M+E Connections

NAB 2017: Azure, Dolby Connect with Avid; Sony Upgrades Ci Cloud Platform

LAS VEGAS — During its annual Connect conference, held in conjunction with the NAB Show, media tech provider Avid announced a series of partnerships, including new collaborations with Microsoft Azure and Dolby.

Azure is now Avid’s go-to cloud hosting platform, with the two companies agreeing to develop numerous Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings, built on MediaCentral, Avid’s collection of creative tools and media workflow solutions.

The multi-year agreement calls for Microsoft to invest resources and funding in Avid-based cloud-based solutions, along with specific Azure-based cloud services for the media and entertainment industry, with Avid supplying Azure exclusive hosting and media services, integrated into its portfolio of cloud-based solutions.

“With the industry’s preeminent global community of media enterprises and creative professionals that make up Avid’s client base, the company’s unique platform approach and its extensive domain knowledge, combined with our own powerful Azure cloud platform, we believe that this unique alliance is well-positioned to lead the media industry into the cloud,” said Scott Guthrie, EVP of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group. “Microsoft is pleased to collaborate with such a market leader in media and entertainment, and feel strongly that together our companies will produce something powerful for the industry — creating an intelligent, media-savvy cloud solution.”

Avid and Azure expect their partnership to result in new hosting and service offerings before the end of the year.

“The combination of these two strong technology innovators will set the pace for the industry,” said Avid CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr. “The depth and breadth of this technical and commercial collaboration will drive significant value for our mutual clients and help them successfully navigate their own journey to the cloud.

“Our competitive evaluations of the leading cloud providers showed that Microsoft Azure is the most open, trusted and global cloud platform that also enables true hybrid-cloud computing —which we believe is very important to media enterprises.”

Meanwhile, Avid also announced that its latest professional digital audio workstation offering Avid Pro Tools will offer native mixing for Dolby Atmos, the next-gen, object-based sound technology.

The new version of Pro Tools promises to offer audio post professionals built-in Dolby Atmos panning, mixing control surface integration, and advanced automation with Dolby’s Rendering and Mastering Unit (RMU).

“Dolby Atmos is becoming the hottest thing in cinema and home theater, enabling filmmakers to deliver bigger, more immersive audio experiences,” said Dana Ruzicka, chief product officer for Avid. “We’ve worked closely with Dolby to deliver an unparalleled workflow to empower our user community of world-class audio professionals to raise the bar for immersive sound in movies, TV, music, and video games. It’s another example of the deeply integrated workflow you won’t find anywhere else, powered by the Avid MediaCentral platform.”

Also at NAB, Sony announced it’s acquiring broadcast automation software and services company Crispin Corp., a move Sony says will help It offer new workflow application solutions in content distribution and management.

“Sony is focused on helping our customers find efficiencies in every aspect of their business, from automated workflows to location free media access to flexibility and speed in moving files, ͟ said John Studdert, VP of sales and marketing for Sony Electronics. “Our customers expect a one-stop source when making solutions-based decisions. Now with Crispin a part of the Sony family, we can install and integrate the best technology available, together with providing content creation, monitoring and distribution services.”

Sony also announced that its expanding its offerings under its Media Cloud Services (MCS) platform (also known as Ci), with more than 1,000 enhancements across more than two dozen Ci cloud features, along with the introduction of Ci Archive, a cloud-based archive solution that “leverages Ci’s sharing and collaboration capabilities, while benefitting from even lower storage costs. Proxies remain accessible from any device while source files are safely archived and available at the click of a button,” Sony said in a statement.