Alex Leafer, Director of Production for the New York Islanders, joins us to discuss how EditShare storage and FLOW asset management support their content production, pre-game presentations and social media presence. From capturing those exhilarating moments on the field to delivering compelling highlights, our hosts will guide you through innovative strategies and best practices tailored to streamline your sports video production process. This webinar will be a game-changer in maximizing efficiency and enhancing the quality of your sports content.
As a video production professional, choosing the right video storage solution for your media assets is a crucial decision. While file and project sizes continue to grow exponentially, deadlines are continuously shrinking, so having a video storage system that can keep up with capacity demands while remaining fast, secure and cost-effective is essential.
In this article, we’ll examine the pros and cons of the two main options – cloud video storage and on-premise video storage – and look at the benefits of the hybrid solutions that combine both.
What is the difference between on-prem and cloud storage?
On-premise video storage is locally connected media storage such as individual hard drives and RAIDs, network-attached storage (NAS) or storage area networks (SANS) that are physically located at your facility and managed by your own IT staff.
The benefits of on-premise storage include the potential for air-gapped security, predictable costs and reliable performance. The downside to this kind of video storage is that the full expenditure is incurred upfront, your internal IT or creative teams must manage, backup and repair the system, and significant expansion requires additional costs and expertise.
Cloud video storage, however, is offsite, internet-connected media storage managed by an external third-party vendor. One of the main benefits of working with cloud storage for video production is that the cost is limited to a monthly subscription for the capacity used, negating the requirement for a lot of up-front cash.
That capacity can be rapidly expanded or constrained in tandem with current project requirements, leading to cost savings and overall efficiencies but also a more unpredictable monthly spend. Furthermore, the third-party vendor bears all management, servicing and infrastructure costs, which is often preferable for teams without this in-house expertise.
Hybrid video storage solutions aim to combine the best of both worlds into one integrated system. Fast, high-bandwidth local storage is used for active projects and workflows, while completed projects and non-urgent media are sent to the cloud for archiving. This combines the performance and simplicity of on-premise storage with the scalability and cost savings of the cloud.
What about remote access? For both on-premise and cloud video storage, remote access is possible, depending on the security and performance requirements of the video production team.
The Pros and Cons of On-Premise Video Storage
While there are many benefits to having all of your video storage on-premise, cloud storage is designed to overcome limitations and challenges. Let’s consider some of the pros and cons of on-premise video storage in more detail.
Pro – Full control over all hardware and software
One of the advantages of on-premise vs cloud storage is that you design and control the entire hardware and software architecture, selecting a system that best meets your specifications and overseeing maintenance and upgrades. You’re not at the mercy of an external vendor’s roadmap, business changes or downtime.
Pro – Predictable high-speed performance
Local hard drives and network-attached storage provide fast, reliable connectivity for high-bandwidth processes like multi-stream video editing. Unlike cloud storage for video editing, your read/write performance doesn’t suffer due to internet congestion, server loads or bandwidth limitations.
Pro – Enhanced security
Keeping your storage on-premise protects sensitive media files from being erroneously or maliciously accessed while on shared cloud infrastructure. Restricting physical access and air-gapping (disconnected from the internet) your media storage adds a further layer of protection.
Pro – No hidden costs
While on-premise storage comes with larger upfront costs than a cloud storage subscription, it also negates any hidden or unexpected expenses, such as egress fees, which occur when you move your data out of the cloud or surcharges enforced when you over-step your subscription limits.
Pro – Integration with legacy systems
Existing edit bays, asset management software and established video production workflows can often more easily connect to new on-premise storage without the need to re-construct the whole system, as everything is under your control and most often is largely plug-and-play.
Con – High upfront costs
Purchasing substantial video storage capacity as well as the switches, servers, and management software required to make it all function comes with a large capital expenditure. You’re also paying for all unused capacity from the start.
Con – Complex configuration and management
Even a medium-scale video storage solution requires some IT staff time for the initial design and integration, not to mention the ongoing administration and daily troubleshooting. This staff skill set also needs regular updating as technology and workflows evolve.
Con – Separate disaster recovery site required
A system for backing up and storing all of your media in a second physical location is needed to replicate and recover all of your data in the event of a disaster at your main premises. This necessitates purchasing yet more storage capacity and connectivity.
Con – Scaling requires overprovisioning
While you can work within the constraints of your initial storage capacity, adding further storage capacity requires purchasing it in large chunks and planning for the upgrade downtime. Running out of storage space will obviously impact the efficiency and productivity of your creative team!
Con – Dependence on locality
To get the best out of the system, users must be physically on-premise to access the media, while remote users often have comparatively limited connectivity and bandwidth. Even when remote access is established, staff are still required onsite to manage the physical devices.
Pros and Cons of Cloud Video Storage
While we are all used to working with cloud storage on a daily basis, from our Dropbox accounts to our iCloud photo backups, cloud storage that is capable of storing, managing and streaming or downloading large video files with the performance for real-time playback is a different beast altogether.
Here are some pros and cons to consider when using cloud video storage for modern video production workflows.
Pro – No infrastructure to manage
As part of your subscription fee, the cloud storage provider handles all of the necessary hardware, component upgrades, system maintenance and offsite backups, and instead, your team focuses on their creative work.
Pro – Scalability on demand
Adding further capacity to your cloud video storage account is as simple as clicking ‘upgrade.’ This has the added benefit of only paying for what you need when you need it and allows you to respond quickly to unexpected growth or capacity requirements.
Pro – Global availability
Storing your media in the cloud means it’s instantly available to authorized users anywhere in the world with an internet connection. This gives you access to a global talent pool, the efficiency of single-source asset management, and the potential for a creative team to work around the clock from different time zones—all without the need for setting up remote access VPNs for your on-premise storage.
Pro – Reduced disaster recovery costs
As cloud providers replicate their data storage globally by default, there’s no need to build and maintain a second offsite backup in case of disaster recovery. This is already done for you.
Pro – Lower initial costs
With no upfront expenditure on expensive hardware, there are no large CapEx purchases to wait and plan for. Costs move to OpEx, where subscription fees based on usage, storage capacity, and the number of seats needed are much more manageable from a cash flow perspective month-to-month.
Cons – Vendor dependence and lock-in
Once you choose a cloud video storage provider, you have no real control over that vendor’s policies, service charges, fee increases or business stability. Once a workflow has been established and a lot of media is stored online, switching cloud providers is more complicated.
Con – Variable performance
While most cloud video storage providers offer some form of performance guarantee, internet outages or service congestion are unpredictable. Also, each end-users experience relies on a range of factors, including their local internet connection strength and stability, proximity to the data center and local system spec.
Con – Limited integration options
While using cloud storage does open up the potential for some newer automated workflows and remote production capabilities, it is not always possible to integrate legacy apps with cloud storage or even with other online services and storage providers.
Con – Security risks
No matter how tight your security procedures, storing your valuable media online, especially in a shared cloud storage server you don’t control brings a level of exposure to a greater number of threats.
Con – You may end up paying more in the long run
If you store and maintain a substantial amount of video media in your cloud storage over a long period of time, your total cost of ownership (TCO) may end up exceeding that of on–premise storage. Services often charge egress fees for downloading data, for example, when making room online or moving it to cheaper archival storage like AWS Glacier.
The Pros and Cons of Hybrid Video Storage
If you decide to use a hybrid cloud and on-premise storage solution, you can get the benefits of both and avoid some of the limitations of either one, yet you will create some new challenges to consider.
Let’s examine the pros and cons of a hybrid video storage workflow.
Pro – Best of both worlds
The most obvious benefit of a hybrid video storage solution is that you’re set up to enjoy the strengths of both models, gaining the performance and security of on-premise video storage with the scalability and global reach of the cloud.
