GROWING VISUAL EFFECTS INDUSTRY

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1 NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE GROWING VISUAL EFFECTS INDUSTRY 2017 Survey Results from postperspective and Quantum

2 SECTION 1 FACING RISING DEMAND FOR VISUAL EFFECTS

3 Directors and producers are incorporating more and more visual effects (VFX) shots into everything from feature-length films to 30-second ads. Demand for captivating visual experiences is growing rapidly. To quench consumers increasing thirst for exciting action sequences and otherworldly landscapes, directors and producers are incorporating more and more visual effects (VFX) shots into everything from feature-length films to 30-second ads. At the same time, advances in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 360-degree video technologies are spurring some organizations to begin creating more immersive and interactive experiences. How are the rising demand for VFX and the availability of new visual technologies affecting the VFX facilities, post-production studios, and other organizations that produce this material? In particular, are they prepared to store a growing volume of large media files? Are they planning to revamp their storage environment to accommodate continued growth and meet increasingly rigorous collaborative workflow requirements? To answer these and other questions, Quantum collaborated with the team from Randi Altman s postperspective.com a website that has become a leading destination for production and postproduction communities. Quantum and postperspective surveyed creative professionals from around the world to pinpoint current storage preferences, identify perceived challenges, and gauge emerging trends. SURVEY RESPONDENTS The survey captured responses from 129 people working around the globe in a range of roles, including editing, engineering, directing, producing, and studio management. While some respondents are freelancers and consultants, others are contributors to a range of production, postproduction, and VFX firms. WHAT IS POSTPERSPECTIVE? Founded by industry veteran Randi Altman, postperspective is a webbased media outlet designed for production and post-production professionals. Offering a newsletter, articles, product reviews, interviews, events, and other resources, the organization s website draws more than 25,000 unique visitors every month.

4 EXPANDING BEYOND VFX INTO IMMERSIVE VISUAL EXPERIENCES SECTION 2

5 Rising demand for VFX, VR, AR, and 360-degree video will require many organizations to make technology changes. Nearly 60% of the respondents are currently working in VFX. But the field is clearly expanding into new realms. Approximately 20% of respondents work in VR, AR, or 360-degree video. An additional 40% anticipate working in those areas within the next two years. Why is there an increasing movement toward immersive visual experiences? First, consumer demand is on the upswing. New products for consuming VR, AR, and 360-video from high-end VR headsets to inexpensive smartphone accessories are making this type of visual experience more readily available to more people. Today, media consumers can even explore 360-degree video on YouTube, Facebook, and other sites without any special equipment. Second, the technologies for producing these experiences are becoming less expensive. More and more organizations are diving in. Accommodating the rising demand for VFX, VR, AR, and 360-degree video will require many organizations to make technology changes. More than 72% of respondents need greater storage capacity, and over 40% have upgraded or anticipate updating their storage architecture. They need solutions that can deliver the performance, scalability, and collaborative capabilities required for today s workflows. Meanwhile, approximately 65% have added cameras or sensors, or anticipate adding them in the future. Beyond supporting new, immersive visual experiences, these organizations are likely updating their capture technologies to accommodate higherresolution standards, including 4K and 8K. Are you working in, or do you plan to work in, VR, AR, or 360-degree video? What technology changes did you see, or do you expect, as a result of VFX, VR, AR, and 360-degree video production? (Select all that apply.) Currently Within 6 months 6-12 months months Never Not sure Additional cameras or sensors More storage capacity Upgrade or change storage architecture Upgrade or replace workstations Upgrade facility network Upgrade network for delivery of content Other

6 REEVALUATING STORAGE SECTION 3

7 HD video is currently the standard for corporate video production, though some organizations are working in 4K. The survey respondents use a full range of technologies for their production and post-production workflows and many respondents use more than one technology. Approximately 50% use network-attached storage (NAS), 50% use storage-area network (SAN) solutions, and 17% use direct-attached storage (DAS). The 22% who answered not applicable might be using a different type of storage, such as cloud storage. Storage performance is clearly important for many respondents. Approximately 66% use solid-state drives (SSDs) within their storage environment. While SSDs are more costly than traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), they can deliver the strong random I/O performance that teams require for many VFX processes, especially as those teams work with increasingly large, highresolution files. Overall, 43% of respondents are currently using cloud solutions for at least part of their storage needs. Those who do not use cloud solutions report one or more reasons for that decision. Some (21%) note slow access and retrieval times, a slightly smaller percentage (20%) do not need multi-site accessibility, and others (19%) point to security concerns. Which media storage technology do you currently have deployed? (Select all that apply.) Are you using, or evaluating, SSDs? (Select all that apply.) DAS Yes SAN NAS No have no need for additional performance No too expensive/ not enough ROI No concerned about long-term stability Not applicable No not a priority

