Students work with Sony
on proof of concept test

Working with Sony, UCA has been conducting a successful Proof of Concept (PoC) to evaluate the capabilities of Sony’s Ci Media Cloud asset management platform.

26 Sep 2024

Developed by Sony Pictures, Ci is a cloud-based system that allows content creators to share, transfer, edit, transcode, manage, catalogue, and archive media files in a highly secure collaborative environment. 

As a passionate advocate for creative education and research, UCA has provided an ideal test environment to demonstrate how Ci Media Cloud can be used by today’s emerging digital artists, including filmmakers and other content creators.

“Today, most artists – regardless of their chosen medium – will at some point have a need to archive and share digital assets” stated Christopher Nicholson, Associate Professor at UCA.

“UCA is 100% dedicated to the creative arts – and as such we have a wide range of students, all with differing skills and areas of practice,” added Professor Nicholson. “We’re living in the era of technical and artistic convergence, and virtually every artist will at some point generate a digital asset. A main purpose of the test was to see if artists within UCA could share these assets quickly, securely and efficiently.”

The trial has demonstrated Ci’s ability to handle various file types from different sources, allowing immediate distribution. UCA staff also confirm that the system is both robust and secure in use. Built with security in mind, Ci Media Cloud runs on Amazon Web Services and incorporates multi-factor user authentication and powerful media encryption. Apps are also protected by further password protection and watermarking measures.

The project saw Sony visit UCA and guide students on accessing and sharing digital assets in real time. “Sony has been very generous in the help and support they’ve provided UCA for the test,” said Prof. Nicholson.

The ongoing proof of concept testing sees new departments being progressively introduced to Ci, allowing UCA to evaluate the platform’s viability for more extensive inter-departmental collaboration.

“Our initial test has proved how Sony Ci could work for UCA. The system has already proved to be a remarkably adaptable, efficient, and secure way of sharing a very wide range of assets via the Cloud," confirmed Prof. Nicholson.