Field editing with GV STRATUS and coming back to the facility

Hi dear readers... I've been very glad to receive a few emails recently from followers with positive feedback and I wanted to thank you all for reading our blog. It is great to know that it provides some help and support to our GV STRATUS users!

We have talked about our field / remote editing workflows before on our blog. You can check our entries here and here.


Today we have a new video demonstration talking about the process of editing in the field with a laptop running EDIUS (and if needed, GV STRATUS) and coming back to the production facility. Often our users are unclear as to how they can simply bring back their field edits and conform / export content to the GV STRATUS production system. It is actually pretty simple, so please take a look...

So you can see that not only the tools and user interfaces do not change at all whether you're in the field or back in the office, but the actual process of reconnecting to the production network is pretty seamless.

Do contact us if you have any questions: beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

REMOTE SENDS PART 3: Sending to a remote K2 device

When it comes to sending content from the production environment to remote facilities, GV STRATUS offers a wide range of possibilities

In a 3-part series we are covering various case studies, and we already showed you on a previous post (Multisite and remote workflows with GV STRATUS) how to share content between multiple GV STRATUS sites, what we call MULTISITE sharing. Part 2 covered Sending video from GV STRATUS to a remote file share.

Finally, here in part 3, we show you how you send content from your GV STRATUS / K2 production facility to other locations where they may have a K2 device (K2 SAN, Summit, Classic or Solo) but without GV STRATUS being part of their installation.

In this video, we provide the example of sending from a GV STRATUS production facility located in Singapore, over to a K2 Solo server located in our offices in Sydney. 

For any question concerning this subject contact beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

GV STRATUS v4.5 is coming out! NEW FEATURES

Hi all, we're back with great news for 2016!

Our new GV STRATUS v4.5 release is coming out this week and it's packed-full of new features. We want to introduce you to some of the highlights over the next few weeks, and for starters today, here's a great video describing the new Scheduled Transfers tool, courtesy of our colleague Alex Lakey.

Keep an eye on our blog pages for more new GV STRATUS 4.5 features coming soon!
If you'd like to know more about GV STRATUS 4.5, or would like to plan an upgrade, contact your GV representative or drop us an email.

For any question concerning this subject contact beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

NEW APPLICATION NOTE: GV STRATUS for Live Sports Production

Check out how GV STRATUS provide flexible, efficient and powerful tools for fast-paced live sports production: from editing while ingesting, logging and marking highlights with a quick on-air turnaround to creating custom metadata, our production systems are used worldwide to cover live sporting events, large and small.

Have a read, here:

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

How GV STRATUS integrates with Non-Linear Editors: comparison chart

As you know, GV STRATUS integrates with most market leading non-linear editors. To provide a good overall picture of the integrated features supported by each of the main editors, we have prepared this Comparison Sheet. You'll be able to compare at a glance how GV STRATUS integrates with our very own EDIUS, Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Avid Media Composer.

You can read and download the comparison sheet from our Grass Valley website.

Keep calm and edit on!

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

New Application Note: transcoding with GV STRATUS

GV STRATUS tightly integrated with industry-leading transcoding tools so that transcoding import or export workflows can be easily automated. As a user, all you need to do is select a metadata field, or drop assets to a specific folder for a transcode job to take place in the background. Transcode profiles are configurable and selectable depending on each's user's needs.

Read all the details on our new application note here.

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

Do you work in post-production? See how GV STRATUS can help collaboration!

As you know, GV STRATUS is an ideal workflow and production management tool for news, but it is also a very useful toolset for post-production environments....

We have just published a comprehensive application note describing these workflows with GV STRATUS. You can find it on our website.

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

IMPORTING FILES TO GV STRATUS FROM HARMONIC SERVERS

We have just released a new application note describing our functionality to import media from a Harmonic video server. Check this out!

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

GV STRATUS remote editing workflows with EDIUS

GV STRATUS, together with the power and flexibility of GV's very own non-linear editor, EDIUS, can provide for a range of remote editing workflows that will increase your editing speed and capabilities when you're working in the field.

Take a look at this video that explains and demonstrates 3 of the many possible remote editing workflows that you can achieve when working in the field with EDIUS and GV STRATUS.

