Around the globe, content creators and distributors in the broadcast, entertainment and media industries face the daunting challenge of storing, managing and protecting their valuable content assets. Front Porch believes that an integrated approach to storing and managing digital media content is vital to your production and broadcast operations.

Front Porch Digital is the leader in the emerging market for Content Storage Management systems. With over 300 installs in more than 60 countries, Front Porch Digital manages the largest broadcast archives in operation in the world. Our products, interoperable with a wide range of the industry’s leading broadcast applications and devices, allow you to manage, search, protect, share, and convert your content regardless of where it resides.

Learn more about Front Porch Digital’s products

DIVArchive - Create an integrated approach to managing your content through this industry-leading Content Storage Management system.

DIVAdirector - Search, view and manage archived content from any desktop through this option to the DIVArchive Content Storage Management system.

DIVAnet - Move content seamlessly between geographically distant DIVArchive sites for global content sharing and disaster recovery needs.

DIVAprotect - Constantly monitor your digital storage infrastructure through DIVAprotect which warns you about media or tape drive degradation before it results in reduced performance or, even worse, catastrophic data loss.

DIVAworks - Take advantage of entry-level content archiving in a Plug-and-Play single box.

DIVArchive is the industry-leading Content Storage Management (CSM) system that enables customers to manage and leverage their video content regardless of where it resides. Now with over 300 installations worldwide, DIVArchive is the global market leader within the broadcast and media and entertainment industries. It is also proven in applications within government, museum, and other archival environments.

DIVArchive has proven interfaces with all of the leading broadcast automation and MAM systems and allows you to create a unified Content Storage Management system of your near-line disk and data tape libraries. DIVArchive was created so that all content could be ingested, tracked, managed, converted and made available for playout with as little effort as possible.

DIVArchive is designed for:

• Any company, organization or government agency that needs to manage video content throughout the entire life-cycle, from ingest to long-term preservation
• Journalists, editors or other users wishing to automate searching and accessing offline storage media for editing and playout
• The new media environment where content must be easily leveraged for emerging revenue opportunities
• Any company making the transition from an SD to HD environment

Smooth Implementation

DIVArchive has been successfully installed in over 60 countries. Our success is built upon taking the time to consult with our customers, understand their needs, design a solution, and follow through with excellent integration services and long-term support.

Front Porch encourages you to speak with our current customers or read what our customers have to say about us. We are confident that you will hear compelling reasons why Front Porch Digital manages the majority of the world’s largest digital video archives.

For more information, click here to download the brochure.

DIVArchive Version 6.2 Third Party Software Components (Version: 3, May 27, 2009)

DIVArchive Version 6.3 Third Party Software Components (Version: 4, January 12, 2010)

DIVArchive Apple FCP and FCS Interfaces Version 01.00.01 Third Party Software Components (Version: 6, January 11, 2010)

Most of the time, Content Storage Management Systems are operating unattended, reliably storing and retrieving content. However, storage devices such as tapes and drives slowly deteriorate due to wear and other factors.

Up until now, the only way to deal with this problem was to either wait until performance problems resulted in content loss or replace drives and media on a scheduled basis. The disadvantage of the scheduled approach is that replacement before end-of-life results in higher operating costs.

DIVAprotect is a new DIVArchive option that constantly monitors your digital storage infrastructure and warns you about media or tape drive degradation before it results in reduced performance or, even worse, catastrophic data loss.

DIVAprotect brings a new level of long-term content protection, management and security to DIVArchive, the industry-leading Content Storage Management System.

DIVAprotect Features:

• Continuous monitoring of tape drives and media to preempt equipment failure and performance degradation
• User definable warning thresholds
• Complete history of drive and media performance
• Automatic migration of content to new media before data loss
• Full integration with DIVArchive Content Storage Management System

Automatic analysis of past and future performance

DIVAprotect presents your system administrator with information regarding the performance history of all drives and media, as well as a forecast of their future performance. You can set triggers to generate a variety of alerts when various performance thresholds have been exceeded, relieving the administrator of the painstaking and manual analysis of the storage system.

Find real data problems in real-time

DIVAprotect is unique in that the collection of quality and performance data happens in real-time within the actual archive environment.

This information allows DIVAprotect to give recommendations on selective migration of content, recycling of defective media, and cleaning or preventive maintenance for library drives. With this information in hand, users can have confidence that their digital assets will still be available when needed.

Migration at the onset of degradation

Migration of data to new media no longer needs to be based simply on time. Because DIVAprotect monitors actual performance, data migration or drive replacement need only occur when drive or media quality reaches the threshold of degradation.

Supported tape drives:

• Ultrium LTO1, LTO2, LTO3
• SDLT 220, 320, 600, 600A
• DLT 4000, 7000, 8000
• STK 9x40 families

For more information, click here to download the brochure.