Pro – Elastic Capacity Management
Having your media stored in the cloud gives you the buffer to absorb the unexpected variable demands of different projects and the flow of projects over time, while your local storage can handle anticipated project requirements.
Pro – Reduced disaster recovery costs
By setting up an automatic cloud backup of your on-premise video storage, you can more affordably and easily manage both archiving and disaster recovery by creating an offsite duplicate.
Pro – Greater workflow possibilities
Modern video productions require a wide range of workflow capabilities, from high-performance local storage for demanding processes like color grading final high-resolution media or combing through terabytes of archival material to enabling a globally distributed creative team to manage assets and artistic responsibilities through shared media stored in the cloud.
Pro – Gradual transition path
Developing a hybrid storage model can be a simple and gradual process that doesn’t require wholesale reinvestment or scrapping existing workflows or hardware. When starting with local storage, it’s easy to add cloud storage for archiving. Or, when starting from a cloud platform, it’s easy to add local storage for more demanding tasks. This makes it easier to test the benefits of either solution before fully committing to either or both.
Con – Added complexity
One consideration of combining on-premises and cloud storage is that it does add a further layer of complexity to managing media files, user access permissions and deciding where files should live and for how long. Further complexity arises if files live in multiple locations at once rather than having a ‘single source of truth’ for all uses.
Con – Potential replication lag
If you have to move media files from local storage to cloud storage (or vice versa), a lot of data must be copied between locations, which can create a delay. This also requires the on-premises storage to have access to adequate bandwidth.
Con – Two sets of storage to purchase and pay for
With the costs of a cloud subscription, on-premise infrastructure and software, the hybrid model may be more expensive in combination than leveraging a single platform.
Con – File management training
Having worked at a few facilities that had their own unique way of doing things when it comes to file management, and sometimes, in fast turn-around environments, management goes out the window – educating your users on where to store their files or where to look for the right files becomes all the more important – otherwise you end up wasting either time or storage capacity.
Con – Partial vendor dependence remains
While there are many benefits to a hybrid workflow, one consideration when choosing a cloud storage provider for that workflow, is that you will be locked into a dependence on them.
How to choose the best cloud video storage solutions for your needs
Determining the ideal storage solution for your video workflows depends on several key factors:
Bandwidth needs – High-speed on-premise storage is best for multi-stream 4K editing, while remote teams will need cloud or VPN connections.
Scalability requirements – The cloud offers the most flexibility for rapid growth.
Budget – While the cloud has lower startup costs, on-premise storage can offer TCO savings at larger capacities.
Security – Contractual requirements may require on-premise storage for sensitive footage and projects.
Team skills – The cloud reduces the need for dedicated storage admins and IT professionals.
Disaster recovery – The cloud’s built-in redundancy makes backups easier to manage.
Growth plans – A Hybrid solution can future-proof on-premise expansion with cloud filling in the gaps.
The best way to evaluate your needs is to take an in-depth look at your current infrastructure, workflows and pain points, then calculate the total cost of ownership for an on-premise vs cloud video storage solution over a 3-5 year timeframe. Ask your creative team for their opinions and try to road test potential solutions in a small way where possible.
With the right strategy tailored to your situation, you can build a storage setup that keeps your creative work flowing while staying within budget and IT constraints. The goal for the optimal solution will be to transform how your team collaborates and unlocks greater productivity and business potential.
FAQ about on-premise storage vs cloud storage
Which storage solution is better for you?
How much do storage solutions cost?
How secure is each solution?
How reliable is each solution?
How scalable is each solution?
How easy is it to manage your storage?
How easy is file-sharing or real-time viewing?
What are the potential drawbacks of relying solely on one storage for a business?
What are the key considerations for implementing a hybrid storage solution, and how does it address the limitations of both on-premises and cloud storage models?
Which video storage solution is better for you?
The best storage solution is a hybrid cloud and on-premise storage model for performance-intensive workloads with cloud storage for scalability and broader access. The high-speed local area network would enable smooth video editing and collaboration, while the cloud side would allow remote team members to access files from anywhere. The cloud capacity would also help manage spikes in storage demand. This hybrid approach delivers a solid mix of control and reliability with on-premise along with the flexibility and global availability of cloud.
How much do the storage solutions cost to use?
Cloud storage has a lower startup cost since it avoids major capital expenditures on hardware and software. Monthly subscription fees based on limited usage are more predictable. On-premise storage requires large upfront investments in storage, servers, networking equipment and more. But at scale the ongoing costs of cloud data egress fees can make on-premise more cost effective in the long run.
How secure is each solution?
On-premise storage keeps data isolated within a controlled environment, reducing exposure to external threats like hackers or ransomware. Control over physical access and air-gapped networks ensures high security. Cloud storage, however, involves some additional risks since data resides in a multi-tenant environment while being stored on a shared server. Most cloud providers offer robust security measures, vetted by the media industry, but security is always a concern when data leaves the premises. A hybrid solution provides strong isolated security for the most sensitive files, along with the convenience of cloud access for low-risk assets.
How efficient is each solution?
Cloud storage enables great access efficiency by allowing authorized users to access files from anywhere with an internet connection, avoiding the need for remote access VPNs back to the local network.
However, the performance efficiency of cloud storage can suffer from variability based on internet traffic levels. On-premise storage offers consistent and predictable high-speed performance thanks to dedicated local networks, especially valuable for bandwidth-heavy video editing work. A hybrid configuration puts performance-sensitive workflows on reliable on-premise storage while leveraging the global accessibility of the cloud.
How reliable is each solution?
On-premise storage has higher reliability since its performance depends on a controlled local network rather than the open internet. Latency and congestion on the public and local internet connection can inhibit access to cloud video storage. However, cloud services tend to have very durable underlying infrastructure with lots of redundancy to minimize downtime risk, as this is an essential part of their business offering.
How scalable is each solution?
The cloud is extremely scalable, allowing storage capacity to be increased essentially instantly through a web dashboard rather than waiting for fresh hardware deliveries. Cloud services are designed for massive scale to handle demand spikes and growth surges that would overwhelm on-premise infrastructure.
On-premise storage requires purchasing and installing larger capacity systems in chunky increments to scale up gradually. The combination of the two enables core consistent storage needs to be handled on-premise while leveraging the cloud to absorb surges in requirements.
How easy is it to manage your storage?
Cloud services are much easier to manage since the provider takes care of all hardware, software, troubleshooting and maintenance behind the scenes. So your creative team can focus on creative work rather than storage infrastructure.
On-premise storage requires dedicating skilled IT staff to architect, integrate, administer, optimize, and upgrade storage systems on an ongoing basis.
How easy is file sharing or real-time viewing?
Cloud video storage’s global accessibility makes sharing and collaboration very straightforward for distributed teams. It allows access from anywhere with credentials as long as the video storage platform supports this functionality.
However, the ability to view high-resolution media files in pristine quality, smoothly in real-time, such as in a color grading suite, depends heavily on having consistent high network bandwidth, something on-premise storage excels at.
What are the potential drawbacks of relying solely on one storage for a business?
Depending on only cloud or only on-premise storage increases vulnerability. If the cloud goes down, all workflows halt without the backup of a local system. Disaster recovery becomes very difficult if local hardware fails or is destroyed without off-site backups.
Blending the two provides contingency options to mitigate risk – essential data is protected on-premise through RAID-level redundancy, with archives and overflow capacity stored in the cloud. A hybrid solution means an outage in one environment won’t cripple overall operations thanks to the redundancy and flexibility cloud and on-premise storage can provide each other.
What are the key considerations for implementing a hybrid storage solution, and how does it address the limitations of both on-premises and cloud storage models?
The keys to an effective hybrid implementation are ensuring adequate bandwidth between environments, thoughtfully integrating workflows and applications across cloud and on-premise boundaries, and designing cost-effective disaster recovery.
