Choosing the right type of post production storage for media production and post production is critical for enabling creative teams to collaborate effectively and deliver work on time. The needs of media workflows are quite different from other applications and also from traditional IT-oriented considerations. Instead of focusing on the number of operations (IOPS) available from the storage layer, the critical metric for working with high resolution video is throughput: how many (typically) large media files can be read from (and written to) shared storage simultaneously by multiple editors and other users of the system.
The simplest form of storage used in media production is DAS: direct attached storage. That is, a disk drive (or maybe a RAID array of disk drives) attached directly to a workstation, typically via USB or Thunderbolt or other external protocols such as SAS. It is fast and, by definition, there can be no contention because only one person can use it at a time. If more than one person needs access to the media on the drive, they will have to unplug it from one workstation and plug it into another. The alternative is for each person to have their own DAS, which quickly adds up in terms of raw drive costs and means a lot of copying files around, with the inevitable challenges of managing versions and keeping changes in sync.
To avoid all these limitations we need to move to an architecture which provides shared storage.
One flavor of shared storage is SAN (Storage Area Network) storage. This is a large server environment to which multiple clients can attach and access a shared pool of storage available from across many servers and drives. When a client connects to a SAN it appears the same as a local drive, essentially like DAS, and applications will talk to the storage at the block level.
While the SAN provides a pool of storage, meaning that each workstation attached to it can have access to a large amount of storage when required, a given segment of the raw storage can still only be attached to a single workstation at a time and so has many of the similar limitations for media workflows as DAS.
Also, to get its promised performance, the SAN typically uses fibre channel connectivity (today, more usually FCoE: fibre channel over ethernet), a protocol which delivers fast data rates, but which really only works on local area networks, so is not suitable for remote collaboration.
There may be times when you need blisteringly fast connectivity, like dealing in uncompressed 4K or beyond with data rates in excess of 2GB/sec for digital cinematography, film restoration, and high end finishing. In these cases, SAN could be the solution, however these workflows can also be achieved with other shared storage options that also allow for easier collaboration, further optimising workflows and reducing overall data storage capacity requirements.
The alternative storage option is NAS, network attached storage. EditShare’s software defined shared storage is a high performance scale out NAS, whether deployed on-premises or in the cloud. The EditShare File System (EFS) is renowned for its excellent performance in production and post-production. Whilst you might initially think of NAS as a low performance storage designed for smaller applications, with a clustered architecture and other optimizations NAS can deliver high data rates and all the flexible and cost effective advantages of NAS without the need to build out a SAN.
A NAS, as its name suggests, is storage which sits on your core TCP/IP network, not a branch off to a separate, dedicated network. Any other device on the network can access any part of the NAS, so collaborative workflows become completely simple and transparent.
Unlike a SAN, though, NAS is not accessed at the block level: file operations are sent over the network. This file-level locking has the huge benefit of making it simple to integrate with creative software and intuitive in use.
The question, then, is how to get the performance we need for premium post-production with shared storage on a NAS?
Typically, workstations and NAS servers communicate using standard protocols like SMB or NFS. These are designed to be suitable for whatever the computer needs, however can have limitations when pushed to the limits demanded by high bit rate editing and post.
So EditShare developed its own, media-specific network protocol, accessible using EFS Native Client file system drivers that are available on MacOS, Windows and Linux.
Media applications rely heavily on multi-threaded operations to present multiple video, audio and other data to be streamed to users in high resolution. The EFS Native Client takes advantage of this pattern to balance the throughput load across multiple storage nodes and determine the fastest way to deliver files back to the application. The result is much higher performance than with conventional network protocols.
EditShare EFS storage systems are also inherently scalable: when you need more space, you add additional nodes and hard drives to grow the overall capacity of the system. A major advantage of this approach is that you can get a two-for-one deal: providing additional protection by spreading data across servers but also gain throughput benefits when reading data from multiple nodes to avoid hotspot of contention on particular hard drives or server nodes.
