Saving and storing Montclair State University’s most invaluable media
MSU has digitally catalogued and stored its library of event footage with Sony’s Optical Disc Archive system. Now, graduations, concerts, presidential addresses and much more will be safe for decades.
How we helped
The Challenge
- MSU was storing huge amounts of video content across a variety of external hard drives
- Drives could be left on shelves for years, without any certainty they would still work in the future
- Finding specific footage was difficult, as many drives weren’t labelled. They had to be plugged in and checked manually to locate particular videos
The Solution
- A single, fully-scalable and backwards compatible archiving system, which allows the university to add more storage as it’s needed and use their existing cartridges
- Because the system uses ‘touchless media’, there’s no physical wear and tear on storage discs from the read/write process
- Simple management software lets users quickly search metadata tags, retrieve the right cartridge and export footage
The Outcome
- A future-ready system that will grow with the university’s needs and ambitions
- Long-term savings, as storage media needs replacing less often and it’s backwards compatible. No need to transfer old content to newer cartridges
- Faster workflows, thanks to metadata tagging and swift, robotic cartridge retrieval and storage
Keen to learn more about media archiving?
I know that everything that’s important to the university is secure and easily discoverable. And with the system’s scalability and backwards compatibility, we’re confident we’ll grow the system alongside our operations for years to come.
Adam Goldberg
(Chief Engineer, Broadcast and Media Operations, College of the Arts, Montclair State University)
A world class relationship
Montclair State University is a public research university with over 110 years of history. In 2015, it began work with Sony to give students, faculty and staff access to the technologies used by the world’s leading broadcasters—from switchers to servers, projectors and cameras. But it also needed to make its invaluable archive of live event footage safe, secure and searchable for years to come.
Scalable, searchable archiving
MSU moved all of its existing video content from a collection of external hard drives to a single robotic archiving system. When users need a video, they find it through easy-to-use software, the relevant cartridge is retrieved, and the contents are exported. And adding new footage couldn’t be simpler: files are transferred, tagged with metadata for easy searching, then sent to a cartridge.
Ready for the future
With Optical Disc Archive technology in place, MSU staff and students can relax, knowing that their video assets are safe and accessible. Having started with just a small library unit, the university can simply keep adding bays and cartridges to easily grow its archive capacity. And because it’s all backwards compatible, there’s no need to replace old cartridges for new if they upgrade the system.