The hybrid approach helps overcome the inherent limitations of a single storage model. The cloud side provides scalability and geographic diversity missing from pure on-premise. The local side offers reliability, performance and control lacking in pure cloud deployments.
Together they can complement each other and side-step the weaknesses of either standalone option.
In the ever-changing world of broadcasting, remote projects have transformed the industry. The pandemic showed us what was possible, with production moving from inside studios to live locations and even peoples’ homes, using techniques that may include remote desktop software and cloud platforms such as Zoom and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Several elements are needed to execute remote broadcasting successfully, including a reliable internet connection, quality broadcast equipment and web-based tools for collaborating on video editing, graphics and more. Broadcasters also face continuously shifting, imminent deadlines, so streamlining workflows and sharing files quickly is imperative. That’s why employing the right collaboration tool is so important.
Why team collaboration is essential for remote broadcasts
Remote broadcasts require capturing massive amounts of audio and video content from remote locations and sending it all to a central facility or studio. The remote production team must collaborate efficiently with that facility to ensure a seamless broadcast.
Digital video transmission enables the delivery of high-quality content and timely updates to their audiences, regardless of the geographical distance between facilities. That’s why having the right equipment is imperative for the success of a remote broadcast.
In this industry, creating and editing content quickly is nonnegotiable. If a single copy of media gets lost or destroyed, finding something else to plug in for that evening’s broadcast in a pinch can cause a frenzy, with producers and editors scrambling to fill the slot. That’s why resilience is essential, along with having alternate media available online at all times. If a producer needs to pivot to a new story at the last minute, they must have access to all the required assets without adding the unnecessary delays of searching for the proper files.
Employing the right video collaboration software can increase your team’s overall efficiency and help establish clear goals. Sharing information quickly and easily saves you the most precious resource available in broadcasting – time. Additionally, when your team sees the results of their work in real-time, it can help boost morale and strengthen the culture.
How MediaSilo accelerates collaboration
MediaSilo’s cloud-based video management and collaboration software is designed to streamline your workflow and video collaboration process. The software provides real-time feedback and file sharing in a secure web-based environment ideal for remote teams.
From a production and post-production standpoint, employing video collaboration software like MediaSilo is an essential ingredient in a remote broadcast team’s success. The tool makes it easy to manage, share, review and present your video projects all in one place. MediaSilo is a creative collaboration HQ that provides the following capabilities:
Asset management
Save time with fast file uploads that allow you to store everything from clips to scripts to project files in one secure location so they are ready to use. Accelerate your team’s creative process with intuitive folder navigation, metadata-rich search and tagging, and flexible user permissions. You’ll also be able to keep your assets current, track changes and update versions as needed.
Streamlined communication
Expedite your review process and make edit requests clear using time-coded comments or on-screen drawings. Brainstorm and collaborate with your entire team, whether in the field or the studio, in real-time with MediaSilo’s cloud-based software (available through the web browser or app). Enable private or password-protected external links—allowing outside collaborators to interact with your team. You can also limit comments to a select user group to keep your information assets confidential.
Showcased content with Spotlight
MediaSilo empowers broadcasters to create bespoke digital experiences that showcase content as intended with customizable templates, pitch decks and microsites. Share access with specific users via password or to a broader audience with open access. Gauge what content gets the most engagement with Insights, the analytics tool that allows you to track activity, viewing location and history of any individual user, file, link or presentation.
Trusted security
Ensure only specific users can access your content with MediaSilo’s password-less login and multi-factor authentication. The most effective theft-deterrent measure is available by placing user-specific SafeStream™ customizable watermarks on your content. You can also generate one-time links to verify user identity, grant secure access to login, and share content securely with private expiration-dated links and role-based user permissions.
Data-driven insights
MediaSilo makes it easy to see your videos’ performance in real time within one central dashboard. You can measure the engagement of your content, review user logs, monitor drop-off points, and more—to see which users and files are the most active. You can also export your data in different formats and track review links to see views, comments, and approvals.
Why broadcast professionals choose MediaSilo
MediaSilo solves many common problems faced by broadcast professionals. Remote broadcasters often encounter unreliable internet upload performance. MediaSilo tracks the progress of your uploads, reports on the speed and recovers the files if your connection is interrupted. Our robust tools for managing user permissions and two-factor authentication mean you never have to worry about gaining secure access to station video and graphic assets.
MediaSilo also helps broadcast professionals with the following:
Organizing, storing and sharing digital media files
Collaboration for vital feedback
Synchronization with your timeline for adequate changes
Managing, sharing, reviewing and presenting video projects
Faster project approvals
Today’s broadcast professionals and post-production teams want the freedom to choose the tools they prefer without compromising the creative process, and that’s where MediaSilo comes in.
Widely known as a go-to platform for post-production professionals in the TV, media and entertainment industries, MediaSilo is used by production companies, broadcasters and content creators worldwide. Providing a centralized hub for media management, collaboration and distribution, MediaSilo streamlines your workflows, accelerates team collaboration and helps you distribute content to the market faster.
MediaSiloallows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Kim is a seasoned content marketing professional with over 15 years of corporate communications experience. Her sweet spot is with creative writing, both short and long-form, and she has a proven track record working with IBM, Jackson Healthcare, and Walt Disney World, among many others. Kim is also a singer and actor and has been performing on stage and screen since she was a child. She has a great passion for TV and film production and went to school for broadcast journalism.
Remote workflows have quickly become the norm across much of the post-production world. While bringing significant advantages in flexibility and the opportunity to collaborate globally, it also brings some significant challenges. Internet speeds, communication and leaks keep producers up at night. So let’s look at the top five most common challenges of remote post-production and some practical tips on how to overcome them.
Challenge #1: Uploading and downloading large files
Efficiently getting files to and from the cloud can be a significant challenge. Slow upload speeds, interrupted file transfers, hanging loading screens, and uncertain transfer completion times are just the beginning. Although numerous services are dedicated to file sharing, few are optimized for media professionals.
The consequences of a failed upload can mean the loss of hours. Who hasn’t seen an upload get halfway through and then it gets interrupted? Now, you have to start over again.
The first step to solid performance is ensuring your physical network is reliable. For instance, if you have cable internet, have the cable company inspect your network at the box outside the building, the splitters in that box, and the jacks in your home. Unterminated cable jacks can degrade the performance of your connection. Faulty splitters can introduce problems as well. Your ISP service person can test the performance of the signal at the jack coming out of the wall where your Gateway (modem/router combo) is connected.
Once you’ve ensured that the signal at the jack is solid, make sure your Gateway or modem is up-to-date. A DOCSIS 3.1 modem is capable of faster speeds than a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. If you rent your modem from your ISP, sometimes you can be eligible for a free upgrade on your modem. If you’ve had yours for a few years, this can significantly boost your network’s performance.
Hard-wire your network
A hard-wired connection is the next thing to consider. WiFi performance keeps getting faster but is still vulnerable to latency issues. As cloud technologies improve, editing apps can stream connections to editors. Even if you have a fast connection, you may not get performance if you are experiencing latency issues. Your internet “speed” measures the “bandwidth” or how much data can be sent simultaneously. The latency measures how fast it gets from the destination to you. By using a wired connection with Cat6 ethernet cable, or better, you reduce the traffic that can compete with your work. A good switch, cables, and ethernet adapter will ensure that your video files meet with the least amount of resistance from competing traffic in your home.
If you have family, and everyone hops on the network when they come home, do everyone a favor and let them know that if they are trying to game or video chat while you are uploading, it will slow everyone down. Many ISPs offer very fast download speeds but relatively modest upload speeds. (Like Xfinity 1200 Mbps down and 35 Mbps up). So a family member can watch a movie, and it won’t slow down your upload, but if they hop on FaceTime, they are uploading video data that will compete with your workflow.