The advantages of software defined NAS are many. You can freely mix SSD and spinning disks (although in the real world you may well find that you do not need SSD as much as you think you do). You do not need to define the number and allocation of clients. Multiple clients can access the same files: you would have to manually define copy tasks on a SAN. If you need to re-size volumes from project to project, you do it with a couple of mouse clicks, not the wholesale restructure you need for SAN. In addition, the commodity TCP/IP network connectivity infrastructure you already have can be utilized, instead of having to deploy costly and inflexible parallel SAN infrastructure or bespoke dual personality Fibre Channel/NIC cards.
Importantly, for solutions such as EditShare EFS, there is a focus on the aggregate performance of the storage across multiple workstations simultaneously accessing a large pool of media. Of course, individual client performance is critical and EditShare continuously optimises both client and server to align to the sweet spot for real media applications. But beyond the individual it is just as important to consider the overall capabilities of the storage layer to support many users collaborating together across a range of applications that put different demands on the storage throughout the production lifecycle. It is this focus on performance of the applications using the storage that is important: can multiple users edit multiple streams without latency, jitter or dropped frames? The answer with EditShare EFS is, they can.
How EditShare helped the public television content creator to improve its workflow and save money and time
Fast access to content on the Alibaba cloud
Boston, MA – June 9, 2022 – EditShare®, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, powered the video workflows for the finals of the 2021-22 China Men’s Basketball Professional League (CBA). Working with the international sports department of leading cloud provider Alibaba, EditShare used its FLOW media management tools to allow media companies to upload, download, edit and handle the delivery of the game.
EditShare’s open architecture allowed for customization of the FLOW web user interfaces for CBA, providing each registered user with tailored functionality. The crew on site uploaded all the video material to the cloud, where CBA officials, sponsors, rights-holding media organizations and other registered users could search and download content. Comprehensive security restrictions were applied to ensure no unauthorized person could access the videos.
The purpose of the cloud-based distribution platform was to ensure content was available to all entitled users as quickly as possible. To help this, EditShare tailored the web-based user interfaces for all classes of user, in the Chinese language, to make content searches, access and downloads as simple and intuitive as possible.
“The project was overseen by EditShare’s regional partner ThinkTone Tech in Beijing. “The CBA Finals are a prestigious sporting event,” said Pavel Li, Product Director, ThinkTone Tech. “Fans all over the country and further afield were excited to see their favorite teams in action. We were delighted to help our customer exceed audience expectations thanks to the advanced technology provided by EditShare and Alibaba.”
Said Bacho, chief revenue officer at EditShare, added “Live sport does not have time to wait for video distribution systems to catch up – fans want to see the live action and all the replays immediately. FLOW from EditShare provides access to thousands of assets from wherever you are, especially with cloud access like this project with Alibaba. FLOW also supports all the popular editing platforms, so each user can decide for themselves how they want to work with the content, and what is most appropriate for them.”
The last game in the 2021-22 CBA Finals, when Liaoning beat Guangsha 100:82, was held on 26 April in Nanchang, at the end of almost four weeks of intensive competition, with coverage depending on FLOW from EditShare.
For more information on EditShare solutions, please click here to get in touch.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader that enables collaborative media workflows on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration. With customer and partner success at the heart of EditShare’s core values, our open software solutions and robust APIs improve workflow collaboration and third-party integrations across the entire production chain, ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none. The high-performance software lineup includes media optimized shared storage management, archiving and backup, and media management, all supported with open APIs for extensible integration.
EditShare’s cloud-enabled remote editing and project management technology was recently recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a prestigious 2021 Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering.
©2022 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare.
Press Contact
Caroline Shawley
MKM Marketing Communications
caroline@mkm-marcomms.com
+44 (0) 7730 145 759
By Stephen Tallamy, CTO, EditShare
New facilities boost remote and collaborative production and post for booming Latin American market
Boston, MA – May 31, 2022 – EditShare®, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, today announced that it is providing powerful media storage and workflow facilities to Administración Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Antel), the national telecoms business in Uruguay. The service provides a strong and reliable remote and collaborative post environment for users like leading audiovisual production hub REDUCTO, using Antel’s extensive high-speed internet connectivity.
