BFV's Big Interview: CCK Media

CCK Media have been a premier supplier of media and storage for over 20 years, growing in size and reputation. Based in London, the company's Managing Director, Frank Casali, spoke to BFV about the history of the business and how it continues to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of the industry...

BFV: Who are CCK and what's the history?
FC: We like to think that we are both London's – and the region's – industry favourite provider of Broadcast Tape, Solid State and Disc Media. We have, and continue to support, the traditional broadcast market as far back as 1993. During the years we have seen massive evolution in the traditional forms of media, shifting us into new industry segments and enabling us to specialise in new media solutions.

What is the future for Broadcast Tape?
That's a good question given that CCK's business was based in its formative years on traditional tape media. The answer however isn't an easy one I'm afraid; in part because of the multitude of file based acquisition on Solid State Media. However key industry formats such as Sony's HDCAM SR still remain extremely important to market and while the volumes have lessened over the years there is still is a very solid place for these more specialist media types. In short, we come from traditional media roots and while there is demand we will continue to support individual client requirements.

We see your LTO ad in BFV. What is LTO all about?
Well this is part of the developing trend that I mentioned earlier and our evolving to our client's needs. Storage and mass archive using LTO (and for that matter other mediums) are hugely important essentials of business for broadcast. So a product that, in the past was a stronghold of the IT world, (LTO) is now a key media supplied by CCK to a wide range of broadcast clients. This is one area where we actively see positive growth in tape thanks to the amazing capacity and relatively cost effective ownership. As for the media itself, it's extremely stable and hugely reliable and fits extremely well with our other media solutions.

What about your key brand relationships? Why are they important to CCK?
Sony development is, as always, rapid to say the least. Key Pro-Media formats such as SxS, XQD, XDCam & Optical Disc Archive are key categories for us. Sony recently expanded their HDD range with Professional Hard Drives completing an already comprehensive portable drive range.

G-Technology's exemplary market research ensures that their drive range at the upper end of the market. G-Tech actively spend time and effort understanding workflow requirements and creating a range of products that fit well in most aspects of production work adding real value to client workflows.

Sandisk are the leaders in memory media, catering for brands where the camera manufacturer doesn't produce its own media. The line-up therefore covers the majority of the non-proprietary flash memory formats such as CFAST, SD in various forms, SSDs and a wide range of USB devices. This allows us to service all brands of camera currently available in market.

What's the latest 'must have'?
It's always a very subjective question however I'm going to choose three products that, when I first saw them, I knew they were going to be potentially "must haves" for some of our clients.

OZO – In July CCK were appointed as the first UK reseller by Nokia for their OZO. The OZO is the first Professional Virtual Reality device which does not need complex multi-camera rigs to capture 360° spherical video and 360 x 360 surround sound. This is a really exciting new product all be it may be not main stream.

GoPro offer a very cool range of products and are about to launch the Omni. The eagerly anticipated Omni will let you create professional-quality 360 spherical videos and looks to be a real show stopper. (This is launching at IBC).

Sony – Professional Raid is a typical Sony product, superbly engineered, great looking for either field or desktop use and tied with one of the longest warranties in market at three years. The two options of 4TB and 6TB offer great reliability and compatibility with both Mac and Windows. Sony bundle a clever piece of software (Media Utility) that supports fast and efficient wrangling of data transferred from SxS cards.

What are you working on at the moment that you can share with us?
We are constantly looking closely at the market and how our clients' needs are developing. As a result we are always on a number of journeys at any one time so key headings for us at the moment include Storage DNA / GB Labs / LTO / Sony's Optical Disk Archive / Quantum / HGST.

How does the future look for CCK?
The future is truly bright for CCK and we have our clients to thank for this, so regardless of market changes and the inevitable ups and downs of the broadcast business we will continue to push ourselves to deliver exactly what's required. At the same time, we will never stray too far from our earliest beginnings and our key relationships as these are what really form the cornerstone of CCK's success.

www.cckmedia.com

This article is also available to read at BFV online here, page 5.

(JP)