The IABM Technology and Trends Roadmap isn’t just for industry technologists to use as a reference. IABM has discovered industry execs using it as a starting point for their keynote speeches: product line managers are using it to plot their own products; and corporate board members get a better understanding of where the company’s products sit on the adoption curve, hence a better grasp or risks vs gross margins. This also assists marketing activities by giving an indication of how best to promote products within M&E and adjacent/vertical market areas.
GB Labs – From Shoot to Seamless Recovery: Rethinking Disaster Recovery and High Availability for Modern Media Workflows
In the world of media production, “high availability” means different things depending on who you ask. For post teams capturing hundreds of hours of footage at massive shoot ratios, or creative teams under tight delivery deadlines, storage downtime doesn’t just cause frustration—it halts progress.
The need for modern disaster recovery (DR) and high availability solutions has never been more urgent. Yet many teams are still relying on outdated infrastructure—systems built for static backup, not dynamic collaboration.
Tuxera – The evolution of creative infrastructure
The media and entertainment industry is experiencing unprecedented growth in data demands. With an estimated 250-300% increase in media data over the last five years, and increasing adoption of 4k workflows, traditional approaches to storage and file sharing are struggling to keep pace with modern creative workflows. From post-production houses exchanging terabytes of data with global partners, to broadcasters managing time-critical content for live events, the ability to move and access massive files swiftly and securely has become critical to business success.
As someone who has spent years developing network file sharing protocols, I’ve witnessed firsthand how technical infrastructure can either empower or hinder creative teams. The reality is stark: every minute spent waiting for files to transfer or load is post-production paused and money lost.
GB Labs – Extending post-production cloud workflows with hyper accelerators
In the modern landscape of post-production, distributed teams face increasing challenges in maintaining seamless collaboration when working across distant locations. As productions scale and the demand for high-resolution content grows, traditional methods of file sharing and synchronization often become bottlenecks that slow down workflows and hinder efficiency. In simple terms, as productions now occupy a global footprint, the editorial process now needs a way to work and collaborate as though everyone was in the same office. GB Labs addresses these challenges by leveraging hyper accelerators, high performance local caches of media shared from the cloud, in conjunction with our block level technology, enabling remote teams to work with the same speed and efficiency as if they were all in a centralized studio environment.
Imagine Communications – The balancing act
For today’s broadcasters, the choice between deploying services on-prem or in the cloud has become a critical decision. On the surface, it’s a simple one — on-prem systems require significant investments in physical infrastructure and time, while cloud solutions offer rapid deployment without the maintenance headaches.
However, if you dig a little deeper, the choice isn’t so clear-cut. To balance costs and their environmental footprint, broadcasters must determine when using cloud over on-prem solutions makes the most sense.
GB Labs – Unlocking efficiency with NAS-like cloud storage
Media organizations today face the dual challenges of adapting to new ways of working and responding to the increasing demand for high-quality content. Fresh technological advancements, including NAS-like cloud storage technology, have emerged as key enablers of the streamlined, collaborative remote workflows, efficient resource utilization, and increased operational flexibility essential to overcoming these challenges.
Projective – Breaking free from the hardware cycle: a new era in postproduction
When considering traditional technology deployments within post-production and broadcast companies, the term “cycle of hardware” highlights a common situation for media technology buyers. Every 2-5 years, companies find themselves entangled in a relentless cycle of sourcing, implementing, powering, and retiring physical hardware – servers, storage systems, backup solutions.
Amagi – Embracing cloud technology for a sustainable future
Like many others, the broadcast industry is facing increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact. While essential for delivering high-quality content, traditional on-premises infrastructure often consumes significant energy and resources. This is due to several factors, including a few that I will be discussing below.
GB Labs – Changing the landscape of modern shared media storage
GB Labs is a well-known provider of industry leading storage, focusing on media-based production storage, from traditional on-premise to innovative solutions, that are ideal for remote and hybrid working needs. The company was established over two decades ago on the premise that regular shared storage has multiple restrictions and complications that can make it expensive and problematic to use.
What is the Cloud? Surprisingly a question still asked today
It’s 2024 and I (wrongly) assumed that the ‘cloud’ was a well understood concept. That said, one of the top Google trends on the cloud is still surprisingly questions like “what is cloud computing?” and “the cloud”, and it shows that what I thought has long been common knowledge might still need some ‘clarification’.
In addition, I have had some ‘interesting’ conversations with some production companies and studios that also suggest that the cloud still is not well understood. Without mentioning any names, one of the funniest conversations I had recently was with a producer who informed me it was company “policy” not to use the internet or cloud, and yet the entire business was entirely dependent on cloud hosted SaaS services like Google Drive!? When I (politely) challenged this, they went on to explain how their files were on their computer, not in the ‘cloud’ (despite having shared links to these files with me via Google Drive and other cloud services). It was conversations like these that inspired me to write a course on the cloud for the IABM. Given that this is still happening, I thought it worth a super-simple summary of what the cloud is in this article.