Many content owners and distributors now operate multiple content production and distribution sites around the globe. Moving content seamlessly between these sites increases efficiency, lowers operational costs and enables disaster recovery strategies that support business continuance.

With the introduction of DIVAnet, you can connect independent DIVArchive systems to form a content sharing network.

Disaster Recovery

DIVAnet takes content normally ingested and stored at one site and automatically replicates it to another DIVArchive site. This content redundancy ensures safe preservation, and also allows the second site to take over broadcast distribution in the event of a failure, natural disaster or other catastrophe. It’s important to note that under DIVAnet, each DIVArchive site still operates independently with no dependency on other sites. Flexible business rules controlling replication can be configured to exactly meet your specific requirements. For example, the system could be configured to replicate only long-form programs and then only during the overnight hours.

Designed with WAN in Mind

Moving content across a Wide Area Network (WAN) is more complex than local transfers. DIVAnet has special features to handle security, variable bandwidth, and resilience to network outages. If for any reason content transfers can’t be completed due to network problems, the content is held in a buffer and is transferred as soon as connectivity is restored.

All content restore operations maintain efficiency and conserve WAN bandwidth by prioritizing locally stored content over remote sites.

Innovative Storage Policy Management

DIVAnet greatly enhances the current Storage Plan Manager (SPM) functions. You can create rules that control content replication, deletion and transcoding based on an expanded set of parameters including content type, location, and age. These SPM functions could be set up, for example, to use DIVArchive integrated transcoding to reduce bit-rate before replicating content to another site.

Guaranteed Content Replication

A new management function enables a user to compare the content collections at two sites. This allows re-synchronizing sites that may have been disconnected due to WAN outages or scheduled maintenance. A user can select whether to replicate or delete single instances and the selected operations are executed immediately or deferred to a more convenient time.

Enhanced DIVArchive API

Building upon the existing DIVArchive API, DIVAnet adds enhanced content storage control functions to networked DIVArchive systems.

Controlling applications such as Automation and MAM systems can communicate with local and remote DIVArchive systems through a single API connection. Content replication can be managed by external applications, Storage Plan rules, or any combination of the two.

Multi-site Monitoring

Authorized users can monitor the activity at any DIVArchive site including all pending requests plus Actor and Disk Status.

New security provisions can limit which content stored at a single site can be “viewed” and controlled by any user or external application. This security is essential when different businesses share common disaster recovery sites.

Seamless Migration

You can add DIVAnet to any existing DIVArchive system without disrupting current operations. External applications using the DIVArchive API will continue to operate with current functionality until those systems add the new DIVAnet functions.

System Requirements

All networked DIVArchive systems must be using V6.0 or later software.

For more information, click here to download the brochure.

Every content owner and distributor faces the problem of storing an ever-increasing amount of file based content. Despite the high reliability of RAID disk arrays, there is always a possibility that hardware failures can result in a catastrophic loss of valuable content. The most cost-effective way to expand content storage and assure long-term preservation is archiving to a data tape library under the control of a Content Storage Management (CSM) system.

Front Porch Digital’s DIVArchive CSM system is the leading choice for content creators, owners and distributors around the world who are seeking advanced storage and protection for their valuable assets. Now this same functionality and flexibility is available in a family of entry-level solutions.

The DIVAworks family of products delivers the basic and fundamental archiving capabilities of a full DIVArchive system, leveraging a plug-and-play approach. The DIVAworks family combines an entry level data tape library with server(s), software and nearline disk storage in a simple turn-key configuration. The DIVAworks family offers the ideal and most cost effective path to media archiving and true Content Storage Management.

Easy to Integrate

The DIVAworks family shares the same simple approach to integration and can include all necessary interfaces for the most popular Automation, Media Asset Management, Post Production and Newsroom systems.

Tape Externalization

Should you require storage beyond the library slot capacity, you can easily externalize tapes (take them offline) for near limitless storage. If content stored offline is requested by an application, DIVAworks simply prompts the operator to insert the required tape.

Nearline Disk Storage (Optional)

Internal high speed RAID protected nearline disk arrays based on our own DIVAgrid technology can be added along with our powerful Storage Plan Manager enabling faster access to important content and policy based content lifecycle control

Avid or Apple Final Cut Pro Interface (Optional)

DIVAworks is the ideal product for small Post Production or Newsroom environments, providing direct interface to Avid Unity/Interplay or Apple Final Cut Pro platforms. As with any DIVArchive system, every DIVAworks solution is capable of connecting to Avid Unity or Interplay based systems via DHM, DET or the Interplay Archive API.

