PRODUCTS & SERVICES
Screen’s subtitling delivery system
Polistream moves up to a new level
Ever since Screen Subtitling Systems launched its Polistream
Blue subtitle transmission system, the company has been
viewed as a game changer in the industry.
The introduction of its cutting-edge
PolistreamBLACK with its universal
1U chassis and environmentally-aware
and space-saving design challenged
other subtitle transmission systems
in the market. Its ability and flexibility
to meet a broad array of technical
requirements through varying
configurations of hardware cards
and software modules have secured
its position as a firm favourite with
broadcasters across the world.
But the seismic shift the industry
has experienced in the past two
years has triggered a redevelopment
of what Screen considered to be an
already exemplary product.
It seems true for all broadcast
technology. It’s not necessarily a case
of the market no longer liking your
product, but more of a case where
they’re not so happy on how it is
delivered.
Customers are frequently refusing
to accept the all-too-common single
delivery method offered in products
and lack, or in many cases absence,
of conjoint interconnectivity between
other vendor’s solutions.
After a long consultation period
with its customers, it was apparent
that they still liked and wanted
Screen’s Polistream products,
but, and here was how everything
changed last year, they didn’t always
want it the way the manufacturer
traditionally supplied it.
NOW SUPPLIED AS VIRTUAL
MACHINE AND OTS (OFF-THESHELF) OPTIONS
Screen’s conventional
PolistreamBLACK subtitle
transmission system is still available
in its 1U rackable format but can
now be supplied as a Virtual
Machine option, and Screen will
allow customers to run their
Polistream software on their own
equipment. The company does,
however, recommend supported
hardware specifications for optimum
operation and insist that they install
and configure the software for the
customer.
POLISTREAM ON SERVER 2012 R2
OPERATING SYSTEM
An exciting new arrival in the
Polistream family is Screen’s U8000.
In a newly designed, full-length
chassis, Polistream U8000 runs
on the Server 2012 R2 operating
system, offering the benefits of 64bit operation. The new OS further
offers the advantages of Screen’s
new UHD-8 card, allowing a single
U8000 unit to drive more channels/
languages than the conventional
PolistreamBLACK U4000.
Another addition in this newgeneration production is the
inclusion of dual-power supplies.
These are configured to allow the
swap-out of batteries in external
Uninterruptable Power Supplies
(UPS) with zero downtime.
MEDIASTOR – A MODERN
APPROACH TO STORAGE AND
ARCHIVING
If customers are in the business of
generating high volumes of digital
assets, it is likely that they regularly
consider how best to store their
valuable files. Rather than utilising a
single storage technology such as
spinning disk, the key to efficiency
may be to adopt a strategy involving
a range of storage hardware
organised by a high-powered file
management system.
Powered by Suitcase TV,
MediaStor is now available from
Screen Systems. MediaStor is a
software defined storage platform
that provides flexible options for
scalable online, nearline and archive
storage built on commodity IT
hardware.
At the heart of every MediaStor
system is a virtual file system that
utilises object-based storage to
provide a near infinitely scalable
An exciting new arrival in the Polistream family is Screen’s U8000.
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MediaStor
provides a fully integrated
MAID solution that works seamlessly
with RAID-based storage.
distributed storage platform while
providing a familiar user experience
using a traditional file/folder structure.
Media companies are already
discovering that a scalable and
flexible solution for near-line storage
is MediaStor Archive Blade, a 1RU
storage chassis providing 128TB
of storage as MAID (massive array
of independent disks) architecture
utilising SMR (shingled magnetic
recording) disks. MediaStor Archive
Blade is transparently integrated as
part of a MediaStor clustered storage
platform.
Total cost of ownership analysis
shows the solution to be comparable
to LTO with significantly lower
maintenance requirements and the
added benefit of near-online file
access.
Each MediaStor Archive Blade
is connected via a dual 10Gb
Ethernet link with all files first being
held on RAID-based storage on
a MediaStor cluster node. Each
chassis is managed by MediaStor’s
Archivist HSM software to ensure
data is written in one continuous
process with an optional mirrored
disk in a separate chassis. The archive
duplication can be done between
the MAID array and a tra