But transfers can get interrupted with even the best setup. Some cloud services not optimized for video will make this an excruciating process. You’ll have to try to cancel an upload. That may or may not register. Then, you’ll have to begin the upload again. This results in you reaching back out to your client, informing them they must wait while a new transfer is completed.
MediaSilo monitors the speed and completion percentage of your upload and estimates how long it takes until the transfer is complete. Suppose your transfer is interrupted (maybe a Thunderbolt cable came unplugged from an otherwise solid connection). In that case, MediaSilo will pause the transfer and continue to look for the link to be re-established. Once a connection is live again, MediaSilo will pick up where it left off and complete the transfer.
Challenge #2: Keeping track of revisions
The second challenge that remote post-production pros face is versioning. An exported file is sent out for review, and comments come back in an email. This works for a version or two, but at a certain point, someone on the email chain or Slack channel gets left out of the loop, and people get confused about what is being referenced.
MediaSilo addresses the challenges of versioning with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop method of updating assets.
This method eliminates the uncertainty when you upload a new version to the cloud and wonder if it will update the old one. Often, the file names have incremented according to the version, and the duration may change. When you face this kind of uncertainty on a longer project, it means that you have to check the upload when it is completed and possibly manually version the asset so that your review links don’t need to be updated.
If the new version is in MediaSilo as a separate asset, just drag it over the old one, and you are all set.
Challenge #3: Communication
Communication can be tricky in an all-remote world. There are multiple communication channels, each with its own settings and notifications. It is challenging for clients and executives to know what has been covered already, what is “final,” and what is still a work in progress. Sometimes, you have different “classes” of reviewers. For instance, direct collaborators may want to call out small things, and executives may just want “the big picture.”
MediaSilo enables you to create different review links for the same asset so that viewers will only see the comments relevant to them.
If your workflow requires a private review session, you can create a review link and turn on the toggle “On this link only.” This way, comments made in the review link are only visible to people with access to the review link, and comments made in the review link will not appear in your MediaSilo project when you enter Review Mode.
Reviewers can then comment on the assets according to timecode. They can even use the drawing tools to call things out visually. If your reviewers put their comments into the comment section, you can export those comments as well.
So whether you need to keep the commentary private or work together, MediaSilo’s advanced commenting functionality helps streamline communication.
Challenge #4: Visibility
Have you ever sent off a link and wondered, “Did they even watch it?” This question is crucial when submitting to film festivals or potential distributors. Without this feature, editors can feel in the dark about whether or not they can begin a new revision or if they should wait for additional viewers to watch the video.
MediaSilo includes analytics for your assets. You can see if viewers watched the whole thing or if they dropped it off. This was a vital feature in the submission process of The Othrs‘ latest documentary, “Defiant,” which went on to become a TIFF Official Selection. They knew if all the key partners had viewed the film or if any stakeholders had yet to review it. The ability to tell not only who watched it but also when they viewed it and where they were viewing it from proved invaluable.
You can enjoy a broad overview of all of your assets, Spotlights or review links. You can see who downloaded the videos, and if they haven’t, you can see when their link will expire and nudge them to view the asset to ensure the project meets its deadline.
This insight helps resolve many unanswered questions in the review and approval process. Ultimately, this helps remote team members achieve visibility and transparency with each other.
Challenge #5: Security
In some ways, this challenge should be numero uno. A leak can spoil a film and jeopardize a project. Sharing a link and hoping for the best simply won’t cut it. New tools come on the market to circumvent older methods of DRM. And leakers can have private, personal agendas that don’t align with your team’s goals.
This problem is why MediaSilo implements a multi-prong security strategy. The MediaSilo platform is SOC 2 Type II certified and follows the Secure SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). This ensures that every feature is built securely.
MediaSilo provides an array of tools to safeguard your assets with SafeStream. User permissions and classes help to limit the scope of your project’s exposure. Visual watermarks deter would-be leakers. Forensic watermarking enables you to track the source of leaks if they do happen. Administrators can implement security policies at an organizational level so editors don’t have to go through the hassle of turning watermarks on and off in their timelines.
Conclusion
The world of remote post-production is upon us. Producers who take advantage of the opportunities will see productivity gains and cost savings like never before. Tools like MediaSilo will help deliver assets and streamline communication workflows so deliverables can arrive on time and on budget.
MediaSiloallows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
Reuben Evans is a director, an award-winning screenwriter, and a member of the Producers Guild of America. As the former executive producer at Faithlife TV, he produced and directed numerous documentaries and commercials. Reuben’s tools of choice are RED Cameras, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
Quickly migrate all of your content to MediaSilo with MASV. MASV enables accelerated uploads without compressing or splitting files, allowing collaborators to upload to MediaSilo without needing access to your secure workspaces.
In this webinar, you’ll learn:
What is MASV, and how does this work for me?
How to quickly migrate all of your content to MediaSilo.
How to use MASV Portals.
Okay. Let’s get started. Thank you for joining today, everyone. My name is Michael Kammes, and today I get to proudly say I’m with EditShare, and we’ll be talking today about how the MediaSilo product, which are probably familiar with, from Shift Media, now that we’re with EditShare we’re gonna talk about how MASV can greatly enhance your MediaSilo experience.
So joining me today is Ricky, who you’ll get to meet in a few minutes who’s a Senior Product Manager, over at MASV. As I said, my name is Michael Kammes, and we’re gonna go over MediaSilo and how MASV can greatly enhance your experience with MediaSilo. But there’s a couple things we wanna do before we jump into that. First, is that I want to make sure all of you know that Shift Media, which was a rebrand several years ago that is the parent company over MediaSilo and Screeners.com and Wiredrive, right before IBC, so about a month or so ago, a month and a half, Shift Media merged with EditShare.
Nothing has changed in terms of who you’re talking to when you contact Shift Media. You’re just contacting EditShare, but the same people are there. So you don’t have to worry about any hiccups or bumps in the road. Everything has gone great so far. So just feel free to reach out. If you have any questions, But as of now, nothing has changed in terms of pricing or availability of product. We’re all just one big, happy family.
So as we move along, I wanna make sure all of you are aware of what MediaSilo is. Those of you who are already using MASV and wondering what the heck is MediaSilo, let me show you that. So if you don’t mind, I’m gonna exit out of this window and I’m gonna jump over to a web browser and what you’re seeing right now is the web interface for MediaSilo. And MediaSilo is an on-demand review and approve platform that you can access in your web browser or via a desktop app or even on your mobile device, and it allows you to upload content.
It allows you to leave comments on that content. It allows you to look at things in a time code, accurate way, and then send links out to people. But you’re probably wondering, well, okay, how do I get content up to MediaSilo? Right?
Well, what we’ve built is the easiest way possible, which is from my finder, or explorer if you’re on windows. If I wanna get content up here, I just drag and drop. And as you can see on the right hand side there, we upload as fast as we can. We break things up into chunks and we upload as fast as humanly possible, no matter how many files you have, but there are inherent limitations.
There are some features that we just don’t have inside the MediaSilo uploader that we thought internally, what can we do to make the MediaSilo upload and transfer experience better. So I’m gonna go back to my keynote, and we asked ourselves the following questions. Right? What if with MediaSilo, we could give you the users of MediaSilo greater control over transfers.
Right? What if we could give you the ability to say I wanna upload it tonight? I wanna upload it in an hour. I wanna upload it using only this amount of bandwidth and not everything.
What if we could give more people access to MediaSilo, not just people who have accounts with MediaSilo, but what about outside collaborators?
For our enterprise clients, which we have many, what if they wanted to code against our API and automate file movement with their internal DAM, MAM or PAM systems or their other cloud storage systems.
We also found that, you know, metadata is king and that all of the media you have has metadata, but how do we get that metadata to go with the media in MediaSilo. Quite often, we have to enter that manually after you’ll cut and paste, and that can get pretty tedious. How can we solve that? And once we hit that fifth question, we realized, is this something we wanna try and build?
