Aspera Technology Powers Technicolor’s Global Media Transfers

NAB2008
Booth #SU15509

Aspera, Inc., creator of innovative high-performance bulk data transport technologies, today announced new developments in its long-standing relationship with the Technicolor Services Division of Thomson. A global leader in digital services for the media and entertainment industries, Technicolor uses Aspera software as its key file transfer solution within its global production network and has incorporated Aspera’s faspTM high-speed transport technology into its new MIDAS™ integrated media platform.

“Aspera technology has been used by Technicolor for nearly three years,” commented Michelle Munson, Aspera President and Co-Founder. “Today, Technicolor relies on our complete high-speed file transfer software suite to power global production and online distribution workflows that would simply not be possible with traditional technologies.”

Media transfers initiated through Aspera Point-to-Point and Aspera faspexTM software fully utilize the available bandwidth of multiple 100-155 Mb/s links between Technicolor Creative Services, Theatrical Services and Network Services facilities all over the world. Aspera technology allows Technicolor to effectively moderate bandwidth usage, protect other network traffic and precisely monitor all file transfer activity, while providing the uncompromising level of security required for its high-profile projects.

Aspera software was selected by Technicolor to meet the stringent demands of its global digital workflow, including the ability to both transfer very large files (such as a finished feature film or a high-bit rate MPEG2 file) as well as large collections of small files (such as DPX image sequences that include several hundred 12MB frames), at maximum speed, in multiple formats and resolutions, totaling hundreds of GB multiple times daily. With Aspera’s new file streamlining technique, large collections of smaller files can be transferred at link speed, without time-consuming pre-archiving, zipping and post-transfer extractions.

Ken Spickler, Director, Production Network operations at Technicolor, reported that this new functionality greatly improved a critical part of their workflow, commenting that even with WAN acceleration, FTP proved very inefficient when transferring large image sequences, and by using Aspera fasp 2.0 technology, Technicolor is now able to transfer those same sequences much faster, without having to archive the file sets in advance.

Enabled by the integration of Aspera’s fasp transport, the efficient and secure movement of digital content between facilities and customer sites across the globe within guaranteed timeframes is a key component of Technicolor’s new MIDAS integrated media platform. Additionally, Aspera software is broadly used among Technicolor’s business partners and customers, allowing them to immediately take full advantage of the system’s advanced transfer capabilities.

“Technicolor’s broad adoption of our transport technology is a testament to a successful three-year collaboration between our two companies and a great milestone for Aspera,” said Serban Simu, co-founder and Vice President of Engineering at Aspera Inc. “With more media and entertainment companies making the switch to all-digital operations every day, Technicolor and Aspera are working together to enable an industry transformation based on systems integration and technological breakthroughs.”

For additional information on Aspera’s file transport technologies and solutions, please visit www.asperasoft.com.

About Aspera

Aspera Inc. is a software development company creating innovative high-performance bulk data transport technologies that provide maximum speed, complete security and breakthrough bandwidth control at global distances. With several thousand endpoint and server licenses installed world wide, Aspera’s fasp™ software products are becoming the industry standard for high-speed transfer of digital content in the media and entertainment marketplace and the technology of choice for enterprise-wide deployment for Fortune 500 companies.

©2008 Aspera Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements, and availability are subject to change without notice. Aspera, fasp, faspex, are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspera Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Contacts

For Aspera Software, Inc.
Susan J. Hoffmann, 510-599-6628
sjhoffmann {at} bba(.)com