8 PRIORITIZING SCALABILITY, PERFORMANCE, AND COST SECTION 4

9 As I shoot in 4K and 8K, I need more storage. When asked to describe their greatest storage challenges, many respondents highlighted scalability. Right now, our biggest concern is scalability of our SAN, explained one respondent. As demand for VFX, VR, AR, and 360-degree video continues to grow, organizations need scalable solutions to store more projects with an increasing number of shots. Growing file sizes also contribute to scalability challenges. Another respondent replied, As I shoot in 4K and 8K, I need more storage. Performance and cost are additional concerns for many respondents. Teams need robust performance for demanding processes and want fast access to content but the SSDs and high-performance HDDs that they rely on for some tasks can be very costly. Many teams need a way to balance performance with cost so they can have the fast response times they need to be productive while the organization can keep costs under control. Ease of management was another requirement mentioned by several respondents. As data volumes grow and organizations expand their storage environments, they need ways to manage content and storage systems without excessive costs or complexity. As one respondent wrote, I need something that streamlines management and makes it idiot-proof. As they look ahead to new storage solutions, the vast majority of respondents need solutions that will integrate easily with post-production workflows. Nearly 70% agreed that this integration was very important while an additional 15% noted it was somewhat important. Very important Somewhat important Convenient, but not important Not a priority How important is it for your VFX, VR, AR, or 360-degree storage solution to work with post-production workflows?

10 SECTION 5 EMPLOYING A VARIETY OF ARCHIVING TECHNOLOGIES

11 Post-production professionals use a wide variety of archiving technologies. The survey results show that respondents use a broad array of archiving technologies, with many using more than one. Unfortunately, several of those technologies could make it difficult for teams to easily access archived files and reuse content. The majority of respondents (57%) use removable drives for some archiving. Removable drives offer a relatively inexpensive way to store completed projects. But retrieving files archived on removable drives can be extremely difficult, especially if those drives wind up residing in overcrowded storage closets. Approximately 23% archive to nearline disks. Nearline disks provide fast, easy accessibility to archived data, but they are expensive. Many organizations would find it costprohibitive to scale nearline disks as they archive more and more data. Compared with nearline disk, digital tape in use by 44% of respondents offers a much more cost-effective and scalable method for preserving content. Adopting the right tape library solution and implementing it as part of a multi-tier environment can help teams quickly find and retrieve archived content without altering their workflows. Approximately 23% of respondents archive to the cloud. Cloud solutions can provide a cost-effective option for many organizations. However, some might be reluctant to use cloud archiving for the same reasons organizations hesitate to use cloud for production storage, including potentially slow access to files and security concerns. How is your archived content stored? (Select all that apply.) Removable drives Digital tape Cloud Nearline disk Not currently archiving

12 SECTION 6 OPTIMIZING STORAGE FOR VFX AND MORE WITH QUANTUM

13 Prepare your storage infrastructure for the future of VFX with Quantum. Quantum StorNext storage solutions can help your organization address the rising demand for VFX and more immersive experiences by providing exceptional performance, enabling easy scalability, facilitating collaboration, and controlling costs. PERFORMANCE Quantum Xcellis workflow storage combines flash drives with more economical highcapacity disk drives to deliver outstanding, flash-level random I/O performance for demanding VFX, AR, VR, and 360-degree video workflows at a fraction of the cost of all-flash systems. Integrating Quantum QXS hybrid storage into your environment provides the sequential I/O performance needed for high-resolution video playout. Creating a single environment that delivers both strong random and sequential I/O performance speeds movement of content and reduces network congestion. With Xcellis, you gain the high performance needed to ingest multicamera content for VR, rapidly access large, high-resolution files for VFX, and play out media in real time. SCALABILITY Xcellis scales to billions of files and petabytes of data, so you can support multiple largescale projects in production. The modular design simplifies expansion and allows you to scale performance and capacity independently. You can also increase or decrease the number of render servers cost-effectively, connecting either via Ethernet or through the high-performance StorNext Distributed LAN Client (DLC). COLLABORATION The StorNext platform offers a singlenamespace environment with IP and Fibre Channel connectivity for centralized media creation and distribution. Team members can access the environment using a wide range of operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Mac OS X. With StorNext, you can support a wide array of simultaneous users who can access content on any storage tier, including the archive tier. COST OPTIMIZATION A unified architecture with intelligent tiering outperforms competing network-attached solutions while using fewer disks at a lower overall cost. In addition, with Quantum tape archives including StorNext AEL Archives and Scalar tape libraries you can preserve your growing number of completed projects in low-cost, high-capacity storage. Best-ofbreed monitoring helps ensure long-term data protection while streamlining management. Thanks to integration with primary storage, your teams can access and retrieve archived files quickly and easily.

14 READY TO LEARN MORE? For more information about Quantum solutions for VFX, visit: ABOUT QUANTUM Quantum is a leading expert in scale-out tiered storage, archive and data protection. The company s StorNext platform powers modern highperformance workflows, enabling seamless, real-time collaboration and keeping content readily accessible for future use and re-monetization. More than 100,000 customers have trusted Quantum to address their most demanding content workflow needs, including top studios, major broadcasters and cutting-edge content creators. With Quantum, customers have the end-to-end storage platform they need to manage assets from ingest through finishing and into delivery and long-term preservation. See how at Quantum Corporation. All rights reserved. ST02057A-v01 May 2017