SAMMA Systems is taking media migration to the next level with the introduction of significant enhancements to its award-winning product range at NAB 2008.   SAMMA Systems will launch a unique tape media rating technology that adds another measure of efficiency and cost-saving automation to the migration process, and the addition of support for digital videotape formats enabling digitization to move beyond analog inventories.

“SAMMA Systems is dedicated to saving the world’s tape archives,” states Mark Gray, SAMMA Systems president. “So much of history is recorded on videotape that can’t be shared because of the high cost and complexity of the digitizing process. We are finding ways every day to achieve this daunting task with less expense and difficulty. “

Building on the success of the SAMMA Analysis Engine, SAMMA Systems will demonstrate a groundbreaking and unique technology that will automatically rate the physical condition of tapes during the initial stage of the migration process. “The quality of tapes that have existed for up to 50+ years in questionable environments is a big factor when encoding preparations are underway,” commented Gray. “This new sensor feedback system gives immediate feedback to the tape cleaning operator thus slashing time and increasing efficiency.   Guess work is eliminated and the human error factor is removed.”

The rating system, a first of its kind in the world, will be added to the Company’s SAMMA Eye software. It will automatically assign a rating to the tape’s condition as it travels through SAMMA Systems Tape Cleaner. Physical deterioration is the key reason why old tapes fail to play. This new software allows the SAMMA Cleaner to provide a quantitative rating on the physical qualities of the tape which can then become a basis for further action. i.e. advancing the tape to migration or recleaning.   

Already accomplished in the migration of analog material to the digital domain, SAMMA Systems is expanding to support SDI signals as well. “In addition to the 50+ years of accumulated analog tape there is an enormous inventory of digital recordings dating back 25+ years that needs to be addressed. We now have the capabilities of ingesting this material completely in the digital domain,” stated Gray.

With SAMMA’s products now supporting SDI inputs, D1, D2, D3, D5, IMX, DV family, Betacam SX and Digital Betacam can now be migrated to multiple digital files such as JPEG 2000, MPEG 2, H.264 and Windows Media in a single pass of the tape. The new addition also facilitates conversion of JPEG 2000 files to MPEG-2 and Windows Media files for use in production and viewing applications.