There is this dream in our industry that eventually everything in post will live in the cloud; apps, storage, workflows, the whole pipeline. A clean, centralized model where local infrastructure becomes obsolete.
It’s a compelling idea, and in certain corners of the industry, it’s already happening. But for the vast majority of post teams we work with, things are more layered, more distributed, and more hybrid.
Troveo is a video licensing platform helping creators monetize unused footage: Content owners, creatives, basically anyone with unused video can license their content libraries for AI training. The company provides a new revenue stream for content owners, while enabling AI companies to develop high-quality, legally compliant content models.
Media never sits still. In the past decade, we’ve swapped tape for digital, cable for streaming and edit bays for global remote workflows. Every shift opens new doors for creativity and new challenges for how we work.
But behind every blockbuster, ad campaign or streaming series lies a cost the industry has often swept under the rug: the carbon footprint of media production. Terabytes of footage are duplicated, stored and transferred across multiple facilities and networks.
In today’s fast paced media landscape, efficiency is no longer optional, it is essential to staying competitive. From contribution to cloud-based workflows, broadcast and media organizations are under constant pressure to deliver content faster, smarter, and more cost effectively. Tried, field-tested, and trusted by the world’s leading broadcasters, Haivision’s comprehensive portfolio of live video solutions power the highest quality, lowest latency broadcast workflows with maximum reliability. Haivision’s pioneering video transmitters, encoders, receivers, and cloud solutions enable broadcasters to deliver pristine quality live sports, news, and events over any network from any location to productions on premises or in the cloud.
When it comes to on-set media management, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Every production, from short-form commercial shoots to large-scale projects, faces its own unique challenges. Despite differences in scale, crew structure, camera types, delivery formats, and timelines, there is always a critical need to offload your camera originals safely and get them to your post team as quickly and efficiently as possible.
And yet, this seemingly straightforward goal is often a source of stress, friction, and delay.
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.
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.
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.
For decades, post-production has been a crucial and dynamic component of the media supply chain. From editing and sound design to color grading and visual effects, post-production ensures that the final product aligns with creative visions and meets industry standards, enhancing the overall viewer experience. Yet for many professionals in the industry, it can feel like the “Wild West.” This phrase frequently comes up in conversations with technology buyers, at trade shows, and during countless discussions about workflow challenges. It’s a fitting analogy—a lawless, chaotic environment where workflows are anything but streamlined, resources are scattered, and collaboration suffers.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Post-production, while complex, can transition from disorder to structure with the adoption of thoughtful creative project frameworks.
One of my favorite things to say about our media production world is that I’ve never worked in an industry that is so obsessed with the next generation of technology but is so slow to actually adopt it. Perhaps this conservative tendency is a side-effect of working with content that we see as culturally significant or valuable, or maybe it’s just the recurring 3am nightmare of the screen going black during primetime. But when industry commentators keep lauding the next new shiny thing as a game-changer, customers watch on with their hands on their hips waiting for one of their number to go first, make all the mistakes, and iron out all of the wrinkles.