Avid NEXIS Gives Israel’s Largest Post House 4K and Shared Workflow Capabilities
By Adam Noyes
Shared storage and shared work spaces, like many technological advances, are becoming more widespread. The desire to implement shared storage devices like the Avid | NEXIS Pro and shared work spaces like Avid MediaCentral is a global trend. The well-known post-production house Opus in Israel has always tried to stay ahead of the trends. Seeing how these new devices can help any post-production team, Opus has outfitted their centers with these Avid shared devices and software to help power there Avid suites. Using software like Media Composer and other workstations with Media Composer | Symphony Option bringing in the NEXIS units make for flexibility in storage and with MediaCentral the collaboration just becomes easier and easier. With Avid constantly pushing the envelope in shared media, we can’t help but think what’s next?
Opus isn’t just Israel’s largest post-production house. With three locations—two in Tel Aviv and another in Jerusalem—it just might rival the size and capabilities of any facility on the planet. Its stats are staggering. With 20 full-time staff and more than 200 editors coming through their doors at any given time, Opus’ workflow is powered by MediaCentral and boasts 100 Avid suites, including 20 Media Composer workstations, with Media Composer | Symphony Option providing color correction and mastering capabilities. Multiple Pro Tools suites enable the most sophisticated post-production sound design. Recently the facility added a range of Avid NEXIS software-defined storage solutions to better support the latest high-resolution workflows and collaborative post production.]
Many of the country’s hugely popular reality shows, including Master Chef, X Factor, Israel’s Got Talent, and the Israeli version of American Idol, are all completed at Opus. With demanding, time-dependent workflows, Opus needed to ensure its Avid suites had the necessary audio and video tools, easy access to media, and significantly, a collaborative environment.
The power of Avid NEXIS | PRO and Avid NEXIS | E4 storage engines enables uncompressed 4K coloring, a first for the facility. It also brings time savings and greater efficiency. “It’s the first time we started working in a shared environment in high-resolution workflows,” says Dori. “It’s a major step for us and for the entire industry in Israel.” Prior to the NEXIS upgrade, online work was conducted on local storage which caused bottlenecks for reality programming in particular. Junior editors would have to wait until lead editors were finished before the next stage could be completed. Now transcoding can begin while an online editor is working in the same suite. Media can be shared instantly and editing functions conducted simultaneously….[continue reading]