Drop Folder Monitoring (Optional)

Drop Folder Monitoring (DFM) allows users or third-party applications to deliver content to be archived by simply copying the related file(s) to a network folder. As soon as content files are deposited in a monitored folder, DIVAworks automatically archives the content and creates the related objects according to pre-defined rules.

DIVAdirector (Optional)

DIVAdirector provides a web based “window” into the content stored in your DIVAworks system. Low resolution proxies are automatically generated by the system for archived content for desktop access. This option includes five user licenses and provides:

• Web based access to content via Internet Explorer
• Flexible metadata model with powerful search tools
• Low resolution proxy browsing for archived content
• Frame accurate shot list creation
• Full control of DIVAworks (partial/full restore, delete)
• Built-in access/security control

Timecode Based Partial Restore (Optional)

For content restoration and repurposing to news and post editing environments, Timecode Based Partial Restore is an invaluable feature allowing DIVAworks to restore only the desired portion(s) of archived material based on timecode in/out values. DIVAworks supports the most popular formats used in broadcast devices including GXF, LXF, MXF and QT wrapped SD and HD essence.

Technology

The DIVAworks family relies on standard technologies:

• LTO-4 tape technology
• Microsoft Windows 2003 based DIVArchive software
• Standard RAID 5 SATA disk arrays
• Brocade Fibre Channel Switch

Fully Upgradeable

Should your archiving needs expand beyond the capabilities of DIVAworks, we offer a clear upgrade path to a full DIVArchive Content Storage Management system. All previously archived content is easily migrated with no need to re-ingest.

DIVAworks Basic

DIVAworks Basic is our entry level system comprised of a 24 slot data tape library, a single LTO-4 tape drive and a Windows based, single CPU server connected to the library via SCSI. All equipment is rack mountable and fits into 4RU of space. DIVAworks Basic also includes Tape Externalization and Object Transfer Utility features.

DIVAworks Enhanced

DIVAworks Enhanced is similar to our basic offering but features a fully redundant configuration in 9RU of space. It is comprised of a 48 slot data tape library, two LTO-4 tape drives and two Windows based, single CPU servers connected to the library via Fibre Channel. DIVAworks Enhanced also includes DIVArchive Manager Failover, Tape Externalization and Object Transfer Utility features.

DIVAworks Professional

DIVAworks Professional offers a scalable and redundant configuration in 13RU of space. It is comprised of an expandable 50 slot data tape library, two LTO-4 tape drives and two Windows based, single CPU servers connected to the library via a Fibre Channel switch offering flexibility in case of drive or server failure. DIVAworks Professional also includes DIVArchive Manager Failover, Tape Externalization and Object Transfer Utility features.

For more information, click here to download the brochure.

As broadcasters and video archivists continue the transition to file-based infrastructures, there are fewer eyes available to monitor quality of content as it propagates from acquisition through editing and out to transmission, especially considering most are data streams rather than video/audio signals.

In a quest for higher compression rates to optimize storage and transmission costs, most content owners and distributors are not willing to sacrifice quality but also cannot justify the human workflow component of analyzing all content flowing throughout their facility.

Today the only way to perform quality assurance checks on video/audio content is in realtime, or by performing “spot checks” on content minimizing the effectiveness of the overall process.

Of course, tired eyes and ears are also prone to missing subtle issues with content which can lead to on-air problems days or even years after the fact, perhaps when the source material is no longer available for re-encoding.

There is an obvious need for a comprehensive and automated analysis tool which can effectively, repeatedly and quickly examine compressed video/audio content.

DIVAnalyze – Automated Quality Assurance

DIVAnalyze adds another invaluable content aware feature to the already rich set available in DIVArchive, the advanced content storage management solution (CSM) from Front Porch Digital.

DIVAnalyze is a hardware/software based automated quality assessment tool which integrates directly into the DIVArchive Actor (data mover) platform to provide automated in-path quality analysis functionality. The analysis step in the content lifecycle can be dynamically defined in DIVArchive leveraging our proven Storage Plan Manager functionality. This allows control systems such as MAM, newsroom systems or automation to define which content should be analyzed as part of the content storage management process.

Paired with advanced features of DIVArchive such as in-path transcoding and timecode based partial restore, DIVAnalyze helps to take humans out of the content handling process leading to predictability. The skilled video professionals can now be used for other more valuable and productive tasks within the facility.

Once content has been examined by DIVAnalze, the detailed results of the analysis along with an overall PASS or FAIL rating is made available via our flexible DIVAdirector web based interface. Authorized users can examine these high level analysis results, or drill down into the details for triage right from their desktop.

Each of the DIVAnalyze engines can be configured with specific content analysis profiles along with measurement thresholds which will trigger the generation of an alarm condition logged by the system. Each alarm is timecode referenced along with a description of the issue and a value for the measurement if applicable.

