The axle ai Gear appliance is powerful, easy to deploy, and built for radically simple media management. It uses the new Mac mini from Apple for an affordable turnkey solution for your media workflow.

Continuing to address the largely unmet need for advanced video management tools for small to mid-sized teams, axle ai, Inc. announces the launch of axle ai Gear, an integrated system that combines new Apple Mac mini computing power with axle ai’s browser-based, AI-capable media management, workflow and transcode software. True to the company’s ‘Radically Simple’ philosophy, axle ai Gear combines state-of-the art auto-tagging and search with graphical workflow and transcoding tools designed for ease of use and broad accessibility.

Apple’s new Mac mini represents a breakthrough for the axle ai customer base, now numbering over 500 creative sites worldwide, as well as tens of thousands of video teams worldwide who may be looking for video search and workflow tools. axle ai sites include prominent broadcasters, post houses, sports venues and teams, universities, corporate video departments and houses of worship.  A recent profile of Bleacher Report exemplifies a larger site using more powerful Mac Pro and Linux systems to run axle ai solutions.

With one or two Mac minis

In many cases, these customers have bought or repurposed Mac Pro systems to run axle ai software, connecting them to their network storage to analyze and process media. axle ai Gear represents a clear new value in the market, offering a complete software/hardware solution priced below what the hardware alone used to cost, with the added benefits of denser packaging and lower power consumption.

The system’s compact size also means that field deployments of axle ai software are now a breeze, including on-set DIT (digital intermediate technician) uses right where the video is captured. A great example of this workflow is Jay Cooper, who captures and manages the video for Kenny Chesney’s tours and uses axle ai software to tag and search the results.

The systems incorporate one or two of Apple’s powerful new Mac minis each equipped with 3.2GHz 6-core Intel i7 CPUs, 16GB of upgradable RAM, 256GB of SSD and 4 Terabytes of external hard disk storage, as well as a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network port.

The available configurations

The base configuration, axle ai Gear 1, includes a single Mac mini running:

• axle ai 2018 AI-capable, browser-based media management software, with a 2 user license
• axle ai’s new connectr workflow automation software
• Apple’s Mac OS Mojave operating system

Users can log in to the system from any modern web browser. The system supports Windows PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones and Android devices as browser clients.

The larger configuration, axle Gear 2, includes 2 Mac minis – one running:

• axle ai 2018 AI-capable, browser-based media management software, with a 2 user license
• axle ai’s Advanced Transcode module with support for R3D and ARRI as well as other 4K formats
• Apple’s Mac OS Mojave operating system

and a second Mac mini running:

• axle ai’s new connectr workflow automation software
• Apple’s Mac OS Mojave operating system

axle ai Gear configurations are compatible with almost any networked storage, including SAN, NAS, object/cloud and LTO tape technologies.

axle ai Gear 1 is priced from $5,995. axle ai Gear 2 is priced from $9,995. Multiple options are available from axle ai and its resellers to expand both systems’ I/O and their working storage.  axle ai Gear comes with a one-year warranty on all hardware, and a one-year contract for maintenance and updates on all software.