Or why don’t we just talk to our clients and see what our clients are already using. And one of the things that became very apparent is that a ton of our clients are using MASV. And so we got together with MASV. We broke bread. We had some coffee and decided that an integration between the MASV technology, no pun intended, along with MediaSilo would greatly benefit our clients and also give folks who use MASV an opportunity to start using some media-centric tools.
So today, we’ve brought on Ricky. Ricky’s a Senior Product Manager at MASV, and Ricky is going to show us just exactly how MASV can work with MediaSilo. So I’m gonna stop sharing my screen.
And, Ricky, thank you for joining us today.
Thanks, Michael. It’s great to be here. Hi, everybody.
So let me just share my screen and I’ll start my presentation and demo for everyone.
Outstanding.
So let me just first start with a full chart diagram here just to give a sense of where we sit, how we interact and how our customers use us. So both MASV and MediaSilo are in the cloud.
In the first block here, we have our users who want to send files, either to MediaSilo or and or also to their collaborators.
So they can send files directly to customers. They can send files through our MASV portals, which I’ll show in a little bit. And, MASV is the fastest way to send big files as well as many files. So we can handle files in the terabyte range.
And we have customers who, for example, send mapping data, and they will send literally up to a million files at a time. And so we can do that quite well.
Great thing about our integration with MediaSilo is that we’ve done all the heavy lifting to make the integration work. So for our customers, there’s no necessity to dive into the APIs.
We have a very easy, no code way to integrate. You just have to enter your credentials, set the path you want to, ingress into MediaSilo, and then we and MediaSilo take care of the rest.
I’ve mentioned with portals, a benefit of portals is that your collaborators who want to send files into MediaSilo don’t necessarily have to have an account. And so that you can have people working from anywhere in remote locations all around the world.
Who can then send their media directly into MediaSilo.
Ricky, just something I wanna make sure that the lead doesn’t get buried. What’s fantastic about that is, traditionally with MediaSilo, the users that are on MediaSilo have permissions. And those permissions allow you to view content, upload, download content, etcetera.
This allows MediaSilo users to send a link to someone who is utilizing MASV, and then anyone can upload if they have that permission, and they don’t have to have an account with MediaSilo. So this could be, external stakeholders, this could be maybe subcontracted creatives. It could also be end users who say, look, you know what? I want the video to look more like this. Here’s an example, or here’s a PDF on our brand guidelines. It allows just everyone to get content into MediaSilo without having to have a paid account.
Exactly. But all the permissions that are set inside MediaSilo are still recognized, of course. And so, there’s still the security aspect of the media once it’s inside MediaSilo.
Excellent.
So just to give an example of how our customers in the production world work. So this is an example of a workflow that is part of an article that we’ve posted at this site here. As you can see, we have a post production workflow article that dives into the roles and the workflows in more detail, but you can see where these are all sorts of areas where people in different roles and different processes and stages of the post production can utilize MASV. And, for example, here, you can deliver daily through MASV into the MediaSilo portal, for example. If you have VFX pulls, then you can send the files to whomever after having had reviewed the media and the shot so you know which takes to deliver. So, again, that’s where a MediaSilo is used for the reviewing of the shots, and then you can send the camera originals to your vendors, for example.
So here are some examples, sort of, sample folder structures that our customers use. If you’re sending dailies, then you’ll break it down into different shows. And then you’ll have folders for each day and all the different components and all the different elements that you are shooting every day and then sending through.
If you’re doing a VFX pull, you already have all your shots saved, and then you can, again, decide to send the folders or files that you need to for your vendors.
Ricky, something else I wanted to point out, this is over the past couple of years, we’ve obviously seen the rise of camera to cloud, you know, getting content directly from the camera up to the cloud to use. But, a majority of folks are still doing the let me take the camera cards and I have a DID on set or, you know, a runner is taking it back to the post facility or even the office the next day and uploading from there. And the beauty of what MASV is doing is that you’re retaining the folder structure and the file structure. So any organization will translate to the web, but also if you’re uploading the original camera negatives, the original camera content directly through MASV to MediaSilo, we are retaining that high-res content in its folder hierarchy and also generating proxies.
So you still have access to the high-res to pull down later if you wanna go out to another facility or finishing house but you also have the proxies generated as soon as you upload. So you kinda get the best of both worlds, right? You get the content in the cloud with the folder structure you’ve created but with using MASV to get that content uploaded through a web page or even a dedicated app.
Exactly. And even some of our customers, they wanna enforce the full instructor, older vendors and collaborators. So sometimes, even before the footage and the media is ready to be sent, they’ll just send over this entire folder structure so that it’s already ready at the other end.
And when we were talking prior to us doing the webinar, you had mentioned that, you know, one of the things that MediaSilo is not currently utilizing, unless it’s been configured elsewhere, is something like multi connect. Right? So if you are in a remote location where you may not have broadband, can MASV actually use the other tier of transfer mechanisms?
Exactly. Yeah. We can bond internet connections on your computer. So If you have multiple ethernet ports or if you have multiple wifi dongles, you can combine them all. We can, use all of that aggregated bandwidth to send your files as fast as possible because you may be in a remote location that just has poor landline internet, perhaps, maybe maybe you have 5G or whatever, but, just combine all the internet you can, to send files out of the usually remote locations.
Excellent. Thanks. Thank you for that.
Yeah. You bet. So I’ll just start with going to our web app. So, MASV allows you to access us through a web browser using our web app. We also have a, native desktop app as well that runs natively on Macs, PCs, as well as Linux machines. We also have an API that you can use, and you can run headlessly as well, either using our API or we have a Docker container as well so that you can install that onto any server in the cloud, for example. You can install the Docker image in, an access of Synology or QNAP or TrueNAS.
And, so wherever you have your files, we can access them and send them and receive them.
So typically, in our web interface, we have some administrative tools, as well as the ability to still send files directly through the web app in the drag and drop format.
But the desktop app is more powerful. We recommend our users use the desktop app wherever possible, because it provides more resiliency. It provides some bandwidth controls that Michael had alluded to earlier, which I’ll show when we get to the desktop app.
But all the project administration, user administration, all those management tools as well as cloud integrations are set up within our web app. So for example, we already have a MediaSilo integration set up here. I’ll just quickly show how we set that up. I would have the credentials for the MediaSilo account. I can choose a project within MediaSilo if I wish to. I can also set a target directly within the MediaSilo folder structure, if I wish to. And then an interesting thing about our connection with MediaSilo is that if we have or if we are capturing metadata, we can send that metadata into MediaSilo as well so that all that important metadata is in the database of MediaSilo and searchable and viewable within MediaSilo.
And just to make sure we don’t gloss over that, a lot of time spent when it comes to review and approve is copying and pasting descriptions, information from one platform to another. So being able to sync metadata from one location to another that travels with the media just takes one less stressful step out of media migration, out of your workflow, and it makes your life that much easier not to have to cut and paste and manually type in info time after time.
Exactly. So let me show you a portal, for example.
This has been optionally set with a password so that even if somebody has access to the URL and they shouldn’t have had, they wouldn’t be able to access the portal itself.
And you can skin this. Right? So it looks just like your organization.
Exactly. So this is a custom branding for monkey games, for example. This is our standard branding for MASV, but as you can see, you can customize the logo, the colors, the background as it fits your organization or your project.
So here, also we have the drop zone, for dropping your files and folders. You can enter information.
Typically, our portal has only three fields. The uploader enters the email, they can give a package name if they wish and send a message so that the recipient can see what this package is all about.
But with this portal, I’ve configured it to have my own custom fields. So, for example, if I’m working with someone who’s working on my show, if I’ve got a bunch of shows, going on right now, I can select these preset options so that I can easily enter the metadata that’s required by the production company, using custom metadata fields can ensure that there’s no error in entering information. If you’re simply sucking from dropdowns, and it just makes the whole process more efficient as well.
