Canadian Pixcom Optimizes Media Workflow With EditShare

EditShare, LLC announced that Montreal, Canada-based Pixcom International, the in-house technical arm of Pixcom Group, Inc. servicing Pixcom Productions, has invested in a 420TB XStream EFS 450 scale-out shared storage cluster along with 800TB worth of EFS 40NL near-line storage nodes and Flow media asset management.

This re-investment in EditShare workflow tools will increase the collaborative firepower across Pixcom Productions’ 22 Avid edit suites, 10 story edit stations, 2 DaVinci Resolve color grading rooms and 2 compositing/graphics stations.

Having previously employed earlier generation EditShare storage solutions at Pixcom, the team re-invests in EditShare with the EFS 450 and 40NL near-line storage nodes to support its incoming high-bandwidth, media-intensive projects and accompanying large workgroups.

“Most of the time we’ll have more than one editor on a project. On larger projects, it can go up to six or even 10 people working on it together. The EFS 450 in tandem with the 40NL nodes enable us to easily leverage multiple people on a project, without compromising system performance. It’s incredibly efficient,” says Charles Laflamme, technical director, Pixcom.

One of the biggest markets for Pixcom is documentaries, often working on projects for Discovery Canada. The team needed a way to manage the vast amount of media files that accompany such projects. First, all incoming footage from various shoots is ingested to the EFS 40NL nodes and then backed up to EditShare’s Ark Tape archiving solution. Then, the files are down-converted to a lower resolution to be hosted in the EFS 450 for screening in story edit rooms and offline editing.

For easy access, the original footage is kept in the 40NL until the show is approved so editors can access high-res files and relink them to their timeline. Once approved, the final show is archived to LTO-7 along with the original content. Content parked on the 40NL utilizes the EditShare clean sweep function, enabling system readiness for the next project.

Laflamme adds: “The EditShare EFS 40NL greatly simplifies our workflow by keeping all media in the EditShare ecosystem from start to finish. With the purpose-built security features and intuitive user interface designed for media workflows, we have been able to effortlessly streamline our processes. We no longer worry about losing files through round tripping and are able to collaborate more freely on projects.“

The Pixcom team also makes extensive use of Flow media asset management as a part of their day-to-day workflow.

Laflamme continues: “For high value footage that can be reused on other projects, we log as much metadata as possible in the Flow database so we can find the file easily when we need it again. With Flow Browse, we can screen proxies of files that are not on the EFS 40NL anymore without having to restore everything. The editors can choose exactly which files they want to work with and we can restore them right to their media space for integration into new projects. We can even use those proxies for offline work. One of the great features is if the client is off-premises, Airflow allows us to give them access to the files we need them to sign off on. Flow has become a critical time-saving element for us and it fosters a truly collaborative experience for clients and staff.“

He concludes: “With help from EditShare, we have expanded and simplified our workflow with the EFS 450, EFS 40NL and Flow. We’re now so much better equipped to handle the kinds of media-intensive projects we deal with. In addition, the EditShare team has proven to be a valuable partner in determining the best solutions for an uncompromising collaborative workflow.“