Marquis Unveils New Features For Medway Media Highway At NAB

"Marquis Broadcast, specialist in broadcast workflow studies and software solutions, is announcing a number of new developments for its Medway Media Highway system at NAB 2007, including extended support for HD, and powerful new transcoding capabilities.

Marquis also announces integration with a range of broadcasting systems including, for the first time, Avid MediaStream playout servers.

Medway enables media files from multiple sources to be moved seamlessly between multiple vendor platforms without incurring bottlenecks in workflow caused by file incompatibility. Media is moved at full capacity network speeds and with complete reliability in any format including DV and 50-Mbps IMX.

Marquis is announcing extended HD support for Medway, enabling media captured on Sony XDCAMHD and DVCPro100 camcorders to be quickly and easily transferred between file servers and postproduction and broadcasting applications using Medway as the media highway. Users will be able to browse files captured using Sony XDCAM HD and DVCPro100, and read and write them to a range of servers by rewrapping media and its associated metadata in the appropriate formats to ensure the process is smooth and efficient. This functionality adds to that already available for Ikegami FieldPak and Panasonic P2 media storage.

Marquis is also showing Medway’s powerful new media transcoding functions enabling broadcasters to achieve higher levels of interoperability in their acquisition to playout processes. Medway is now able to transcode video sequences created on Avid and other editing systems quickly and easily to a range of servers for immediate playback. Medway transcoding is compatible with DV25 PAL and NTSC with stereo audio, and PC-based Avid systems, Leitch Nexio 4000 and 3600, .AVI PC based servers, and Omneon QuickTime. Broadcasters no longer need to spend time outputting to tape and re-ingesting media. Instead, Medway automatically initiates a fast transfer from the source application to the target destination server in the selected format.

Marquis and Avid have agreed a number of partnership and licensing agreements. Medway now supports all DNxHD formats and includes support for the Avid MediaStream server. Medway also supports Interplay systems, with extended metadata support under development."

source