We have lists of all the files that we’ve been sending and receiving. So, for example, these are files that have gone through my portal. And, I can see the contents of these, and I can download them if I wish.
We’ve already had the integration with MediaSilo set up. So the files have also automatically been forwarded to my MediaSilo account.
So this is, interacting with our web app. But let me show you the desktop app.
So similarly, we can send files. We can receive files. We can manually send two portals. So, again, I just designate the portal that I want to use, and I drag and drop my files.
Another strength of the desktop app is that you can create automations so that you can have watch folders on your local storage so that you just have to move files into the watch folder and the transfer will happen automatically.
And, also, you can configure so that your portal will automatically download files to your on-prem storage, if you wish. This is on top of that MediaSilo integration automation where we send the clouds to the MediaSilo bucket, if you wish at the same time to also send files to your on-prem storage. This is how you would set that up.
And again, this is where our customers either want to have backups in multiple locations. So, of course, whenever you’re shooting with your masters, you wanna duplicate them and back them up as quickly as possible for safety. You wanna send them to the cloud for people to review in MediaSilo. And so we enable all of that, with single automations with setting this up to the portal.
And within the desktop app, with our advanced controls, you can customize the service, so that, for example, if you have certain transfers that you know are very important, you can set priorities to the transfers, and, so that specific packages or portals can be granted more bandwidth so that they will be transferred faster than than the others. So the other transfer is really queued up afterwards.
We have a lot of speed settings as well, as I mentioned, there’s multi connect. If you are, working at a facility with great on the 5-GigaBits-per-second bandwidth. There’s a setting for that so that we optimize our service so that we can take full advantage of all your great speed.
Also, we can do a speed test of your local storage so that we can sort of ascertain whether you’re using old-school hard disk drives if you’ve got SSDs, if you’re running on a NAS, we can sort of figure out what the optimal right modes for handling such storage. So we do all these things just to make the transfers as fast as possible through all the various possible bottlenecks that’s in your system at your facility.
And, so by default, MASV will flood your internet connection. We typically will just want to use all your internet connection, which if all you’re doing is transferring files, that’s fine. But if you’re working at a facility with other people, if, for example, here we’ve got Zoom calls with our clients and our vendors at the same time that we wanna transfer files and backgrounds, then we have to behave nicely. So we can set speed limits. And you can schedule these speed limits as well so that you can still work effectively at your computer, your coworkers can work effectively, and you can still send files with MASV. And then when the speed limit ends, for example, at the end of the business day, when all your colleagues have gone home and you’re no longer doing Zoom calls, then we will, again, automatically revert back to maximum speed for sending your files overnight, for example.
And, just to be clear, this is something that MediaSilo doesn’t do. Right? Like I mentioned at the onset, we will flood the pipeline and we’ll flood the pipe and upload as fast as possible, but there aren’t any inherent controls to throttle or accelerate, or to postpone.
Some of that you can try and code through our API, but we don’t have any of that out of the box. And that’s one reason that MASV is just plug and play with your MediaSilo credentials.
Exactly. At this point, I can take a quick break to see if anyone has any questions.
Sure. A couple questions have come in during chat. And I knew this one was gonna come in. But let’s, let’s take it anyway.
I typically use Signiant and Aspera. What are some reasons or why should I use MASV rather than Signiant or Aspera?
Right. So our pricing model is very different from the Signiant and Aspera. We don’t charge per-user seat, whereas they do. So we generally go with a pay as you go model. So, you’re only, I guess, paying us for the data that you transfer. We have on our website our pricing plans.
We start off at twenty five cents per gigabyte of transfers. But if you typically are a heavy user, you may want to be a subscriber and then pay on a monthly basis, for example, and then you’ll get a discounted rate. And if you’re a very, very heavy user of transfer, then you can contact us. We can negotiate large volume pricing as well, down to five cents per gigabyte pricing.
And all those other features that we have in MASV, such as custom metadata, such as SSO, such as the portals, free use of portals. We typically don’t charge on top of your base rate or your fees. So you pay your transfer fees and you get all of our features included in your account.
And I guess while we’re talking about pricing, for you to use MASV with MediaSilo, there’s no additional cost on the MediaSilo side. You can request an API secret key, which is something we do quite a bit. And then you just plug those in as Ricky showed, you enter in your credentials and it just works.
And, as Ricky mentioned as well, it adheres to the permissions that you’ve given those users. So there isn’t any kind of security, you’re not taking a hit in security by doing that. So that again, there’s no cost on our side for that.
So other questions. Oh, I just. Go ahead.
Sorry, I just also wanted to mention that typically Aspera and Signiant users have high initial capital costs, because they generally have to install servers. They need IT to set up their system. They have to open ports for UDP, which is how Aspera and Singian, transfer their files with, but for us, it’s much, much simpler. So again, there’s no upfront costs. You only pay as you go for actual transfers.
If you’re facilities policy is not to allow users to install software, or even browser extensions, then simply use our web browser, and anybody has instant access to our sites, to our service, you can sign up for a new account and within a minute, you you can get going in and start transferring files and your partners and clients can immediately receive those files as well.
Again, without the delay of setting up a contract, if necessary, with our with the competitors, I guess, and also then of setting up the hardware and allocating the hardware and so on.
Another question, can one transfer go to multiple endpoints?
Yes, for sure. So for example, with a cloud integration, I’ve already set up two integrations in my account.
I don’t know. If you’re trying to share your screen, I’m not saying it.
Oh, sorry. Sorry.
Well, the answer is yes. Okay. And let me just quickly share again. There we go.
Here’s a portal with access to all my integrations that I currently have. And I can just quickly add more integrations on the fly if I want. And although this is set up to flow to MediaSilo, I can just easily set it up to flow to multiple cloud storage providers, if I wish. And also with the desktop app, if I have an automation to receive from that portal, then that means any files uploaded to that portal will go to my on-prem storage here on this computer, as well as to these two cloud storage devices as well.
With the portals, you can also set multiple recipients.
Who will either get the download links, or they can also set up their own automations as well so that, well, sorry, I guess, test accounts, but I could set up my email address, I could set up yours, Michael, and so on. And we would both be able to receive files uploaded to the portal at our own local storage devices.
Got it.
Another question, our team typically records b-roll with their phones. Is there a mobile app to upload content with MASV?
So at the moment, we don’t have a mobile app, but you can access our website on your phone, such as a portal. So you can, on your browser on your phone, go to a portal that you’ve been given to, and add your files here. Just click add files, it will then pop up a little dialogue to access your camera’s photo library, for example, and then you can send files from your phone that way.
Excellent. Well, I I think that does it. The majority of the questions I think were answered during the presentation.
So I’m gonna share my screen one last time.
I’ll go back to Keynote, and there’s Ricky again. We’ll hit play.
We’ve just gone through Q and A, so, I’ll leave chat open for another minute or so to see if there’s any other questions.
Ricky, is there something that we haven’t talked about that, you find, people will ask you maybe the second time you meet or the third time you meet. Is there something else kind of fundamental about what MASV does that you think the folks who are watching and listening may find interesting.
I think we’ve covered all the major points.
Okay. Well, if you check out your screen right now, you’ll see different ways to get a hold of us. First off, we have EditShare. Right?
Again, Shift Media and EditShare have merged, and we’re keeping the EditShare name and all products will be rolled under EditShare. So your MediaSilo, your Screeners.com, your Wiredrive, and you can learn more at EditShare.com. And of course with MASV, you can sign up for MASV and give it a shot at MASV.io. As you can see on screen, this has been recorded.
So if you wanted to rewind it, watch something, clarify it, show it to some of your tech friends, that would be great. Ricky, thanks for joining us today. Shauna, thanks for handling this on the back end, and we’ll see you on the next webinar. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you, everyone.
