Cache-A LTO4-A and SyncSy

Posted By Mark L. Pederson on April 20, 2009 12:00 am | Permalink
CACHE-A is showing their LTO4-A series data tape decks. Offhollywood uses LTO3A for archive and we've been inter-acting with the team at Cache-A on feature requests and we are super excited about this product. Key highlights are: span archives across multiple cartridges, standard LTO-4 tape TAR compatibility, back-read Quantum LTO-3 A cartridges, simultaneous multi-user access, Windows, OSX, Unix, Samba, NFS, afp, Bonjour, FTP and CONTENT AWARE - meaning it stores a media meta-data in a directory. MXF, .mov and R3D file types to be supported. There is a 1T drive inside the unit that stores the directory of every tape that the machine ever sees, creating a fully-searchable database which can be exported as an XML.

One thing I enjoy about these trade shows is finding a small company you never even heard of that has an interesting product. Today I found SyncSy.com. Syncsy.com is a file transfer services for "businesses needing a higher degree of security, speed and manageability. Syncsy.com allows you to fully automate the process of sending large files and folders. It is a perfect replacement for FTP and Web Uploads/Downloads for situations that demand a higher degree of automation."

So, it's a SaaS (software as a service) for $49.99 a month. It's true P2P - no servers. So, unlike solutions like Yousendit.com and FTP - you never send your media to the cloud. You create PORTALS on Mac, Windows, Linux and you send users an email with a LINK that they click on - it asks them where they want to have the sync folder - and it writes the folder. You get charged $9.99 per USER per month. Now, you can just drag and drop files and they will be sent WITH WAN ACCELERATION - SSL ENCRYPTED.

So, this is a very cool tool for distributing QuickTime dailies - and the media never lives on a third-party server. You can manage the users - add and delete them, etc. Dreamworks is using this to sync AVID UNITY systems. I was very impressed with the demo - there is also a product called DNASync-ISAN for high-speed nearline sync, etc. 

Other things that caught my eye:

EIZO is showing their new ColorEdge CG232W monitor. 10-bit, HD-SDI input, 3D LUT - approx $12K - and BARCO is showing their RHDM-2301 Grade-1 LCD display - a "P" model for Professional at approx. $24K and "B" model for broadcast - price TBD.

BLACKMAGIC has a few new things - most interesting to me is the 3 Gb/s converters for HD-SDI to Optical Fiber and Optical Fiber to HD-SDI - $495.

SONY has a 3.8K display, shipping in October - price TBD.