It’s an exciting time to be in the media management business. Content is getting created and disseminated in more ways than ever before, and shared worldwide via traditional broadcasting and growing social networks. Within Avid’s Media and Information Management team, we’re focused on developing solutions for customers to manage their media—and businesses—more effectively. I’d like to share some insights on current market trends and, in particular, help you understand our vision for the future of shared storage—a critical component in media management.
How are current trends in shared storage impacting the digital media and entertainment industry?
There’s a lot of change happening right now that affect our customers’ need for shared storage. In the post production world, because of continued budget pressure, facilities are utilizing editors and professionals from around the globe instead of relying solely on in-house staff to complete projects. This makes it crucial to have reliable, scalable, and highly performant shared storage.
In the broadcast arena, content isn’t just getting produced in the field and studio anymore—it’s coming from everywhere. Broadcasters need a way to gather media from syndicated sources, user generated avenues, and producers around the globe. Today’s journalists are much more tech-savvy than a decade ago, and need workflows for capturing media, editing it remotely, and sending to the studio without leaving the field. With the increase in three screen deployments, more media in more formats exist than ever before. The underpinnings of these workflows are based on having a reliable, affordable shared storage solution.
At Avid, we’re looking at all these user scenarios and more when making product development decisions. The tools we bring to market are governed by the workflows and needs of our customers—they change dynamically and our tools need to as well.
What is Avid doing for smaller broadcasters and post houses that need affordable shared storage?
We recognize that many of our customers are under tremendous price pressure—especially local and emerging broadcasters and post houses. In many cases, their revenues have shrunk and they’re looking for ways to achieve more with less. So we’re working to make our shared storage solutions more accessible to these customers. The recent launch of ISIS 5000 was key because it addressed a customer segment that we weren’t reaching with previous solutions. Now small-medium post houses and broadcasters don’t have to settle for a general-purpose solution. They can enjoy a reliable ISIS platform that’s tuned for media and entertainment—and comes in at an affordable price. And we’re talking total cost of ownership, not just initial price point.
What does ISIS 5000 offer that other solutions do not?
It all comes down to three things: Openness, ease-of-use, and affordability (which I’ve already mentioned).
ISIS 5000 opens the door to wide third-party support and compatibility. Many customers have invested considerable time and resources in a third-party product that they depend on, so we can’t insist on an all-Avid homogeneous solution. It’s just not realistic to the customer needs. Third-party support means ISIS 5000 can work seamlessly with Final Cut Pro and a growing list of other applications in addition to our Avid software offerings.
On top of it all, ISIS 5000 is the most intuitive shared storage solution we’ve ever released. We actually had beta customers get up and running out of the box with no technical support necessary. It’s really easy to install, configure, and get users hooked up to the system.