MediaSilo allows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
The Othrs, an award-winning full-service media and production company, has steadily earned acclaim with documentaries such as “The Great Hack,” “The Square,” “The Vow,” and the 2023 sequel “The Vow II,” offering audiences narratives of ordinary people traversing through extraordinary moments. These narratives are a testament to The Othrs’ talented and dynamic team, although crafting these compelling stories is accompanied by inherent challenges.
The Othrs experienced difficulties unifying their post-production workflows while maintaining rigorous content security. With its growing creative teams, The Othrs required a platform that was not only secure and user-friendly but also capable of accommodating its creative personnel scattered across the globe. To navigate these evolving challenges, The Othrs employed MediaSilo by EditShare.
Examining projects like “The Vow 2” and “Flight Risk” illuminates MediaSilo’s crucial role. Dailies were uploaded to the platform from one location in a format that, while compressed, did not compromise on quality, ensuring immediate access for globally distributed producers. Furthermore, MediaSilo became a centralized exchange hub for proxies, graphics, music and other vital assets, functioning as a secure repository and a dynamic exchange platform.
Specifically, MediaSilo’s advanced review and approval features proved indispensable for multiple projects overseen by The Othrs. Sebastian Iturralde, Post Supervisor at The Othrs, highlights the importance of MediaSilo by stating, “Real-time collaboration from people in other time zones wouldn’t be possible for us without MediaSilo.” The platform allowed for timecode-accurate comments and notes, which were essential for use within editing software like Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro. Moreover, MediaSilo’s versioning capabilities facilitated unified change tracking between versions. “It was key to have the ability for everyone to seamlessly watch different versions of cuts while they’re all saved in the same place,” says Sebastian. This approach significantly enhanced communication clarity and efficiency during the review and approval processes.
“Real-time collaboration from people in other time zones wouldn’t be possible for us without MediaSilo.”
MediaSilo also served as a repository for pre-production and non-video files. In the event of an emergency, this approach provided a reliable cloud backup for the high-resolution media stored on their on-premises Avid NEXIS storage system.
Considering the sensitivity of content featuring whistleblowers within their type of documentary filmmaking, security is non-negotiable for The Othrs. MediaSilo, with its advanced permissioning tools and security compliance, stands resilient as a digital fortress. Recognizing the robust security measures provided by MediaSilo, The Othrs began entrusting it with increasingly sensitive content.
With their latest project, “Defiant,” which premieres this fall at DOC NYC and is a TIFF Official Selection, MediaSilo was considered vital in the submission process. “One of the key advantages of using MediaSilo was the ability to share a unique link with a distinct password for each festival, along with the option to set expiration dates,” said Fazïa S’Lika, Producer. These features simplified the submission process, allowing them to share the film with exactly who they needed to, when they needed to, without fear of leaks.
MediaSilo bridges the gap where remote and on-location workflows diverge, providing seamless facilitation of hybrid operational models through its intuitive design and robust functionality. Especially useful is MediaSilo’s “Feed” function, which keeps all team members on the platform up to date on any changes to their workspace and projects since they’ve last logged in. Karim Amer, co-owner at The Othrs, notes, “As the owner, I can get a sense for all of the projects by tracking the MediaSilo feed.”
Offering unmatched flexibility with user seats, storage space and a predictable cost structure, MediaSilo outperforms competitors in these domains. Its economical scaling solutions for enterprise-level usage are not only cost-efficient but also integrate into The Othrs’ existing workflows, accommodating both remote and on-location operations.
“We are on team MediaSilo. I use it every day.”
For The Othrs, MediaSilo isn’t merely a tool—it’s integral to their digital strategy and workflow. Sebastian points out that without MediaSilo’s capabilities, executing nearly 90% of their groundbreaking work wouldn’t be feasible. MediaSilo not only makes real-time collaboration possible in the fast-paced world of global production but ensures it is efficient and reliable.
Karim echoes these sentiments, emphasizing his daily reliance on MediaSilo as an indispensable operational tool that keeps him connected and informed about the pulse of all projects under The Othrs’ banner. For him and his team, MediaSilo is an integral part of their daily workflow, a silent partner that is as much a part of The Othrs as any producer, editor or artist.
The alliance between The Othrs and MediaSilo transcends transactional interactions; it’s a partnership forged from challenges and triumphs in the heat of production. MediaSilo is more than a technological tool; it embodies a strategy deeply embedded within The Othrs’ operational DNA, enabling them to continue their journey of telling extraordinary human stories. With security, efficiency and collaboration as its cornerstones, MediaSilo is more than a platform; it’s a catalyst for storytelling in the digital age.
Karim concludes, “We are on team MediaSilo. I use it every day.”
MediaSiloallows for easy management of your media files, seamless collaboration for critical feedback, and out-of-the-box synchronization with your timeline for efficient changes. See how MediaSilo is powering modern post-production workflows with a 14-day free trial.
My first few weeks as CEO, EditShare’s vision, and the evolving role of AI
Towards the end of the show, a few folks asked me to sum up how it felt to see our team in action so soon after joining the company. The word I chose was “inspired.” I’ve come to appreciate the rich legacy of empowering storytellers that EditShare upholds, and seeing first-hand our team, products, and plan-of-attack coming together at such an important event, it’s hard not to feel wildly optimistic about what the future holds.
Where AI Is Headed
IBC 2023 also brought with it more and more conversation around the most compelling trend in our space today: the emergence of AI. In particular, we noticed an explosion of smaller AI-enabled companies aiming to streamline critical workflows within the content creation processes, from video editing to transcription and beyond. However, there’s a common challenge – harmonizing those workflows within one intuitive interface. I’m proud to say this is an area where EditShare is positioned to shine with the introduction of our new solution, EditShare One, which we unveiled at IBC 2023.
EditShare One, Transcription View
It’s been fun to hear the early feedback from customers and partners who have had a chance to see what EditShare One can do. We heard from more than a few people how useful the AI-integrated Transcription View will be to their producers – and the seamless integration we’ve built through FLOW into Premier Pro and Resolve also stood out at the show.
At EditShare, we’ve already made waves in post-production with innovations like Universal Projects, which lets teams work with whichever editing software they prefer. We’re pushing that idea of openness even further with EditShare One. My commitment to our customers is to keep building products that meet them where they are, and helping them balance the tension that comes with creating exceptional content within tight, demanding timelines. EditShare One is a natural next step in delivering on that promise, and we can’t wait to get it into the hands of more of our customers.
A Powerful Combination
As I look at our combined portfolio of products, I’m especially thrilled about the integration of the MediaSilo product into the EditShare ecosystem. We built MediaSilo to bridge the gap between creatives and non-creatives. It provides a platform where content can be effortlessly shared, organized, reviewed, and approved, unsticking collaboration between teams, with the security features such as watermarking and DRM to provide confidence that when media is shared, it is only being shared to the right eyes and ears.
This merger not only bolsters our commitment to providing comprehensive solutions but also opens up new horizons for creative professionals and organizations seeking to streamline their media workflows. It’s an exciting chapter in EditShare’s journey, and one I’m so excited to help shape in my first few months as CEO.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see us at IBC, and looking forward to meeting many more of you before we close out 2023.
Ramu Potarazu
EditShare EFS Swift Link for seamless remote editing and connectivity
Whether you’re in post or finishing, flexibility and remote collaboration have become more critical than ever. Thanks to the pandemic, we have got completely used to the idea of directing a live production or finishing an edit on the kitchen table.
At Editshare, we have always had remote workflows integrated via our AirFLOW application. In fact we won an IBC Innovation Award for this all the way back in 2016. Thanks to continuous development, we have advanced still further the simplification of working from anywhere.