Housed in Antel’s Tier III data center is the EditShare storage system, built on EFS 450 and EFS SSD solid state storage appliances. Total capacity at present is 300 TB, and the connection between the Antel data center and REDUCTO runs across two redundant, geographically diverse 10 gigabit fibers.
The storage is complemented by EditShare FLOW automation and media management to track content, maintain secure redundancy and enable creative users at REDUCTO to track projects. FLOW also allows individual users to work with their preference in edit workstations and other creative tools, with no impact on workflows or storage and archiving.
REDUCTO is an audiovisual production hub with an international reputation. In its Montevideo headquarters, across the city from the Antel data center, it has two production studios and it is the home of 2 post-production facilities, Colour and Boat. The partnership with Antel provides scalable and flexible access to the best editing and colour grading tools, giving it a powerful offering and advantage.
“Latin America is a booming region for video production, and we can provide the connectivity to allow producers to work with the high-quality facilities at REDUCTO from any part of the continent,” said Gustavo Andrés Arbiza Mattos, Telecommunications Engineer at Antel. “EditShare and its innovative storage and workflow architectures enabled us to create a compelling business case for hosting video services. The ability to support very high bandwidth services like uncompressed digital cinematography and Ultra HD, and good scalability both on premise and in the cloud, means that we can respond in an agile way to the growth of the market.”
Thanks to the high-speed connectivity from Antel, REDUCTO is now able to serve the broadcast and media market across the whole of Latin America from its central location. The latest additions to the EditShare environment support resolutions up to 8k, meaning it can deliver services for the movie and events industry as well as broadcast.
Producers can be granted access to the shared storage to view progress without the need to travel to Uruguay. EditShare FLOW provides the security functionality for protected tenancies, allowing REDUCTO to host productions for multiple clients simultaneously and in time, for Antel to offer the same hosting and connectivity service to other media clients.
Mateo Musitelli, Project Manager RC&C at REDUCTO added “Prestige productions demand secure and flexible facilities. EditShare gives us native tools for remote production, fast and intuitive workflows, and the knowledge that the content entrusted to us is always secure and always available. It is a key element in our continuing expansion plans as a leader in the media industry across the region.”
For more information on EditShare solutions, please click here to get in touch.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader that enables collaborative media workflows on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration. With customer and partner success at the heart of EditShare’s core values, our open software solutions and robust APIs improve workflow collaboration and third-party integrations across the entire production chain, ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none. The high-performance software lineup includes media optimized shared storage management, archiving and backup, and media management, all supported with open APIs for extensible integration.
EditShare’s cloud-enabled remote editing and project management technology was recently recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a prestigious 2021 Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering.
©2022 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare.
Press Contact
Caroline Shawley
MKM Marketing Communications
caroline@mkm-marcomms.com
+44 (0) 7730 145 759
By Stephen Tallamy, CTO, EditShare
Flexible, cloud-enabled workflows facilitate remote working and transform creative story telling
Boston, MA – May 25, 2022 – EditShare®, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, is using its presence at Broadcast Asia (1 – 3 June, Singapore Expo, stand 5F3-01) to highlight its latest enhancements for production and post production. Headlining the stand will be the new suite of FLEX software solutions for cloud and hybrid workflows.
FLEX reflects the powerful business trends in post today, including the migration to a “work anywhere” environment, with ready access to content wherever the creative staff need to be. In adopting cloud broadcast media storage and processing, it also meets the move towards an OpEx financial model, with the cloud hosting and storage fees flexing to reflect the level of business.
“The Asia Pacific region is an important territory to EditShare and we can’t wait to attend the show in person and meet with our local customers and partners face-to-face once again,” comments Said Bacho, Chief Revenue Officer at EditShare. “We’re especially looking forward to demonstrating how FLEX can greatly simplify how teams may choose to work and the benefits that this can bring.”
