Let’s face it. The media and entertainment industry has a big data challenge. A high-definition film shoot today can generate as much as 2TB of data per hour. Not to mention that data then needs to be captured, stored, and moved to different locations, throughout the post-production and commercial release process.
Factor in ever-increasing video capture resolutions, infrastructure and bandwidth limitations, and constant security concerns driving calls for encryption—it’s no surprise many businesses in the industry are finding data management an increasingly difficult task. Especially as many productions are asking DITs to do more work within shorter timeframes and limited budgets.
Whether your team is on the hunt for a new data storage strategy to address a major studio production, livestreamed event or innovative virtual production, discovering a cost-effective storage solution that alleviates data logistics complexity should be a top priority.
What Studios and Post-Production Teams Need from Their Storage
From aggregating raw footage on set to duplicating and transporting final files after editing, every stage of the modern production process involves data. For some production houses, the old ways of managing data might still work.
Especially for small-scale projects, deploying on-site data storage for shoots and network attached storage (NAS) to safely back up all the data at a central location for later use works just fine. But for many studios whose workloads are expanding at the same time that their turn-around times are shrinking, this set up is no longer viable for the quantities of data they’re dealing with.
To make sure your IT teams keep ahead of these trends, instead of falling behind, it will be imperative to rethink your data management strategies from the ground up—beginning at the first stage of production planning, to ensure everything from pre-production and post-production data is accessible via a uniform interface.
The cornerstone of a good digital media workflow is data flexibility—this means having your data in the right place, at the right time, and with the right accessibility."
To accomplish this, many teams are incorporating Data Transfer as a Service (DTaaS)-based data management strategies into their camera-to-cloud workflow, which not only offers them access to the tools they need for fast ingestion of mass data sets for storage, backup, and archive, but leaning on a data storage provider to import that data to the multi-cloud gives teams time to focus on the work ahead of them, all while making sure they only pay for the storage devices they need, when they need them.
Unlock the Benefits of DTaaS
After all, the cornerstone of a good digital media workflow is data flexibility—this means having your data in the right place, at the right time, and with the right accessibility. In a world where we’re producing more data than ever, the issue isn’t whether we have enough space to store all of it—it’s getting that data moving to where it’s needed fast enough.
Not only does an on-demand, consumption-as-a-service model simplify your device management, preventing unnecessary on-set IT costs, it also gives your video production teams the flexibility they need to alter the numbers of devices they deploy to complete certain projects, as storage needs change.
By circumnavigating the headaches that come with owning data storage infrastructure outright, like maintenance fees and technology upgrades, DTaaS-based strategies give you the freedom to expand your production, accelerate your timeline, and even reallocate your budget without having to worry about your data.
As Production IT teams and DITs know, not all content creation workflows are created equal. Each project requires an entirely unique data storage infrastructure, both for on-set camera card consolidation and backup and camera-to cloud data transportation. Deploying DTaaS-based storage strategies gives you the ability to consolidate data on location quickly and securely, using a right-sized, direct-attached, on-prem storage system.
When it’s time to move that data, DTaaS-based storage services eliminate the burden for remote IT production teams to figure out sneakernet methods to transport drives to and from set. Leaning on your storage provider to import dailies from a service center close to production straight to your S3 cloud bucket of choice leaves room for your post-production teams to focus on getting the edit done, instead of waiting for their drives to arrive.
New Horizons in Data-Led Decision-Making
When it comes down to it, you can’t produce, broadcast, distribute, stream or market eye-catching content without a modern approach to data management. Investment today means improved workflows for content producers, tomorrow, and better insights for the business as a whole. Implementing a streamlined, cost-effective, and complexity-free data management workflow that reaps the benefits of DTaaS is the best thing you can do for your studio.
After all, a happy Production IT team means higher quality work and quicker project turnarounds.
