Managing the Intersection of Content, Technology and User Experience
By Erik Weaver, Global Director of Market Development for M&E at Western Digital
The media and entertainment (M&E) sector, feeling the demands of the direct-to-consumer world, now both competes for viewership and fights for the fickle attention span of audiences. To better understand audiences, predict their viewing, and offer content that addresses what consumers want, when they want it, and how they want it, many big players have swiftly adopted the latest storage technologies and data analytics tools.
[caption id="attachment_90606" align="alignright" width="200"]
Western Digital’s ActiveScale P100[/caption]
To survive this evolving ecosystem, media companies are heavily investing in new IP, development, production and infrastructures to keep afloat.
Rising media streaming giants like Hulu and Netflix have been major disruptors in the market place, but not simply because of the development of new content delivery systems. What cannot be ignored is their aptitude for creating unique, original, consumer-driven content.
In a recent PwC report on the entertainment and media industry trends of 2016, experts noted the need for networks to produce more content and own more of their shows. Innovation in this industry is more important than ever, and will center more on the intersection of content, technology, and user experience.
Today’s content is largely defined by cutting-edge production and post-production, including the advent of higher resolution platforms like 4K, more collaborative and global edit workgroups, enhanced visual effect and animation capabilities, and the revival and monetization of archived content.
Two technologies that are contributing to immense traction in this direction for production houses is Flash, for fast, reliable content editing and delivery, and at-scale (easily scalable) cloud-based systems to store and archive massive amounts of high-definition content and files for future use and monetization.
Within the media production workflow, much of the content (from raw video footage, post-production clips to rendered files and archival footage) has been stored on disk and tape-based storage systems. Independent filmmakers, large studios and entertainment giants are coping with the ever-growing explosion of data and this is putting stress on existing production and storage infrastructures. According to Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates, the M&E industry’s storage needs are expected to grow 24-fold between 2014 and 2020.
[caption id="attachment_90605" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Western Digital’s InfiniFlash IF150 Platform[/caption]
As an example, over-the-top (OTT) services – content distributed through the Internet, without the need for traditional cable or satellite TV subscriptions -- are a rapidly growing market and also one of the most taxing workloads for a datacenter. Trying to stream video flawlessly to millions of people around the world without lag time or buffering requires powerful storage equipment with extremely good performance, high-capacity and reliability, which can be found in both Flash and disk-based systems.
The immense demands of data has led the M&E industry to adopt petabyte-scale solutions to stay ahead of demand and at-scale storage needs and provide a consistent experience. OTT services are always working to improve their infrastructure with ever increasing user bases and video libraries. One interesting result of this evolving business model is that of content replay strategies like Netflix Revivals.
The process of creating shows is not just reliant on high-quality production but the medium in which its stored is also critical to its later utilization. Big data mining – which is reliant on Flash-based storage to gather and process data quickly and efficiently – is a newly adopted strategy that helps programmers more accurately determines the demographics for each show.
How do these streaming services cull through all of the classic shows and viewer information to determine which one will be viewed by consumers? To effectively use big data to find valuable insights, high and fast performing storage is essential as well as on petabyte scale object storage as that media asset manager has to go through millions of subscribers’ viewing habits and deliver key findings to provide the best way forward.
Mining data for these kinds of insights will continue to be refined as media companies evolve their processes for collecting data and moving toward more “perfect” TV shows. After companies determine the type of show to produce or revive, they must secure actors, storylines, directors; and produce content in today’s high definition formats with all of the visual effects that audiences have come to expect. All this takes massive performance and capacity from camera acquisition through editing and online/nearline storage.
Both Flash and hard disk drive-based solutions have a place in this workflow. With Flash, the editors can efficiently move through the content and make edits to produce a high quality product in a fraction of the time. All Flash storage arrays are also ideal for high-performance analytics, video streaming and content delivery.
Meanwhile, petabyte-scale archiving solutions based on object storage provide the best TCO by offering the lowest acquisition costs and power requirements per terabyte, along with the highest capacity and density.
In a world where content is exploding, storage infrastructure is more important than ever. How M&E companies quickly deliver, store, manage and monetize their content to the millions of consumers who want to watch it at different times of day can help them capitalize on the new world of fan-centric opportunities.
