With Avid’s IBC 2016 introduction of the new Avid Nexis Pro, a generational evolution of their ISIS 1000 system seen at NAB 2015, Avid is providing a collaborative storage system optimized for moderate-sized post houses and broadcasters.

It also opens the Avid MediaCentral Platform workflow to storage from outside systems such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut X.

But there is another IBC announcement from Avid that has been flying under the radar. With the inclusion of axle Video’s Starter media management software free of charge, it makes the contents of Avid Nexis Pro’s storage searchable by those other systems—making the system a practical storage option to real world editors using those NLE's

“Actually, today our Avid Nexis storage product line comes in two general sizes: the Nexis Pro systems that can be expanded to four engines, and the Nexis Enterprise systems, E-2, E-4 and E-5, that we also announced at IBC,” David Colantuoni, senior director of product management at Avid told The Broadcast Bridge. “These can be scaled up to hundreds of clients accessing up to 1.4 Petabytes and more of 4K media. Each have the same underlying architecture, but are designed for different markets.”

Colantuoni tells us that Avid also wanted to further their promise of “openness” with other systems so they partnered with axle Video to tailor Nexis Pro to small workgroups.

“They make a asset management system, axle Starter, that is ideal for people who want to interact with Premier Pro for Final Cut Pro X,” he said. “That lets editors using those systems manage their media from those systems, search the database and add metadata, It’s a far cry from the closed systems that Avid was known for years ago.”

The addition of axle Starter is part of the Team Bundles Avid is offering with Avid Nexis Pro systems including Avid Storage Suite (part of the MediCentral Platform) and Artist Suite (ProTools, Media Composer, Sibelius), and as you scale up, additional seats of Media Composer.

“We tried to see how people used our systems in conjunction with other products in the industry,” Colantuoni said. “We have promised more openness, and including these software packages for free is one more example of our movement toward that goal. With axle Starter, Avid Nexis storage can be the asset management system for someone cutting on Adobe Premiere Pro.”

By including our axle Starter media management software with every Avid Nexis Pro system, other NLE’s can readily search all its storage,” Sam Bogoch, CEO of axle Video told The Broadcast Bridge.

“This new version has search and browser-based display, browse, shot selection, annotation, review and approval capability for up to 300,000 assets, whereas our full version which sells for $495 gives you 1 million asset support along with additional features.”

It should be understood that Avid Nexis Pro was always capable of storing files from other systems. It’s the ability to search the files in the database that axel Starter brings to the game.

“A major studio told me that they had accidentally dragged a very important file into the wrong Nexis Pro folder,” Bogoch said, “and they said they were unable to find it until they had access to axle Starter software.”

axle Video also has a iPad editor under development called axlr Edit. We should see it on the market by next NAB.