For any question concerning this subject contactregis.andre@grassvalley.com orbeatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

GV STRATUS V4.0.1 NEW FEATURES VIDEO!!

As you know we recently released Maintenance Release 1 for GV STRATUS v4. Here's a video summarizing all its new features... Enjoy!

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

IBC 2014 DAY 5: new capabilities with RMI tool...

The last day of IBC 2014 is here, and with it, most visitors and exhibitors must be feeling those tired feet.... In the spirit of closing day, we will cover a couple of simple but very powerful new features that we are introducing with GV STRATUS v4.0.

We have added some great improvements to our existing RMI tool (Removable Media Interface), which allows you to easily preview, pre-select and quickly import media from file-based cameras (e.g. XDCAM SxS, P2 cards...).

1. You can import the full set of camera metadata to GV STRATUS
During the shoot, the camera operator may have been adding different metadata information to the recorded material, or perhaps the producer added comments and markers on their way back to the station.

With our new metadata mapping tool, you can select the metadata fields from the camera format that you want to transfer to GV STRATUS and, voila! all those precious notes and comments are imported to GV STRATUS along with the video asset.

Magic!

2. RMI now works wonderfully with GV STRATUS low resolution clients
In other words, you do not have to invest on a high-spec client with high resolution connection to K2 storage in order to import your field camera content. Simply connect your camera or reader to your PC, navigate using RMI, choose your clips, and quickly import. You can even continue to do other GV STRATUS work whilst the import takes place in the background.

Easy!

And cheap! No longer you need to invest in high-resolution connected workstations. The standard newsroom / production low-res client will perform this operation, allowing many more of your users to work with their field footage before importing it to the K2 storage in high resolution.

And just in case you were wondering, we have of course implemented the new user permissions capabilities to the ability to import RMI media (or not!)....

Quick! - come and see us at booth 1.11D or visit our IBC microsite to book a demo!

It's been another exciting IBC for us, with a new version launch including great new features. We look forward to hearing your user feedback and implementing GV STRATUS v4.0 at many customer sites soon!

Keep an eye on the blog for more posts featuring more interesting features and workflows!

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

IBC 2014 DAY 4: new features on Ingest Scheduler with GV STRATUS 4.0

At GV STRATUS HQ not only we work hard to introduce new functionality and features to our tool-set, but also we are continuously looking to add improvements for existing tools. And this is what we have just done with the Ingest Scheduler on our new GV STRATUS v4.0

We have listened to lots of user feedback and implemented plenty of improvements to our crash record and scheduled ingest tool:

• Scalability: the Scheduler now supports up to 160 ingest channels! We have spent considerable effort to test at peak load and are satisfied that large ingest production facilities can now deploy our solution and scale as needed. 
• Channel Grouping: we have been asked a lot to implement the ability to group ingest channels, so that specific users or departments have dedicated channel groups. For example, say that the News Ingest team always users K2 Summit Channels 1 and 2, and the Sports team always uses Channels 3 and 4... Now you can create and name Ingest Channel groups so that it's easy and convenient for everyone to use their dedicated channels. 

• New Ingest monitor: a new monitoring list actively refreshes at pre-set time periods, so you can see at a glance all of the scheduled recordings and what is in progress now.

• Expand/collapse all button: small but powerful! When you have in excess of 3-4 recording channels, it's now very easy to quickly collapse them all to maximize your screen real-state, and equally, at the push of a button, expand them all in a flash!

As you can see, we strive to always make our tool-set more user-friendly, flexible and powerful... GV STRATUS simply aims to provide you with the best non-linear production and workflow tools in the market.

Come by our IBC 2014 booth 1.D11 or visit our IBC microsite to book a demo!

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

REMOTE SENDS PART 1: Multisite and remote workflows with GV STRATUS

In a 3-part series of posts, we are going to cover the various workflows and requirements to share content between remote locations, and how GV STRATUS provides you with the tools and flexibility to choose the most suitable workflow for you.

GV STRATUS supports Wide Area Network (WAN)-based workflows that enable multisite media search, browse and transfers from GV STRATUS clients across distributed facilities, whether within the same site or from remote field locations.