If proxy transcoding is included as part of the overall DIVArchive CSM solution, alarms generated by the analysis engine can be selected within the DIVAdirector web interface and the user will be automatically indexed to that point in the proxy file where the alarm occurred. This allows a first pass quality check review from the desktop. If this proxy version fails to sufficiently expose the issue detected in the content, authorized users can simply restore the high resolution content to an appropriate broadcast device for further examination. Content deemed as unacceptable can be immediately removed from the DIVArchive system eliminating the possibility for questionable content reaching air.

Scalability and Load Balancing

Built on the solid DIVArchive distributed foundation, any number of DIVAnalyze engines can be added to existing or new infrastructures to provide automated analysis functionality. DIVArchive automatically load balances all transfer, transcode and analysis requests across available DIVArchive Actor platforms to ensure the effective use of resources within the system.

All DIVAnalyze operations are post-acquisition, batch processes which do not affect the overall availability of the content for immediate transcoding, repurposing or reuse necessary in demanding environments.

Analysis Engine Performance

Any number of DIVAnalyze engines can be added to DIVArchive resulting in near infinite performance scalability. Each DIVAnalyze engine can perform analysis on SD and HD content many times faster than realtime, leveraging a proprietary hardware based accelerator board to assist in the process.

Supported Analysis Metrics

Several quality measurements and metrics are included in the DIVAnalyze software/hardware based analysis including:

• RGB Gamut Upper/Lower
• Luma Gamut Upper/Lower
• Composite Peak Upper/Lower
• Letter and Pillar Box
• Picture Shift
• Peak Audio and Audio Phase
• Loss of Sound
• Continuous Tone
• Low/High Audio
• Loss of Timecode and Timecode Continuity

DIVAnalyze allows analysis profiles to define whether any or all of these measurements factor into the overall content PASS or FAIL decision and allows the setting of allowable thresholds.

Supported Formats

DIVAnalyze currently supports most of the popular broadcast quality SD and HD content compression formats. Please contact Front Porch Digital for more details.

For more information, click here to download the brochure.

The proliferation of IT centric, disk based storage technologies in rich media applications has done wonders for lowering costs and improving storage densities. However, in media centric operations many of these technologies have specific advantages and disadvantages.

The desire for high performance, scalable digital media storage presents significant challenges for content owners. The need for easy and fast access to content encoded in different formats, bitrates and the need for collaborative shared access to this content can create critical bottlenecks at the storage subsystem level.

The desire for storage capacity amongst content owners is near insatiable, but performance is arguably a more significant factor which also needs to scale without an associated increase in storage costs. The dream is a combination of fast, scalable and inexpensive media centric storage. DIVAgrid is the solution!

DIVAgrid

DIVAgrid leverages the proven highly distributed architecture of our DIVArchive Content Storage Management solution to provide vast, scalable, load balanced and inexpensive media centric storage.

Instead of relying on a single shared nearline storage array (using either a SAN or NAS technology), a network of interconnected distributed “DIVAgrid Actors” can scale incrementally to deliver higher performance, connectivity and improved reliability for a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

Each DIVAgrid Actor is built on our DIVArchive high bandwidth content movement engine platform and contains performance RAID protected storage. These DIVAgrid Actors can optionally be paired with:

• In path content transcoding engine
• In path quality analysis engine

Virtualization Layer

DIVAgrid Actor physical storage arrays can be combined to form one or more DIVAgrid Virtual Arrays available for content aware functions such as archive, restore, timecode based partial restore, transcoding and quality analysis. Because of this abstraction layer, capacities can be incrementally scaled and intelligently managed by DIVArchive in a load balanced fashion providing near limitless storage and bandwidth capabilities.

Scalability

Incrementally adding network attached DIVAgrid Actor servers provides an associated increase in overall system bandwidth as well as grid based storage capacity.

Data Redundancy and Availability

Because of its advanced content aware features, multiple content copies (DIVArchive Object instances) can be automatically created across DIVAgrid Actors providing redundant access and high availability in case of a component, server or disk failure.

Content replication is either:

• On Demand: Controlling applications can request replication for valuable or highly desired content across DIVAgrid Actors.
• Automatic: Dynamic content lifecycle policies can be defined within DIVArchive which define content-aware DIVAgrid Actor replication factors.

Performance

Applying advanced DIVArchive load-balancing techniques to the available content-aware functions and DIVAgrid Actors offers consistent performance for the entire Content Storage Management system. Content replication allows also a faster access to highly demanded content in addition to the obvious protection benefits.

Common Management

DIVArchive configuration and control utilities provide a single level of setup and monitoring across all DIVAgrid Actors and Arrays.

For more information, click here to download the brochure.