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Media Production Company Consolidating Thunder Bay RAID and Frame.io
Company Situation
The company operates within the media production industry, focusing on video shoots and post-production workflows. Their team is fully remote without a centralized editing station, handling multiple shoots monthly that generate large volumes of high-resolution footage. Over approximately 18 months, they have accumulated more than 60 terabytes of footage stored locally on desktop-attached Thunder Bay RAID drives.
Existing Workflow
Currently, all raw footage and project files reside on local Thunder Bay storage units—one 80TB and one 40TB drive—with exports and deliverables managed via Frame.io. The team relies heavily on these physical drives, with limited cloud-based solutions in place beyond Frame.io for final deliverables. Archival storage is handled on a separate 22TB drive, and collaboration depends on physical transfer of drives due to the absence of a shared cloud editing environment.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
Heavy dependence on physical storage creates risk: drives can fail or become full, leading to potential data loss or workflow interruptions.
Limited cloud presence restricts remote collaboration and project handoffs, especially critical when team members are unavailable due to leave or illness.
The need to purchase additional expensive local storage hardware as data grows, with no scalable cloud archival solution.
Existing cloud storage solutions like Backblaze were considered but viewed as generic and lacking media-specific features, and pricing and integration concerns remained unaddressed.
Lack of seamless integration between storage, review, and collaboration tools increases complexity and reduces efficiency.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade’s platform offers a cloud-native, media-focused storage and collaboration solution that directly addresses the company’s needs:
- Provides a cloud backup of all local Thunder Bay storage, enabling secure offsite archival that can replace physical drives and reduce hardware costs.
- Allows projects to be archived in the cloud and deleted locally, freeing up physical storage space while maintaining full access to footage whenever needed.
- Facilitates easy project restoration from cloud to local drives, supporting smooth resumption or takeover of projects without shipping drives.
- Integrates with existing tools like Frame.io for deliverables, while enhancing media management with a unified interface designed specifically for video workflows.
- Enables remote collaboration and secure sharing across a distributed team, removing bottlenecks caused by physical storage dependence.
Benefits
- Reduced risk of data loss through reliable cloud backup and archiving.
- Significant cost savings from minimized purchases of additional local storage hardware.
- Enhanced flexibility and continuity with cloud-based project access and restoration.
- Improved team collaboration and workflow efficiency despite remote setup.
- Streamlined media management within a single platform tailored for video production needs.
Technologies Used
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