The GV STRATUS system uses progressive download to display low-resolution proxy video of assets from remote sites. This minimizes the effect of a slower load time when you load an asset into Inspector or some other GV STRATUS viewer. Progressive download selectively downloads and caches the portion of the low-resolution proxy video asset just before and after the current scrub bar position in the video player, until finally the entire proxy file asset is downloaded. As long as the GV STRATUS application remains open, the downloaded proxy asset remains locally available. If you load the proxy asset into the video player again, the GV STRATUS application uses the locally cached proxy file asset. 

Let's take a look....

GV STRATUS multisite and remote workflows provide efficient, low-cost, proxy-based workflows that allow the use of all tools from a local client, allowing for high-latency, low-bandwidth connections. 

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

GV STRATUS WORKFLOWS WITH NON-K2 SAN SYSTEMS

Did you know that GV STRATUS works extremely well with K2 Standalone Summits and K2 Solo servers?

To take advantage of most of the great features and workflows offered by GV STRATUS, a K2 SAN is not required. It is possible to have a highly powerful, versatile and flexible system based around smaller-scale storage such as that offered by our K2 servers.

MOBILE PRODUCTION

For example, let’s say we are covering an outdoors event with an OB truck. With a low-cost, small-scale system consisting of a single K2 Summit 3G, a GV STRATUS Express Core Server and a couple of GV STRATUS clients, you can

1. Ingest live feeds using the GV STRATUS Scheduler, then search, catalogue and edit growing files
2. Import XDCAM/P2 content straight from the camera crew with GV STRATUS RMI: preview, select and combine clips using a high resolution client before importing into the K2 Summit storage.
3. Set up workflow rules so that files delivered via file transfers, downloads or email can be automatically and seamlessly imported to K2 Summit and low-resolution content created simultaneously.
4. Using an EDIUS XS low-resolution editor, or an EDIUS Elite high-resolution client, edit-in-place on the K2 Summit and conform final edits ready for playout or send to other destinations.
5. Live playout by creating playlists and controlling K2 Summit ports, including background loops, bumpers and replays.
6. You can add a K2 Dyno to the mix, and have full access from GV STRATUS to all highlights and playlists created on-the-fly by the replay operator. 

NEWS

These solutions are not limited to mobile or live production. It is extremely suitable also for production requirements serving small user groups with reduced storage requirements and tight budgets. A small newsroom, for example, can function on a system of similar size, including an ingest K2 Summit, and a playout K2 Summit, both under GV STRATUS control. Add a Newsroom Computer System such as ENPS, Octopus or Open Media, and you have an end-to-end solution for news production indulging ingest, editing and playout, with live feedback to the producers and reporters working on their scripts and rundowns.

GV STRATUS plug-in within the Octopus NRCS

To learn more about small-scale, low-cost GV STRATUS solutions, get in touch!

For any question concerning this subject contact regis.andre@grassvalley.com or beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com

GV STRATUS Scheduler now supports multicam recordings.

Here's a great new feature that we have added with our release of GV STRATUS 3.5.

Using the Scheduler tool you can now control K2 Summit channels in multicam mode, effectively creating 2 discrete clips with a single channel of K2 ingest (you will need the ChannelFlex option enabled on your K2 Summit).

This greatly extends the Scheduler's flexibility by providing an excellent solution to Studio recordings with multiple camera sets (with matching timecode, making it easier to do multicam editing).

You can apply all of the existing options of the Scheduler such as crash recording, recurrent scheduled bookings, templates, live streaming preview, etc.


For any question concerning this subject contact:
Bea Alonso: beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com
Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

How to edit with external audio and graphics files with Edius XS

With every new release of GV STRATUS, we add new features and functionality to Edius XS.
The ability to bring in external graphics (such as stills, maps, thumbnails, etc) and audio (pre-recorded voice over, music tracks, etc) into your low-res edit, is essential for quick and efficient collaborative workflows.

In this video, we show you the new capabilities to edit non-STRATUS audio and graphics files as part of your proxy timeline within Edius XS. This greatly increases the options for all users who want to quickly add a graphic or audio file into their edit without having to import into GV STRATUS/K2 first.

