Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/526086
www.postmagazine.com 42 POST JUNE 2015 POST POSITIONS he only thing that remains con- stant with workflows is change. New technologies — from 4K to HDR to the cloud — can help you create content like never before, but only if your work- flows adapt quickly and nondisruptively. That's not easy because modern work- flows are already complex, with multiple acquisition points and a growing number of delivery formats. For many in the en- tertainment industry, it's overwhelming. This complexity didn't happen over- night. It began during the transition from SD to HD, a change that took 14 years, even though the pipeline was fairly straightforward with a single source, a single camera and a single output. The transition from HD to 4K will not afford us such luxury. Cameras have been shooting 4K and above for years, and consumers are purchasing 4K TVs at big-box prices. Consumers are waiting for high-resolution content, but most workflows aren't up to the challenge. HIGH-RESOLUTION CONTENT AND MONETIZATION OVERWHELM THE WORKFLOW Working with high-resolution content means storing, transferring, archiving and managing huge files from acquisi- tion forward. Adding higher-capacity or higher-performance storage once solved this problem, but that's no longer enough. During the transition from SD to HD, people used two to three streams. Now productions are multicamera, with five cameras of two streams each easily supplying 10 streams. That's the volume equivalent of 40 streams of HD. Meanwhile, new delivery platforms and "always on" access to content are also reshaping the workflow. HD work- flows were primarily linear: ingest-pro- cess-archive. Now, with new platforms, third-screen viewing, behind-the-scenes content, alternate endings and other special features being delivered, the workflow is not linear. Archived content is transcoded for new platforms and de- livered — or re-processed — into special features content. Content creation requires shared stor- age that can deliver multiple streams of high-resolution content over fibre chan- nel to support realtime operations such as editing, VFX, audio sweetening and ingest. At the same time, non-realtime operations, such as transcoding, render- ing and delivery need storage designed for much smaller files with high IOP performance over IP connections. Most media storage isn't designed to support these non-realtime operations while maintaining streaming performance so that editors never experience a dropped frame. And, slowing down new content creation for re-releases is not an option. OBJECT STORAGE FOR PARALLEL WORKFLOWS WITH SHARED CONTENT What's needed to meet these new chal- lenges is a new architecture that extends the online environment by adding a parallel workflow for non-realtime oper- ations so that they don't disrupt realtime operations. The trick is to allow both workflows to access shared content over their preferred networks. That's where object storage comes in. Object storage not only provides disk- speed access that's ideal for the non-re- altime transcode and delivery operations, but also offers greater scalability and higher reliability than RAID for large volumes of digital content. Where RAID storage starts struggling at 500TBs due to long rebuild times, object storage scales beyond the petabyte level. While tape offers the best value for long-term, offsite archives, tape-based archives do not provide the disk-speed access required for efficient moneti- zation. Object storage provides near- line levels of access, and unlike tape, it doesn't require the content to be restored back to primary storage first. ADDED INTELLIGENCE FOR SEAMLESS ACCESS AND MANAGEMENT While object storage forms the founda- tion for extending an online environment, advanced capabilities are required to make it truly effective. When integrated with a high-performance shared file sys- tem, object storage can support mone- tization efforts while acting as an active archive for content creation. Object storage that supports multiple protocols offers a choice of content access paths: through the file system for editing, color correction and other streaming opera- tions, and through REST for transcode, delivery and rendering. Because the two paths are separate, they don't interfere with one another. With intelligent, policy-based automa- tion, content can be moved seamlessly from online to extended online as projects are completed while still maintaining the transparent file system access required for content re-use. Finally, integration with MAM systems ensures that legacy content remains searchable and readily accessible so that it can be monetized easily. By extending your online environment with a solution that combines object storage with intelligent management, you can realize the modern workflow that you need for 4K and monetization efforts today. BUILDING WORKFLOW EFFICIENCY WITH EXTENDED ONLINE A NEW ARCHITECTURE TO ADDRESS NEW CHALLENGES T New workflows need to adapt quickly without causing disruption. BY JANET LAFLEUR PRODUCT MARKETING, QUANTUM