Quantum streamlines media production for Motorcar Parts of America

October 19, 2018

1 minute read

The installation for MPA includes a combination of Xcellis workflow storage, which is powered by StorNext and CatDV media asset management software

Motorcar Parts of America (MPA), a company focusing on manufacturing a range of products for cars and trucks, has installed a combination of Xcellis workflow storage powered by StorNext and CatDV media asset management (MAM) software. The deployment has provided MPA with a video production environment that enables agile collaboration, and allows automated archiving and retrieval capabilities.

The project is commissioned by Sunset Studios, a systems integrator based in Southern California. The Sunset Studios team helped MPA create and modernise a studio that includes four-camera recording in a two-bay garage facility that is now supported by data sharing and archiving storage capability.

John Edwards, Sunset Studios principal, explained: “Our phase two of this project entailed a fibre channel network with MAM software, as well as the need for a modern and full-featured production storage and archive solution. At the end of our evaluation, we chose Quantum and CatDV.”

MPA’s system is based on Quantum’s Xcellis scale-out workflow storage and CatDV MAM from Squarebox. Designed to give media production teams shared access to data to increase collaboration, the Xcellis storage appliance includes an Xcellis Workflow Director for management and client connectivity, Brocade Fibre Channel networking and Quantum QXS RAID storage.

The StorNext file system enables teams to continually share and access files from a centralised data pool. As MPA’s content repository grows, the team can add an archive tier of storage within the global namespace.

Joe Micallef, multimedia production manager at MPA, concluded: “Basically, everything that we do now is going to YouTube because most installers, especially do-it-yourselfers, are going to YouTube to find a solution.

“Now we can pull content from previous shoots and do it quickly using CatDV and Quantum. Having an advanced storage architecture powered by StorNext has really allowed us to collaborate like never before, and it’s made our training videos the talk of the industry.”