Front Porch Digital Awarded U.S. Patent for SAMMA Technology

Front Porch Digital has been awarded a United States patent for the technology behind its SAMMA products, which perform high-volume, semi-automated migration of media content from analog and digital videotape to multiple safe, secure, and readily accessible digital file formats. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has assigned Patent No. 7,853,766 to Front Porch Digital, crediting James Lindner, Front Porch Digital VP and director of archive strategy, as inventor of the unique “method and system for automated migration of media archives.”

“SAMMA’s inventor recognized the critical importance of preserving the cultural and historic record, and they had the technological know-how and experience to develop a novel and uniquely useful system for accomplishing that purpose,” says Mike Knaisch, chief executive officer of Front Porch Digital. “In 2008, SAMMA and Front Porch Digital decided to capitalize on the synergies in our goals, our technology, and the historic contribution we could make. Since then, we have been able to provide a solution for media past, present, and future on a scale not offered by anyone else in the world.”

SAMMAsolo is a compact, single-stream appliance that automatically migrates content from videotape to digital files in multiple formats while simultaneously monitoring video signal parameters and quality-controlling the process. The process preserves source timecode and also associates indexing and technical metadata at a frame accurate level. Digitized content is automatically moved to nearline spinning disk storage and can then be exported to external data tape storage.

Front Porch Digital markets the fourth generation of SAMMA technology, including the SAMMAsolo V.4 migration platform, under its DIVASolutions banner. The SAMMAsolo V.4 generates shot lists automatically for migrated videotape content based on configurable detection parameters including black, freeze-frame, silence, and color bars. Front Porch Digital’s SAMMArobot V.4 accommodates automatic handling of mixed size (large/small) and mixed standard (PAL/NTSC) videotape cassettes; associates migration profiles on an individual- or group-videotape basis during the preparation process; and includes an enhanced user interface with additional robotic system status messaging and support for DVCam and DVCPro tape formats.