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Home Remodeling Company Streamlining Creative Asset Management
Company Situation
The company operates within the home remodeling industry, supporting a creative team responsible for videography, photography, graphic design, and social media management. Their team comprises roughly five key users, including an editor, videographer, social media manager, graphic designer, and creative director. They manage a growing media library currently totaling around seven terabytes.
Existing Workflow
The company’s creative department has historically relied on a combination of digital asset management (DAM) services and local storage solutions. They previously used third-party platforms like Canto and Sync.com before building an in-house NAS (Network Attached Storage) system utilizing Ubiquity’s NAS Pro. Media assets include a wide variety of file types (MOV, RAW, PDF, PSD, JPEG, etc.), which are stored locally on the NAS. For review and sharing purposes, they use Frame IO as a temporary middleman to show content to stakeholders. Remote access is limited and complicated, with plans underway to build a VPN to facilitate offsite connectivity.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
Lack of a central media hub: Although the NAS serves as a dump site for files, it lacks an accessible, user-friendly interface for team members to search, find, and retrieve assets.
Limited remote access: The NAS requires a VPN for remote connectivity, which is cumbersome and unfriendly for non-technical users such as the social media manager and creative director.
Fragmented review process: Frame IO is used as a stopgap solution for sharing and reviewing videos, but it is not integrated into the asset management workflow, causing inefficiencies.
Search and metadata limitations: There is no effective way to create or search metadata to quickly locate specific footage or images, reducing productivity and asset reuse.
Cost inefficiency: Current tools and workflows incur higher costs and do not offer integrated AI-powered search or transcription capabilities.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade offers a centralized media management platform that can either run on top of the existing NAS (BYO storage) or function as a cloud-first solution. Shade enables the company to:
- Consolidate all media assets into a single, searchable hub accessible to all team members, regardless of location.
- Maintain familiar workflows by allowing file access through a Finder-like interface that mimics NAS drives but with cloud-based storage and AI-powered indexing behind the scenes.
- Replace fragmented review tools like Frame IO with integrated commenting, scrubbing, and versioning capabilities within Shade.
- Leverage AI-generated metadata and transcription search to instantly locate assets based on content, people, shot types, or spoken words, dramatically improving asset findability and repurposing.
- Simplify remote access for non-technical users without complex VPN setups.
Benefits
- Centralized and user-friendly media repository accessible remotely
- Seamless integration with existing NAS infrastructure or full cloud migration options
- AI-powered search and metadata tagging for fast asset retrieval
- Integrated review and collaboration tools to replace third-party platforms
- Cost savings compared to existing tools (estimated $8,500 annually)
- Scalable storage pricing starting at competitive per-terabyte pricing with discounts for annual commitments
- Streamlined workflows for creative, social media, and management teams alike
Technologies Used
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