Whether you’re a filmmaker, video editor, or content creator, the ability to work remotely on your favorite craft editor while staying connected to your enterprise shared storage system is truly a game-changer. We want the same creativity whether we are in the facility or working remotely, using whatever tool is best for the job and the team.
This is where EFS Swift Link steps in, revolutionizing the way creative post professionals work. In this blog post, I’ll discuss how one of the latest features of the upcoming EditShare technology release – which includes Swift Link – can enhance any post production workflow, enabling anyone to work from anywhere: simply, with full creative control, and without downloading any media.
The Remote Editing Challenge
Traditionally, post work required everyone to be physically present in the confines of the facility. Today, for a whole host of reasons including tightening deadlines, client demands and the life/work balance expectations of valued staff, remote collaboration is a necessity.
The challenge lies in providing editors and creatives with the same experience they would have in-house, even when they are miles away from the facility. In some instances we have seen editors moving and operating out of different countries.
Enter EFS Swift Link
EFS Swift Link bridges the gap between remote editing and centralized EditShare EFS storage systems – be they on-prem or in the cloud.
Simply and transparently, the EFS client adapts to the network conditions of individual workstations allowing users to maintain a strong connection to the storage network. We’ve been testing this across our offices on different continents, from our homes to the office and even to the cloud and we are impressed by how simple yet powerful it is.
Wherever you are, it gives you access to both proxies and high-resolution media, so you have the resources you need to work efficiently. That depends on understanding the capacity and quality of the data connection between the remote workstation and base, so one of the standout features of EFS Swift Link is its ability to detect network latency automatically.
You don’t need to be a networking expert to optimize the connection: Swift Link does it for you. Performance is consistently good, even on high-latency connections.
And it does this without forcing individual users to change the hardware, the software and the workflows they are used to. No need to invest in new computers or change the way you work, Swift Link seamlessly integrates with your current setup.
How Swift Link Works
The user-friendly interface of EditShare Connect makes it easy to connect to remote EditShare systems. It simplifies the process, eliminating the need for complex configurations. Just get connected to your network and VPN service and the client will do the rest for you.
Once connected, EFS Swift Link uses its automatic latency detection to optimize the connection. Regardless of your location or network conditions, the system adjusts to ensure you experience minimal disruptions and maximum performance.
And of course Swift Link supports multiple locations, so you can design the collaborative workflows you need with team members spread across different locations. Editors can work on the same project simultaneously, review each other’s work, and provide feedback in real time, just as if they were in the same room. All the standard features of EFS are still available, including bin locking, auditing and consistent drive letter naming.
Benefits
Remote collaborative workflows are the goal for many. With EFS Swift Link editors and content creators can work from anywhere, giving them the freedom to choose their working environment, without compromising on functionality, familiarity and collaboration. The result is faster project completion and improved creativity.
It is also the cost-effective solution. Everyone retains their existing equipment and workflows, so there are no costly upgrades, and there is no downtime to learn new tools and workflows, and no resistance to being forced away from the familiar. If an editor is most comfortable in Media Composer (or Adobe Premiere Pro, or Da Vinci Resolve) then use it, embedded in the EditShare Solution.
Performance is boosted. The automatic latency detection ensures that users media transfers are optimized, even on high-latency connections. And security is maintained, thanks to the integrated data protection systems and the permissions structure.
Remote working is fast becoming the new normal, EFS Swift Link is the lifeline for post production professionals.
EditShare adds to AWS expertise after recently joining the AWS ISV Accelerate program
Boston, MA – August 24, 2023– EditShare®, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, continues to demonstrate the strength of its offering in cloud and hybrid solutions, with large numbers of successful client systems in use. This continuing success has led EditShare to achieve Amazon Web Service (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency status.
EditShare joined the AWS Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Accelerate Program a year ago, which affirmed its success in delivering practical cloud storage solutions. Achieving AWS Media & Entertainment Competency status further solidifies that the company follows architectural and operational best practices, is being actively used by customers in product environments, and customers advocate for the solution.
“This is another great accolade for our technical and applications teams,” said Stephen Tallamy, CTO of EditShare. “What it tells potential users is that we will deliver a solution that meets their operational requirements, makes optimal use of the cloud environment, and will be secure and resilient. With EditShare FLEX, our award-winning cloud technology, has reached a new level of maturity and adoption of media workflows that unlock the benefits of AWS services and applications tailored for media professionals,” Tallamy continued. “Post houses, production companies, broadcasters and creative agencies have realized that, by combining on premises and cloud technology, they can deliver real value to their clients and into their programs, while achieving operational savings through remote working and distributed workflows.
“This additional recognition from AWS means we are at the cutting edge of cloud and hybrid systems architecture. We look forward to continued growth in delivered systems around the world, and an ever-strengthening bond with our colleagues and peers at AWS,” said Tallamy.
The AWS Media & Entertainment Competency designation is the way to differentiate AWS Partners that have engineered their solutions and demonstrated the ability to deploy and operationalize these solutions repeatedly, at scale. Finally, and most importantly, they have a list of customers that have successfully deployed the solution on AWS.
AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Competency Program to help customers identify AWS Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.
EditShare will be showcasing it’s FLEX Cloud Solutions at the upcoming IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam, Hall 7, Booth A35 and also on the AWS booth Hall 5, Booth C90.
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.
EFS storage solutions now include NVMe; Swift Link increases throughput tenfold
Boston, MA – August 16, 2023 – EditShare®, the technology leader that enables storytellers to create and manage collaborative media workflows, will launch a significant raft of technology upgrades and new functionality at IBC2023 (Stand 7.A35, 15-18 September). In addition to the new user interface, EditShare One, announced in July, the company is adding NVMe capabilities to provide ultimate performance in intensive workloads, and Swift Link, bringing up to 10x improvement in performance between remote workstations and EFS systems that are located on-prem or in FLEX cloud environments.
Large and busy facilities place heavy demands on storage systems, particularly when content is in demand by multiple users. To provide a very high performance cache in this sort of environment, EditShare now offers the ability to use NVMe (non-volatile memory express) solid-state storage.
Based on the latest Gen11 platform from HPE, the NVMe module has 24 drives per node, with user-selectable capacities. EFS supports multiple nodes, so users are free to construct the storage architecture that best meets their business and productivity requirements. This new platform gives systems architects extremely high levels of performance, without sacrificing the protection and reliability that is central to the EditShare approach.
Users now routinely expect EFS storage architectures that bridge multiple facilities and link to the cloud, but also provide access from remote locations and for creators working at home. Swift Link provides a massive speed boost for remote clients connecting over a VPN or other high latency connection – boosting throughput by as much as 10 times.
Users at home or on a remote location connected via VPN can preview and edit both proxies and high-res media, just by using EditShare Connect, with built-in Swift Link and its automatic latency detection. EFS optimises the connection around the network latency, delivering much more flexibility for remote users without changing the equipment they use or the way they work. The user doesn’t need to know that they are on a high-latency connection, EditShare Connect will determine that for them and make adjustments accordingly.
EditShare continues to achieve the highest possible security levels. The new release now ships with Ubuntu 2020, and is beginning to introduce SAML (security assertion markup language) within the SSO (single sign-on) authentication for externally-facing FLOW applications. Together, these provide practical and very effective protection against cyber-security attacks.
“Our goal is always to make it easy for creative people to produce their best work,” said Sunil Mudholkar, VP Product Management at EditShare. “But alongside the practical tools, we recognize the ongoing need to enhance the underlying technology to ensure that we deliver industry-defining levels of performance, reliability, and security. Our rolling program of software upgrades allows us to consistently improve our offering, and at IBC we will showcase new functionality like NVMe and Swift Link, while also being available to discuss future enhancements and security boosts.”
Demonstrations of EditShare’s proven storage solutions and workflow software can be seen at IBC2023, on stand 7.A35. Click here to book a demo or a meeting with us at the show.
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.