For any question concerning this subject contact:
Bea Alonso: beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com
Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

NEW IMPORT RULES WITH GV STRATUS 3.5

The latest release of GV STRATUS, v3.5 introduces the ability to automatically import media and metadata to your K2/STRATUS system based on workflow rules. 

Part of the GV STRATUS Workflow engine, import rules provide broad ability for importing virtually all file types including user generated content, syndicated "store and forward" file delivery systems, and still images.

The rules and scope criteria are configured in GV STRATUS Control Panel. This video tutorial explains
how: 

• Rules will act on combinations of folder locations and file extensions.
• Accompanying metatada can be mapped to GV STRATUS database and imported to custom metadata fields.

Video content can be imported in the native format, or it can be put through a transcode engine before being imported on to the K2 storage. GV STRATUS seamlessly integrates with various third party transcode solutions such as Telestream Vantage, Harmonic Promedia Carbon and Elemental.

For any questions concerning this subject contact: 
Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com 
Bea Alonso: beatriz.alonso-martinez@grassvalley.com 

New K2-FCP-GV-CONNECT application note

Grass Valley just released a new Application note on using FCP with our K2 systems.
follow this link to open the PDF file:
http://grassvalley.com/docs/Application_Notes/servers/k2_fcp_connect/SER-4034M_K2_FinalCutPro_AppNote.pdf


For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

HOW TO: Reconnect to growing file media in FCP

Thanks to Jim P. for this how to document.
Although our FCP GV Connect plug-in does a lot to streamline and simplify the process of finding content in our servers, if you are editing a greowing file and that FCP crashes or you quit FCP while you are linked to a growing file, there is no way for us to reconnect FCP to the growing files automatically. you will have to do it manually.
here is the procedure written by Jim.

Final Cut Pro behavior when closing project and application with a  growing file in the bin.

Launch FCP, add a growing file to the bin, use elements of the file in the timeline.
Close the project, then re-open the project – no issues with files.
Now close FCP and then reopen it and again open the project with the growing file inside the bin. The file shows up as Media Offline

So follow the instructions to Reconnect.

 Locate the clip as suggested
Here:

Then it will inform you that you are re-linking to a growing file...

So click on Continue and then you will see this

Finally the timeline redraws with all of your elements from the growing file(s).

Now you can finish the edit.

For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@grassvalley.com

NEW at NAB 2009: GV FCP Connect Plug-in

Grass Valley will demonstrate their new K2-FCP Connect. This includes the new GV Connect plug-in for FCP.
K2-FCP Connect includes the GV Connect FCP plug-in, the iSCSI connection license and software.

In Summary this plug-in will let users quickly and easily locate QT files on the K2 SAN, add them to the current project to allow editing of the QT files from the SAN without file transfer. This capability is called Edit in Place.
The plug-in will also include FCP support for Aurora sequences, growing file support and export/render/flattening of FCP finished sequences on the K2 SAN for sharing or playout.

Prerequisites:
• Mac Pro (intel) with 2 GigE ports
• Mac Os X Leopard 10.5.6 or higher
• XSAN 2.0 client and license

The GV Connect FCP plug-in will be installed in the Final Cut Pro plug-in folder and will show up under the Tool menu in two separate entries as shown in the screenshot below.



The GV Connect menu entry will display the GV Connect plug-in. The GV Quick Export menu entry will bypass the plug-in UI to automatically export the selected items in the FCP bin to a predetermined location on K2.
The GV Connect window has two main tabs, one for exporting and one for importing.
The same tool is used for both tasks and allows batch operations for both Import and Export


Growing File Support:
By installing the GV Connect plug-in, the user will see a GV logo button in the upper right in the Mac OSX toolbar. This logo will change color (white letters to green letters) when a file that is used in the current FCP project has grown. This provides support for growing files in FCP. The user can click on the Icon and the files will be refreshed in the FCP project providing access to the new media. The GV Connect plug-in will be available shortly after NAB.



For any question concerning this subject contact Régis André: regis.andre@thomson.net