Jasco Broadcast Solutions brings Object Matrix to Africa
COMPUTING
By BiztechAfrica – April 17, 2012, 10:12 a.m.
Jasco Broadcast Solutions has signed an agreement with global brand Object Matrix to bring the affordable and innovative MatrixStore digital archiving and storage solution to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
Their flagship product, MatrixStore, is a highly secure, scalable clustered storage solution aimed specifically at the broadcasting market, offering plug and play ease of use in a high availability disk-based storage system that protects digital content and allows for easy access and retrieval. Object Matrix is a software company based in Cardiff in the United Kingdom, comprising a team of storage industry experts. Jasco Broadcast Solutions felt the reseller agreement would complement their experienced team and enhance their suite of solutions.
“A major trend within the broadcast community, both locally and across the globe, is a move away from traditional film and towards digital file format broadcasting, as well as high definition and 3D. These formats all create huge data files that need to be stored securely. Object Matrix’s MatrixStore solution is the ideal product for the African market, as it is priced to appeal to smaller production and post-production houses while still providing all of the features and functionality required – a very positive proposition in this current economic climate” says Steve Lauter, Sales Manager Jasco Broadcast Solutions.
A further great benefit of the MatrixStore product is that it provides high availability with automatic fail-over and protection of content along with the ability to tag items with metadata for searching, offering ease of scaling by adding storage nodes in a “just-in-time” fashion. With the Interplay plugin, MatrixStore enables users to easily install and use Interplay, take advantage of Avid’s web services and gain low-cost entry level access, without the need for Avid’s Archive Manager.
“The MatrixStore solution integrates seamlessly with Avid workflows, which was a big selling point for Jasco. As the official representatives for Avid in the SADC region, this Avid-specific interfacing was very important in further enhancing a tailored solution. By adding the Object Matrix product to our lineup, including the Avid Interplay archiving plug in, we are now able to deliver a more comprehensive offering to our clients, which includes affordable storage and archiving,” Lauter adds.
Signing a reseller agreement with Jasco Broadcast Solutions enables Object Matrix to expand its geographical footprint into the African region, accessing new markets and providing customers in the region with end-to-end solutions and support.
Says Nick Pearce, co-founder of Object Matrix, “When looking to expand internationally, we approached Avid to find out which partners they would recommend working with. Jasco Broadcast Solutions came highly recommended by Avid for the region, with a sound reputation for excellence and a thorough knowledge of the market. After approaching them and seeing the synergies and cultural similarities between our organisations, we selected them as the ideal representative for our products.”
“Until now, digital broadcast storage has been prohibitively expensive, and post-production houses are beginning to look for more cost-effective options. The MatrixStore product is ideal for the African market, as it is not just a cost effective solution, it is also highly robust and resilient and fits neatly into the broadcasting environment by integrating with the tools that editors and post-production artists use,” he adds.
MatrixStore offers centralised storage that provides instant data protection and access to all assets in a scalable solution that requires little or no management, with the ability to add and search on Metadata and keep legacy content available online and browsable from Avid client machines. It delivers high availability of data with security against accidental or malicious deletion and automatic failover in the case of a hardware failure. The solution is also future-proofed through the ability to add in future storage technologies as and when they become available
Object Matrix’s MatrixStore solution is now available exclusively through Jasco Broadcast Solutions.
