FilmLight, best known for its grading system Baselight, has unveiled Nara to provide media professionals including post-production facilities and visual effects houses, instant access to media from anywhere in the world – streamlining workflows, collaboration, and review processes.
At the heart of Nara is its ability to natively decode and play back a wide selection of media without the need to transcode to proxy files. Its streaming engine minimizes bandwidth usage while its advanced indexing system ensures rapid data retrieval. Key features include: a Web UI, mirroring the facility’s security protocols; color accurate streaming; a comprehensive back-end index; and unparalleled codec support (including RAW camera formats, intermediate formats like EXR, as well as IMF, DCP and other complex deliverables).
“Nara truly connects creative teams,” said Sam Lempp, Nara’s head of business development. “From editors, colorists, VFX artists, cinematographers and directors to clients and marketing managers, Nara speeds up and simplifies collaborative tasks such as progress reviews, approval and compliance processes –allowing creatives to focus on what they do best.”
Managing media file accessibility is an ongoing challenge for facilities who must ensure that proprietary content is secure, while still facilitating efficient workflows. Nara provides controlled media access via a web-based media browser, which allows for streamlined browsing of an extensive range of image assets assuring maximum security. Each file is presented with a thumbnail and associated metadata for quick and informed access.
Nara also addresses the challenges of decoding and previewing assets. Files encoded in proprietary or high-bitrate codecs are often not supported by conventional media players or file browsers and raw or uncompressed formats demand high-performance computing resources for playback. Nara’s web-based media streaming offers color-accurate, high dynamic range capable playback for large file volumes, allowing users to stream media directly to their browsers.
Without an efficient index system, navigating storage is time-consuming and hampers the speed and effectiveness of locating specific files. Nara’s media index provides media-specific metadata for fast search and access. Users can quickly search against metadata – such as timecode, lens, codec, colour space, encoding, resolution – and very quickly browse a selection of thumbnails. The sophisticated index also allows users to view, copy and accurately share metadata information with other team members, aiding workflow and review processes throughout and beyond the facility.
Molinare, one of London’s leading post-production houses, was involved from the early stages of the Nara beta program. Darren Woolfson, CTO of Molinare Creative Group said, “The secure environment in which our media exists can create challenges for wider members of the team trying to view, check and listen to content. Identifying the correct asset can also be time consuming and finding a player to playback the asset’s codec, converted to the correct viewing color space, can be difficult.
“Nara’s background indexing along with its familiar user interface allows us to find media quickly. We can simply navigate through directories or create advanced searches based on media metadata. Once found, pretty much any file format can be securely viewed in the correct color space from a web browser almost immediately.”
Nara can be deployed on a facilities network storage in the data center or in the cloud. It is a fully scalable and can be client deployed or delivered as a complete turnkey solution.
“Many solutions today necessitate multiple product solutions, with various subscriptions, hardware requirements and integration periods,” said Lempp. “Nara streamlines this offering, making it easy to integrate and simpler to manage. And it’s accessible to all – not just Baselight customers.”