Broadcast Asia will provide an opportunity for visitors to see the latest developments following their launch at NAB 2022. These are all aimed at simplifying the creative experience while providing even greater content security and availability.
A great example of workflow streamlining is the enhanced project synchronization with NLEs, including Media Composer, Adobe® Premiere® Pro and DaVinci Resolve. This allows complex projects to be readily moved between EditShare FLOW media management and the NLE environment.
Also added to FLOW is the ability to support the latest RAW format updates for RED and Blackmagic Design camera systems, and impose LUTs in real time, both on full resolution material and on proxies.
FLOW can now also ingest NDI contribution feeds and immediately present them for editing, ideal for news and sports fast turnaround editing. To make the workflows as slick as possible, EditShare has been collaborating with MoovIT on its Helmut 4 orchestration platform, and will demonstrate how they work together to make Adobe and EditShare the perfect environment for high pressure operations.
Content security and availability is vital to professional users, and EditShare is adding new hardware and software in this area. The EFS 60NL is a new device, aimed at nearline storage, and providing 60 drive bays in 4U of rack space. Within the EditShare environment, nearline storage is ideal for content which is needed but not being immediately worked on, ready to be transferred to the online servers with virtually no delay.
Adding to the security and sharing concept, EFS Multi-Site allows users with multiple locations to leverage built-in file acceleration to synchronize project storage between EFS clusters in different facilities. This ensures that users have ready access to content, wherever they choose to work. Cloud Sync extends the capabilities of Multi-Site to cloud storage, providing added flexibility in access as well as security in archiving.
For more information on EditShare solutions, please click here to get in touch.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader that enables collaborative media workflows on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration. With customer and partner success at the heart of EditShare’s core values, our open software solutions and robust APIs improve workflow collaboration and third-party integrations across the entire production chain, ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none. The high-performance software lineup includes media optimized shared storage management, archiving and backup, and media management, all supported with open APIs for extensible integration.
EditShare’s cloud-enabled remote editing and project management technology was recently recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a prestigious 2021 Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering.
©2022 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare.
Press Contact
Caroline Shawley
MKM Marketing Communications
caroline@mkm-marcomms.com
+44 (0) 7730 145 759
In the post industry, the biggest pressure today – aside from the usual need to control costs and boost productivity – is the need to support a “work anywhere” environment. Creative staff want the flexibility to work their preferred hours, from a location of their choosing. It reduces or eliminates the commute to an office, which has real environmental benefits as well as reducing stress for the editor.
EditShare led the industry in developing cloud solutions. It took existing, successful products and concepts and added the open-ness, interoperability and scalability that the cloud offers.
All of this experience is now brought together in EditShare FLEX, which offers a highly tailored environment for all the major tasks from remote editing to secure archiving. Most importantly, FLEX is designed in such a way that it is simple to implement and intuitive to manage. It does not require IT expertise to get the best of the system, nor to ensure security and reliability.
Migrating to the cloud gives businesses the obvious advantage that they do not need to physically host the hardware on which their work depends. This reduces the space they need, the power they consume, the air conditioning demands and the downtime and staff to ensure that the hardware is maintained and updated as required.
Conversely, the creative team will be accustomed to their preferred software and know how it should respond. Forcing a change of edit software, for example, would be simply unacceptable. Equally, making the system less responsive to key presses or mouse clicks would be unsettling and cause slow down workflows and become a stumbling block in adoption.
The guiding principle of EditShare FLEX is that you should carry on using your preferred tools in exactly the way you are used to. Cloud and remote working means there is an abstraction between the operator and the physical workstation, but that cannot be any sort of obstacle: it must be completely transparent.
To make this possible, EditShare has collaborated with industry leaders. FLEX uses the popular and widely recognised Teradici software to provide remote access from anywhere to virtual workstations. And if you are new to cloud connectivity and do not have an established fast file transfer process we can integrate CloudDat software from Data Expedition Inc.
Even more important, the FLEX virtual workstations in the cloud support whatever NLE software you currently use: it is completely agnostic. Indeed, if you have some editors who prefer Premiere Pro, some who are Avid fans and others who are most comfortable on DaVinci Resolve, you can support all of them, simultaneously and completely transparently.
