NAB 2012: Dalet Debuts Xtend, Enhances Sports Factory

Dalet Digital Media Systems will showcase Dalet Xtend, Dalet Sports Factory, and more at its booth.

Dalet Xtend
This week Dalet announced more flexible and comprehensive integration support with several non-linear editing platforms. The Dalet Xtend module, originally created to facilitate a more fluid workflow between the Dalet Media Asset Management platform and Apple Final Cut Pro systems, is being expanded to include similar media and metadata exchange capabilities with Avid Media Composer, Avid NewsCutter, Adobe Premiere, and other NLEs. This interoperability significantly increases productivity and collaboration for editing workgroups. Dalet Xtend for Avid will be demonstrated at NAB 2012 on the Dalet Stand (SL4615). Dalet Xtend for Adobe Premiere will be available later this year.

“Dalet Xtend makes the production workflow much more seamless in every scenario, whether it is for new production, program prep or sports. Designed originally for integrating with Final Cut Pro, Dalet Xtend has gotten excellent feedback from customers and we are pleased to make similar functionality available with other industry standard NLEs,” says Raoul Cospen, director of marketing, Dalet. “It relies on open development technology and allows editors working on NLEs to be tightly integrated into the overall production workflow rather than functioning in operational silos. Dalet Xtend also gives customers the flexibility to assemble their preferences for best-of-breed choices for production tools with the assurance that they can change their preferences in the future.”

With Dalet Xtend editors have access to media (videos, EDLS, shot selections, etc) and metadata that are stored in the Dalet content catalogue directly from their NLE workstations. From their Dalet workstations, prep-editors have access to incoming feeds while they are being recorded, and they have access to powerful search tools to find relevant material in the archive. They also have a rich set of prep-editing tools available from the same application that cover many pre-production tasks such as clip selection, storyboarding and even voice over recording. Clips, EDLs and videos are directly accessible from 3rd party NLEs, where more complex editing can be done. The finished work can then be exported back to Dalet as a new title, or saved against a placeholder — all with the appropriate metadata entries as the exchange process is not destructive to the metadata. Crucial information such as descriptive locators and usage rights flow back and forth and are tracked by the Dalet content catalogue thanks to intelligent genealogy.

The Dalet MAM engine expertly controls the metadata and media processes. Genealogy metadata linking the editor’s material to the original sources can be preserved and content is better referenced throughout, making searches of the content catalog and archives more efficient; content is more readily accessible to everyone who needs it. Dalet Xtend can significantly reduce expensive in-suite production time, streamline the workflow and improve media management.

Dalet Sports Factory
Dalet will also demonstrate several enhancements to Dalet Sports Factory, which offers fast sports production tools, fully integrated within an enterprise MAM platform. Sports Factory’s highlights and replay components cover logging, play-by-play highlights and playback, and instant replay with multiple camera angles and slow motion.

Unlike typical sports production products, Dalet Sports Factory integrates both production archives and media management, ensuring all enriched media assets are at users’ fingertips both during and after the game. Designed on the openDalet MAM platform, Sports Factory integrates with NLEs and other broadcast and sports production systems to provide a cohesive, fluid workflow.