Pharos is establishing a new software development facility at the famous ‘Pie Factory’ in Salford Quays, Manchester. It will be managed by software architect Brendon Abbott who has worked with Pharos for seven years, most recently on projects for MTV, BBC World Service, Channel 4, Ascent Media and HBO Singapore.
“The new office will add a brand new team to work alongside our established software development infrastructure in Reading,” explains Pharos spokesman Russell Grute. “Crucially, it will be close to the operations at Media City where many new workflows in acquisition, production, post-production and publishing are sure to be pioneered. The whole site is due to be multiformat with HD production right through to publishing for new media; certainly much more than conventional television. We have been working for over 10 years developing and refining the Mediator platform, listening to next-generation operators and engineers, to deliver desktop solutions that better manage workflow for multiformat content”.
The Pie Factory is a joint venture between Peel Media (a subsidiary of Peel Holdings whose assets include The Trafford Centre and Liverpool John Lennon Airport) and Sumners, the North West’s largest post-production facility. Other media-centric companies sharing the location include Lemon Casting, Purplecrew, Visual Impact and Just Shoots.
Salford Quays became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in Britain following the closure of the dockyards in 1982. It is being developed in partnership by the Central Salford Urban Regeneration Company, Peel Holdings and Salford City Council. Main tenant after initial completion will be the BBC.
Pharos delivers better workflow management to broadcasters and service-providers in television, radio, IPTV and telecommunications. Pharos solutions offer a next-generation platform to manage multiformat content and enable rapid expansion in playout, presentation and publishing. Founded in 1997, Pharos has continually developed its unique Mediator, Playtime and Pilot desktop broadcast management solutions. Pharos workflow offers greater efficiency for library management, ingest, quality-control, storage management, archiving, transcoding, post-production and playout. Pharos software architecture, integration and support services enable disparate broadcast and IT processes to be unified across the enterprise.