This is the third part of our ongoing series focused on cloud adoption in media and entertainment (M&E), to support the continued digital transformation of the industry. Read “Embracing Emerging Global Digital Workflows for M&E” and “Four Technology Challenges Media and Entertainment Must Overcome” to learn more.
As M&E companies look for scalable global solutions to support production of compelling digital content, feature film, feature animation, live events and episodic television series, media-focused cloud architecture is rapidly becoming the central core of operations enabling truly global workflow management.
Global Leader, Entertainment & Media, Technology, Professional Services Verticals, Verizon Enterprise Solutions
The media-focused cloud concept combines two primary areas of cloud based technology:
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) which includes the application of servers and digital storage
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which includes the use of cloud based applications
The combination of these two technology solutions produces a powerful tool for M&E companies supporting global media workflow platforms and end-to-end-content solutions; production through distribution.
Content, including principal photography, is often produced at locations around the world: from Prague to New York and London to Auckland. To create an end-to-end digital ecosystem, studios need to move large mezzanine master files securely to other cities like Los Angeles and Vancouver for post-production and VFX processing.
Supporting globally managed workflows like this requires scalable, on-demand cloud infrastructure and networking that enables fast efficient delivery and retrieval of digital content.
The media-focused cloud architecture can employ the aggregation of the common cloud combined with digital asset management (DAM), cloud transcoding (Compute), global workflow management (distant production/post production), identity access management (IAM), digital rights management (DRM) and storage and resolution options using content management systems (CMS).
Another important component of the media-focused cloud architecture is “object storage.” This allows unstructured data and media files to be stored as objects and tied directly to digital content, allowing all production elements to be transported, stored and accessed together. Object storage combined with a robust CMS provides a way to manage all digital content elements in a distributed or centralized location supporting global workflow management.
Additionally, DAM in the cloud derives significant benefits from object storage since it can offer open architecture and a multi-tenancy framework allowing global content version control, metadata management, replication and search.
Cloud transcoding supports global production on an as-needed basis supporting postproduction workflows, editing and the creation of an edit decision list (EDL). The media-focused cloud could be used to create completely new versions of finished content driven by EDLs compiling new content versions in the cloud and then distributing them for review.
Cloud latency can be a factor when addressing postproduction workflows on high-end uncompressed television and feature film content. Several companies offer file based acceleration solutions like Aspera and Signiant that can be integrated with media-focused cloud solutions. However, one of the best ways to mitigate cloud latency is with fast high-bandwidth on-demand secure network topologies.
Digital technology is not just changing how media and entertainment companies operate they are changing the business entirely. Companies need to embrace these technologies – cloud is chief among them – efficiently and profitably meet the demands of the end consumer. I will examine how M&E companies can build a media-focused cloud solution in a future post on News and Insights.
For more information about how technology is changing the M&E industry, read “Global Media & Entertainment Cloud Ecosystem: Managing Emerging Global Digital Workflows.”
To contact Scott Spector, please email Kevin King at Kevin.King@verizon.com.
