EditShare reported a spike in orders for its recently released XStream EFS shared storage solution. Marking one of its best quarters to date, recent customer projects included reality TV giant Endemol/MoovIT (Germany), editorial powerhouse Sid Lee (Canada, The Netherlands, USA) and critically acclaimed public broadcaster WMHT-TV, Troy NY.

WMHT converges media

WMHT is one of the latest broadcasters to create a seamless workflow from ingest to archive with the new EditShare XStream EFS solution. The EditShare installation replaces WMHT’s sneaker net storage setup, centralizing content for its TV, radio and web operations onto one high-performance shared storage platform with integrated media asset management (MAM).

The EFS high-availability, redundant architecture supports rapid content creation and ensures important WMHT programs are broadcasted according to plan. The integrated Flow MAM serves as a control layer for managing content across WMHT departments, providing tools to manage ingest of content from studio shoots and automate transcode processes.

Flow lets non-production staff easily search, browse and retrieve assets from the XStream EFS storage and archives from a standard desktop system or laptop. “The new EditShare XStream EFS securely stores all our content while Flow lets us automate ingest, transcoding and indexing of material. It’s a huge time and physical space saver,” comments Bob Cummings, chief engineer, WMHT Educational Telecommunications.

Sharing at Sid Lee

International creative services firm, Sid Lee, also implemented the new EditShare XStream EFS platform in its main office and XStream ST storage servers in its regional offices, facilitating multi-site access to its growing library of media assets.

In addition to Flow MAM, the company employed the latest AirFlow remote collaboration toolset, creating its own private cloud to securely facilitate media sharing and collaboration between Sid Lee sites in Montreal, Toronto, New York and Amsterdam. Details on the Sid Lee multi-site workflow are available here.

Reliability on Wild Island

Synonymous with reality TV, Endemol’s 2015 production of Wild Island was set in a remote location off the coast of Central America. The German-produced series featured 14 ordinary citizens left to their own devices to survive on an uninhabited tropical island with no food or water for 28 days.

Six cameras captured the action and antics. The production team was located on a neighboring island fours hours away by boat. The team brought an EditShare XStream EFS with integrated Flow to wrangle the 20 to 30 hours of content they received every day. Production team member David Merzenich cites XStream EFS’ high-availability and no-single-point-of-failure architecture as key to keeping peace of mind and pace with the production’s 24-hour turn on dailies and zero downtime goals.

Critical to the editorial review process for the project was EditShare’s AirFlow, which allowed production staff in Cologne, Germany to connect to the Wild Island storage server via the Internet. Production staff members in Germany were able to review proxy files and, if necessary, download the high-resolution files locally, make notations and edits, and then upload for the on-location team. The remote access gave them unprecedented opportunities to monitor and tweak the story line while the production was underway.