There are two main bundles of the FLEX offering at present, with more to come in the future. FLEX Cloud Edit does what the name suggests: allows your editors to sit wherever they like and edit on virtual machines in the AWS cloud. Customers can take this bundle a step further with FLEX Cloud Edit+ which adds workstation management and file transfer acceleration, providing video production teams with an end-to-end video studio suite virtualized in the cloud.
The second bundle is FLEX Sync, which synchronizes between local EFS storage and cloud-based archives. It can be set to be completely automatic and it eliminates the need for LTO tape libraries, another continuing cost for space, maintenance, tapes and upgrades. By moving your archive or DR backup to the cloud, you also gain massive resilience. Once your archive is available in the cloud it unlock opportunities to utilize it for other cloud solutions, including FLEX Cloud Edit.
There are options in each service so you can tailor your system to precisely your requirements. If you do not have the necessary IT and engineering skills in house, then EditShare’s professional services team can provide the system design and scoping.
The great advantage of FLEX, though, is that you maintain full control over your working environment. Your talented and creative team will notice few changes, and will be able to work as productively as before, if not more so.
It delivers against the key concerns. It provides secure and efficient remote working, alongside edit-in-the-cloud, with all the CapEx savings and OpEx control that implies. And you maintain full control over your working environment and, most important, the security of the content entrusted to you.
New installations in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Turkey increase the presence of EditShare open solutions in the region
Boston, MA – May 18, 2022 – EditShare®, the leading supplier of creative and collaborative media workflows for storytellers, continues to deliver powerful solutions for major projects in the Middle East. The company is proud to have been involved in an installation at Expo 2020 Dubai, which won the prestigious “Innovative Project of the Year” trophy at the 2021 Broadcast Pro awards, and has also delivered solutions to customers in Saudi Arabia and Sharjah.
EditShare has provided its broadcast media storage and workflow tools to one of the largest smart cities in Saudi Arabia. And in Sharjah, the Government Media Bureau has also invested to support its production of a broad range of video content and delivery over multiple platforms.
Each system sees EditShare FLOW media management and EFS storage solutions providing streamlined editorial workflows. With its completely open approach, the EditShare video content management system allows each user to support a mix of Adobe® Premiere® Pro, Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve and other professional post production tools seamlessly within tailored workflows.
EditShare worked in conjunction with its local distributors including, among others United Broadcast & Media Solutions (UBMS) to design, install and support these two applications and their customers.
Rayan Nasser, Sales Director at UBMS said, “Our customer, the largest smart city in Saudi Arabia, has some of the most advanced media operations in the Middle East, attracting and hosting world-class content creators and distributors. “EditShare’s ability to integrate key editorial tools removes the bottlenecks of proprietary systems, enabling us to offer clients the full range of post-production services using their preferred creative tools, while giving them the reassurance of outstanding support from us as an EditShare partner.”
Said Bacho, EditShare’s Chief Revenue Officer, comments, “With a Dubai-based regional team in place, EditShare has established itself as a trusted vendor in the Middle East whose innovations have provided customers with a wide range of possibilities for integration with the editorial tools and production systems they want to use.
“Media companies demand multi-vendor workflows that can be tailored to their specific production needs,” adds Bacho. “What is so attractive to our users is that we absorb the complex technical demands, eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring that the creative teams enjoy a seamless, intuitive experience – leaving them free to concentrate on making great content.”
For more information on EditShare solutions, please click here to get in touch.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader that enables collaborative media workflows on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration. With customer and partner success at the heart of EditShare’s core values, our open software solutions and robust APIs improve workflow collaboration and third-party integrations across the entire production chain, ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none. The high-performance software lineup includes media optimized shared storage management, archiving and backup, and media management, all supported with open APIs for extensible integration.
EditShare’s cloud-enabled remote editing and project management technology was recently recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a prestigious 2021 Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering.
©2022 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare.
