Sony heads into the cloud

Sony Ci website

Sony had a lot of announcements at NAB, one that you might have missed was the establishment of a new subsidiary, Sony Cloud Media Services, with a package of cloud based tools for content creators 

A lot of companies are talking about "The Cloud" and how it will be used in content creation. Sony have dived in and created a platform with a package of tools to simplify some of the more mundane tasks associated with creation and distribution of Movies and TV shows. The new platform is called Ci (pronounced see) and is currently in beta. Here is some info from the press release:

Sony Corporation of America today announced the launch of Sony Media Cloud Services, a new subsidiary that will give creative professionals a virtual workspace with revolutionary media applications to store, share and manipulate content from any location in the world.

Leveraging Sony's end-to-end expertise across the media landscape, the new company's robust, scalable cloud platform, Ci^SM (pronounced see), will provide studios, broadcasters, filmmakers, independent producers, marketing teams and other creative individuals a "one-cloud" solution to collect, produce and archive high-value, high-definition content, allowing fast and secure collaboration on a global scale.

"Every day, creative professionals around the world spend numerous hours and resources on non-creative tasks like moving and sharing content, figuring out how and where to store it, and getting the right assets to the right places and in the right hands," said Naomi Climer, President, Sony Media Cloud Services. "Sony understands these complex challenges, which is why we designed Ci as a functionally rich, scalable and secure, media-focused cloud platform that can enhance and streamline traditional production workflows to make it easier to collaborate more effectively and cost-efficiently."

"The efficiency and flexibility that cloud solutions provide will radically change the way creative professionals collaborate," said Chris Cookson, President, Sony Pictures Technologies. "Working with Sony's Cloud Services team to further enhance Ci's platform and applications will enable our production and distribution teams around the world to work together more efficiently, without sacrificing creativity or quality."

Forged from Sony's proven ability to solve real-world production and post-production challenges, Ci has been designed with intuitive capabilities to analyze complex media and data to enable machine-assisted workflows—making it one of the industry's most innovative media solutions available to professionals at any level. Pay-as-you-go pricing, infinite scalability, application-based servicing, all from a secure browser-based user interface, make it simple for people to assemble teams online, work on projects and access files from locations around the world. Applications available at launch include:

Ci MediaBox: Collects, organizes, previews, shares and archives every media type and size using studio-designed cloud storage solution suite
Ci VideoLog: Enables logging of frame-accurate events to prepare content for downstream opportunities, distribution and playout automation
Ci AudioSync: Utilizes analysis algorithms and audio pattern matching to reduce non-creative editing work time in content-preparation workflows
Ci FrameMatch: Analyzes media files to automatically identify differences and likenesses between two sets of video files
Ci ReviewApprove: Enables review, annotation and collaboration on media files across multiple locations in real time, simultaneously

"Ci MasterSuite is an innovative approach to delivering professional media applications. Sony's cloud-based, service-oriented architecture makes it easy to integrate these tools into our workflow, and the browser-based user interface will enable our teams to access content and collaborate from anywhere on our network," said Jeff Mayzurk, SVP, Studio Operations, NBCUniversal.

"Built by Sony Pictures movie and television professionals, incubated by Sony's hardware and technology, and brought to market by a global sales force who understand the needs of our industry, Ci goes beyond simply delivering innovative technology—it brings the total power of Sony into the cloud," said Climer. "Together, we've built a platform with applications that not only addresses today's media challenges, but serves as the foundation to develop innovative services to transform our industry for years to come. The possibilities are endless."

Ci is currently in beta production and will be on display next week at the 2013 NAB Show in the Sony booth. Ci is available within the U.S. and European markets, with plans for additional service capabilities to be launched within the year. Sony Media Cloud Services is headquartered on the Sony Pictures Studio lot in Culver City, Calif., with regional teams based in North America, Europe and Asia.

Quirky website

Certainly the ability to do logging, syncing, framematching, review and approval online is an interesting proposition, I'm curious to see what else they have up their sleeve and how much thy intend to charge for the service.

There is a quirky new website at www.sonymcs.com with more info