Picture all of your media assets today. How much space does it take up and how well does your current storage solution work? Now what if you had over 40 years of assets? Will the same solution work just as efficiently?
Tape storage is currently the preferred method for archiving media assets, but tape is a limited-life solution with many different ways it can be compromised. When thinking long-term, tape becomes less and less viable.
For a prime example on why we need to move away from tape storage, let’s look at Saturday Night Live. One of the longest running network programs in the US, SNL has generated 42 seasons of content consisting of 826 episodes and 2,966 cast members. In terms of data, that’s 42 years worth of archive data made up of multiple petabytes across 2 data centers.
That’s a lot of data, and for SNL, having a huge archive is useless unless they can easily access it. That’s why SNL utilized object storage to help digitize and store their 42 years of assets. Each asset can be tagged with as many metadata tags as needed, making it easy and fast to find, organize, and assemble clips from the show’s long history.
If your media assets are just sitting in cold storage, it may be time to rethink your strategy. By creating an efficient archival solution today, you can accelerate your workflows and continue to monetize those assets 40 years from now, just as SNL is doing today.
We’ll be delving further into this topic at NAB along with Matt Yonks, who is the Post Production Supervisor for Saturday Night Live. The session will take place on April 25 at 3:30pm and will include a drawing for a 4K video drone. Register early for extra chances to win!