Press Contact
Caroline Shawley
MKM Marketing Communications
caroline@mkm-marcomms.com
+44 (0) 7730 145 759
Flexible, cloud-enabled workflows, project synchronization with NLEs, LUT and RAW support, live capture and more
Boston, MA – May 10, 2022 – EditShare®, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, will showcase its strong commitment to the Middle East region at CABSAT 2022 (17 – 19 May, Dubai World Trade Centre, stand C6-31), introducing its new FLEX cloud solutions. This suite of powerful media asset management and storage software solutions provides a straightforward way for businesses, large and small, to take full advantage of cloud services and workflows.
FLEX reflects the powerful business trends in post today, including the migration to a “work anywhere” environment, with ready access to content wherever the creative staff need to be. In adopting cloud storage and processing, it also meets the move towards an OpEx financial model, with the cloud hosting and storage fees flexing to reflect the level of business.
Michele Dwayk and Amjad Baidas, the latest recruits to EditShare’s team in the region, will be on the booth to showcase the new technology enhancements.
“The Middle East is a very strategic territory to EditShare, and we continue to work with many of the big players in the region,” comments Said Bacho, Chief Revenue Officer at EditShare. “We know how important strong relationships are in this community, which is why we have carefully recruited very well-known and respected talent like Michele and Amjad to work with our customers and channel partners here.”In its simplest form, FLEX Cloud Edit provides media asset management, high performance software-defined storage, and virtual workstations in the AWS cloud.
CABSAT will be the perfect opportunity to see the latest developments following their launch at NAB 2022. These are all aimed at simplifying the creative experience while providing even greater content security and availability.
A great example of workflow streamlining is the enhanced project synchronization with NLEs, including Media Composer, Adobe® Premiere® Pro and DaVinci Resolve. This allows complex projects to be readily moved between EditShare FLOW media management and the NLE environment.
Also added to FLOW is the ability to support the latest RAW format updates for RED and Blackmagic Design camera systems, and impose LUTs in real time, both on full resolution material and on proxies.
FLOW can now also ingest NDI contribution feeds and immediately present them for editing, ideal for news and sports fast turnaround editing. To make the workflows as slick as possible, EditShare has been collaborating with MoovIT on its Helmut 4 orchestration platform, and will demonstrate how they work together to make Adobe and EditShare the perfect environment for high pressure operations.
Content security and availability is vital to professional users, and EditShare is adding new hardware and software in this area. The EFS 60NL is a new device, aimed at nearline storage, and providing 60 drive bays in 4U of rack space. Within the EditShare environment, nearline storage is ideal for content which is needed but not being immediately worked on, ready to be transferred to the online servers with virtually no delay.
Adding to the security and sharing concept, EFS Multi-Site allows users with multiple locations to leverage built-in file acceleration to synchronize project storage between EFS clusters in different facilities. This ensures that users have ready access to content, wherever they choose to work. Cloud Sync extends the capabilities of Multi-Site to cloud storage, providing added flexibility in access as well as security in archiving.
“This year’s participation at CABSAT marks a first for EditShare by exhibiting at our own booth with a regional team on board,” added Bacho. “It will be great to show our users and channel partners in the Middle East all the exciting new innovations we have been working on, and discuss how we can transform story-telling.”
For more information on EditShare solutions, please click here to get in touch.
To book a meeting or demo at CABSAT, please click here.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology leader that enables collaborative media workflows on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration. With customer and partner success at the heart of EditShare’s core values, our open software solutions and robust APIs improve workflow collaboration and third-party integrations across the entire production chain, ensuring a world-class experience that is second to none. The high-performance software lineup includes media optimized shared storage management, archiving and backup, and media management, all supported with open APIs for extensible integration.
EditShare’s cloud-enabled remote editing and project management technology was recently recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) with a prestigious 2021 Emmy® Award for Technology and Engineering.
©2022 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare.
Press Contact
Caroline Shawley
MKM Marketing Communications
caroline@mkm-marcomms.com
+44 (0) 7730 145 759
