VIRTUAL WORKSTATION GE AR .
Simon Hall at Blackmagic is more circumspect. He says cloud services are more likely to remain as a bridge, supporting the distribution of content and projects over networks, while providing a backbone for holding data prior to local use. “This approach offers the benefits of shared storage outside of facilities, but doesn’t restrict work group performance to the host cloud service’s speed or cost.” As an early proponent of cloud editing, Blackbird sees the technology only extending its reach. “Cloud everything is the future, not just editing,” states Oliver Parker. “Major organisations were using the cloud before Covid-19 for versatility and availability. The key focus then was making editing work in the cloud – and that’s been done. The focus now is on sustainability and moving on.” The creativity inherent to editing will not be affected by the cloud – but we all benefit when work can be done anywhere, at any time. There’s no doubt cloud-based editing is here to stay – and will only grow in the future.
particularly as more companies adopt SaaS (software as a service) options and gain more confidence in using the cloud for editing. This will be further boosted as technology providers enhance their offerings. Thompson says this will see cloud editing move from a way of adding capacity, to becoming the primary deployment methodology. EditShare’s Stephen Tallamy sees not just cloud editing, but virtualisation in general as the way ahead for post-production. “At the very least it means facilities will need to spend less on local workstations, servers and storage as the cloud takes over. It brings with it the flexibility and responsiveness that every content business needs in such uncertain times,” he asserts. Margot Nack of Adobe thinks physical storage hardware will no longer be needed in traditional facilities: “The work that post houses do will continue to be very valuable, but paying exorbitant amounts of money for on-premises storage and related IT support and security will be a thing of the past.”
FROM THE BUNKER Green Rock’s post- production artists have been using the
Base Media Cloud system since the pandemic began
43. OCTOBER 2021
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