Since Covid, the media and entertainment (M&E) industry has been struggling to support hybrid workflows and remote collaborators. A new report looks at data from surveying 500 M&E IT leaders in the US and UK as well as interviews from experts working with large studios to help solve hybrid workflow issues. My biggest takeaway from the report is that the industry still has a long way to go, but needs to make smart decisions to avoid the mistakes of companies that have journeyed to the cloud before them.

The survey findings point to the desire to move to the cloud, but not being certain how to go about it. The report outlays 5 ways the distributed cloud solves hybrid media workflow issues in an attempt to help guide M&E companies on how to get the performance, availability, and affordability to support global workflows.

In this blog, I’ll share what caught my attention from the report and share some key insights the report uncovered.

Only eight percent of M&E is fully cloud.

While shocking compared to other industries, those embedded in M&E may think eight percent is better than expected. After all, most M&E companies have huge on-premise investments and the cloud doesn’t always have friendly pricing for the amount of data M&E productions create.

The dichotomy is that almost 80% of those surveyed felt it was important or very important to migrate to cloud workflows. That tells me there is a big gap between business need and having the right solution.

Media needs to go in the cloud, but not just any cloud. It has to be the distributed cloud architecture, which I believe is the true game changer for the M&E industry to solve hybrid workflow challenges.

Meeting deadlines and budget requires change.

The pressure to increase the pace of productions while reducing costs is clearly a looming dilemma for M&E. The report identified that getting workflows into the cloud could achieve this. How? By enabling a global and remote workforce of the best and most affordable post-production resources. Media asset management tools in the cloud pair well with globally distributed storage to create a way for studios to start making this critical change.

Some experts quoted in the report supported this concept. Dominic Harland, CEO and CTO at GB Labs commented, “Normal workflow has to now incorporate remote workflow. Remote and multi-site is the norm in the fact that virtually every production company is looking at doing it.” Eric Tang, founder and CTO at Livepeer, noted, “I think Covid opened up people’s willingness to have a remote workforce. Having access to a global talent pool is better for all companies, but it also increases the requirement for access in all regions.”

The M&E perspective on sustainability is surprising.

The report uncovered some interesting findings on what M&E IT leaders think about lowering the carbon footprint of media. The report found that 67% agree or strongly agree that media productions have a responsibility to ensure their media is stored in a way that’s environmentally responsible. What caught my attention here is that 72% surveyed would purchase more sustainable cloud solutions, even if it was more expensive, less performance, or less secure.

Tom Dunning, CEO and Co-Founder of Ad Signal, brought up an interesting point in the report. “We’ve seen a lot of focus on the reduction of carbon emissions on set, but everything from that onward regarding sustainability has taken second priority. I hope people become aware of the carbon impact both of the cloud and the online processing, the rushes, the archives, the streaming—all that.”

Related reading: The majority of the M&E industry doesn’t seem to be aware of the biggest threat to the environment—the data.

Fortunately, the distributed cloud lowers carbon emissions of cloud storage by 83% while costing studios up to 90% less than hyperscalers. Distributed cloud technology achieves this by utilizing existing spare hardware and spinning disks. Additionally, hardware life can be extended as the data can still be accessed even if storage locations go down. This approach extends hardware life without compromising data security, avoiding carbon-intensive mining and manufacturing processes, and reduces the need for new energy-intensive data centers.

For more insights on how the distributed cloud architecture champions sustainability through innovation, watch this video.

Read the report for more detailed insights.

The M&E industry is undergoing an unprecedented transformation – and it’s happening fast. As I mentioned previously, while moving media to the cloud is a crucial step, it requires a strategic approach since not all clouds are created equally.

Distributed cloud technology provides a revolutionary solution to M&E companies looking to better meet production deadlines, enable global collaboration and distribution, and achieve these goals affordably and sustainably.

For more insights, download the full report 5 ways the distributed cloud solves hybrid media workflow issues.