Ultimately, the more efficiently and effectively M&E companies can make their storage infrastructure work for them at every point of fabrication from ideation, to production and finally to delivery and archive, the more successful they will be. New innovative storage technologies have ushered in the ability not only to create popular revival shows but to also reduce production times and improve workflow efficiency.
Western Digital’s ActiveScale P100[/caption]
To survive this evolving ecosystem, media companies are heavily investing in new IP, development, production and infrastructures to keep afloat.
Rising media streaming giants like Hulu and Netflix have been major disruptors in the market place, but not simply because of the development of new content delivery systems. What cannot be ignored is their aptitude for creating unique, original, consumer-driven content.
In a recent PwC report on the entertainment and media industry trends of 2016, experts noted the need for networks to produce more content and own more of their shows. Innovation in this industry is more important than ever, and will center more on the intersection of content, technology, and user experience.
Today’s content is largely defined by cutting-edge production and post-production, including the advent of higher resolution platforms like 4K, more collaborative and global edit workgroups, enhanced visual effect and animation capabilities, and the revival and monetization of archived content.
Two technologies that are contributing to immense traction in this direction for production houses is Flash, for fast, reliable content editing and delivery, and at-scale (easily scalable) cloud-based systems to store and archive massive amounts of high-definition content and files for future use and monetization.
Within the media production workflow, much of the content (from raw video footage, post-production clips to rendered files and archival footage) has been stored on disk and tape-based storage systems. Independent filmmakers, large studios and entertainment giants are coping with the ever-growing explosion of data and this is putting stress on existing production and storage infrastructures. According to Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates, the M&E industry’s storage needs are expected to grow 24-fold between 2014 and 2020.
[caption id="attachment_90605" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Western Digital’s InfiniFlash IF150 Platform[/caption]
As an example, over-the-top (OTT) services – content distributed through the Internet, without the need for traditional cable or satellite TV subscriptions -- are a rapidly growing market and also one of the most taxing workloads for a datacenter. Trying to stream video flawlessly to millions of people around the world without lag time or buffering requires powerful storage equipment with extremely good performance, high-capacity and reliability, which can be found in both Flash and disk-based systems.
The immense demands of data has led the M&E industry to adopt petabyte-scale solutions to stay ahead of demand and at-scale storage needs and provide a consistent experience. OTT services are always working to improve their infrastructure with ever increasing user bases and video libraries. One interesting result of this evolving business model is that of content replay strategies like Netflix Revivals.
The process of creating shows is not just reliant on high-quality production but the medium in which its stored is also critical to its later utilization. Big data mining – which is reliant on Flash-based storage to gather and process data quickly and efficiently – is a newly adopted strategy that helps programmers more accurately determines the demographics for each show.
How do these streaming services cull through all of the classic shows and viewer information to determine which one will be viewed by consumers? To effectively use big data to find valuable insights, high and fast performing storage is essential as well as on petabyte scale object storage as that media asset manager has to go through millions of subscribers’ viewing habits and deliver key findings to provide the best way forward.
Mining data for these kinds of insights will continue to be refined as media companies evolve their processes for collecting data and moving toward more “perfect” TV shows. After companies determine the type of show to produce or revive, they must secure actors, storylines, directors; and produce content in today’s high definition formats with all of the visual effects that audiences have come to expect. All this takes massive performance and capacity from camera acquisition through editing and online/nearline storage.
Both Flash and hard disk drive-based solutions have a place in this workflow. With Flash, the editors can efficiently move through the content and make edits to produce a high quality product in a fraction of the time. All Flash storage arrays are also ideal for high-performance analytics, video streaming and content delivery.
Meanwhile, petabyte-scale archiving solutions based on object storage provide the best TCO by offering the lowest acquisition costs and power requirements per terabyte, along with the highest capacity and density.
In a world where content is exploding, storage infrastructure is more important than ever. How M&E companies quickly deliver, store, manage and monetize their content to the millions of consumers who want to watch it at different times of day can help them capitalize on the new world of fan-centric opportunities.
Ultimately, the more efficiently and effectively M&E companies can make their storage infrastructure work for them at every point of fabrication from ideation, to production and finally to delivery and archive, the more successful they will be. New innovative storage technologies have ushered in the ability not only to create popular revival shows but to also reduce production times and improve workflow efficiency.