, EditShare. “In addition to EditShare’s core high-bandwidth architecture, the XStream EFS system offers multiple layers of redundancy that can tolerate the failure of multiple drives, even an entire node. With XStream EFS, you have an intelligent, highly scalable media storage platform that’s rock-solid and affordable–the best of all worlds.”
Based on EditShare’s proven media management tools, the new EditShare XStream EFS solution was specially architected to support high-bandwidth, high-volume media ingest, transcoding, online collaborative editing and multiplatform distribution of HD, 2K, 4K and beyond. Whenever a file is written to an EFS system, pieces of the data–along with a second level of redundancy information–are spread across multiple nodes ensuring users get the combined speed of the nodes, plus extra file protection security. The High Availability architecture offers advanced redundancy and data protection features at multiple levels, including redundant metadata controllers, ensuring work continues irrespective of a hardware failure. Flexible storage capacity configuration options let facilities build storage systems from under 100 TB all the way up to five Petabytes.
EditShare Flow 3.2
The EditShare Flow 3.2 release features new format support, remote collaboration and automation capabilities, a “High Availability” database option, and other enhancements that help facilities build a more efficient production pipe. Topping the robust feature list are: expanded support for 4K codecs and single-file-per-frame formats such as DPX and CinemaDNG; download capabilities that expand the remote collaboration power of AirFlow, the web-based portal into Flow; and fully automated transcoding and delivery workflows.
“Flow is the key to building a much more efficient production workflow and minimizing the time spent manually ingesting, transcoding and moving media,” said Jeff Herzog, Flow product manager, EditShare. “Its wide-ranging format support combined with new Watch Folder and FTP delivery options will, in many cases, alleviate the need for dedicated transcoding tools, making Flow 3.2 a must-have platform. Facilities can automatically process and standardize a wide range of disparate incoming media formats, making content ready for editing as quickly as possible.”
Enhancements to AirFlow allow users to batch download both high-resolution media files as well as proxies via a web browser from anywhere in the world, opening up new possibilities for remote collaboration and proxy workflows. In addition, Flow’s expanded format support means facilities can better manage new and emerging 4K formats such as ProRes 4444, AVC-Ultra and XAVC as well as R3D files and “one-file-per-frame” formats including DPX, CinemaDNG, ARRIRAW, PNG and TIFF.
Review: Writer-Director Aaron Schimberg’s “A Different Man”
Imagine you could wake up one morning, stand at the mirror, and literally peel off any part of your looks you don't like — with only movie-star beauty remaining.
How would it change your life? How SHOULD it change your life?
That's a question – well, a launching point, really — for Edward, protagonist of Aaron Schimberg's fascinating, genre-bending, undeniably provocative and occasionally frustrating "A Different Man," featuring a stellar trio of Sebastian Stan, Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve.
The very title is open to multiple interpretations. Who (and what) is "different"? The original Edward, who has neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes bulging tumors on his face? Or the man he becomes when he's able to slip out of that skin? And is he "different" to others, or to himself?
When we meet Edward, a struggling actor in New York (Stan, in elaborate makeup), he's filming some sort of commercial. We soon learn it's an instructional video on how to behave around colleagues with deformities. But even there, the director stops him, offering changes. "Wouldn't want to scare anyone," he says.
On Edward's way home on the subway, people stare. Back at his small apartment building, he meets a young woman in the hallway, in the midst of moving to the flat next door. She winces visibly when she first sees him, as virtually everyone does.
But later, Ingrid (Reinsve) tries to make it up to him, coming over to chat. She is charming and forthright, and tells Edward she's a budding playwright.
Edward goes for a medical checkup and learns that one of his tumors is slowly progressing over the eye. But he's also told of an experimental trial he could join. With the possibility — maybe — of a cure.
So... Read More