feature post production Feature sponsored by
These are interesting times for post-production, whether carried out by an independent post house or the in-house staff of a large media enterprise. The globalisation of the broadcast and media industries has brought many challenges as well as opportunities to post professionals - but one thing they all share is a requirement to exchange large content files in the fastest, most bandwidth- efficient and secure fashion possible. The explosive growth in multi- platform content delivery has complicated the post function even further; if anything, the files are larger, the formats more varied, and the production cycles shorter than ever before. The ideal solution is a file movement solution that offers all of the ease, convenience and flexibility of the most popular public cloud file- sharing services, but with the enterprise-level security and administration required to protect and manage high-value digital assets. In this article Rick Clarkson, vice president of product management at Signiant, examines the trends and challenges that are impacting today’s post-production operations and their requirements for accelerated and secure file movement. He’ll also show how these challenges can be addressed by a new breed of hybrid systems for accelerated and secure file transfer that provides an easy-to-use user interface in the cloud, but keeps the actual content within the secure confines of the corporate network.
File transfer in post-production:
a hybrid solution T
he post-production function is being profoundly influenced by key drivers in today’s media industry. These include the adoption of file-based workflows, the growth of
multi-platform content delivery, increasing global supply chains, and collapsing distribution windows that require content to get to market within a select and finite period. Unless content owners hit the window precisely, revenues are lost - placing added pressure on post organisations to receive, process, and return finished content to their clients as efficiently and cost-effectively as possibly. In response to these pressures,
many post organisations are outsourcing functions that have been traditionally handled in-house (editing,
14 l ibe l september/october 2012 l
www.ibeweb.com
Rick Clarkson, vice president of product
management at Signiant.
dubbing, and special effects, to name a few) to freelancers, speciality sub- contractors, and other post houses. This type of decentralised business model cannot function without a fast, secure, and easy-to-manage system for transferring digital assets to business partners outside the enterprise. The task is further complicated by the increased variety and size of files to be delivered - ranging from multiple language versions and different international playout standards to formats for mobile platforms and VoD, HD, super HD formats such as 1080p 50/60, and even 3D. Faced with these challenges, many
post professionals are turning to an increasingly popular array of unmanaged, public cloud file transfer services. These public services offer
convenience and ease of use for exchanging smaller documents such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint files. However, such tools fall short of post- production requirements in a few key areas. First, most cloud services are not optimised for accelerated movement of large media files; in fact, they typically have gigabyte file size restrictions that rule out many transfers for post houses. Also, these services offer little or no capabilities for safeguarding valuable media assets, a serious concern in this age of global piracy and well- documented media security breaches. Since a typical public cloud service allows anyone to create an account and offers no safeguards to prevent a member from sharing the login info with friends or others, the security risks are enormous.
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