As media workflows grow and content volumes surge, outdated storage systems are quickly falling behind. For media businesses, the challenge is clear: how to scale storage seamlessly—without downtime, high costs, or vendor lock-in.
In a recent webinar, moderated by Leanne Tomlin (Marketing Director, Pixitmedia), experts from Pixitmedia — Alana Kessler (Sales Director), Jonathan Wray (Regional Sales Manager), Josh Lomas (Solutions Architect), and Simon Wocka (Regional Sales Manager) — shared how modern, scalable storage solutions are transforming the media industry. They discussed how media teams can optimize workflows, improve collaboration, and future-proof their content management strategies.
Here’s a brief recap of the key takeaways from the discussion.
The growing demand for media storage
Leanne started off the discussion by asking the panel about how the demand for media storage has changed over the last few years. Josh added his view, stating that the traditional media and entertainment (M&E) market has shown consistent growth, while demand from new-age content creators and large corporations has also increased significantly. He added that the broadcasters are also trying to expand their horizons in addition to their traditional broadcast channels—for example, BBC Sport is now trying to deliver short highlights of sporting events to social media platforms, which requires content to have a 9:16 aspect ratio in addition to the conventional 16:9, resulting in more demand for storage. Simon added that broadcasters are also expanding into new geographies and, consequently, into new languages, leading to multiple versions of content and increased storage demand. He further noted that the biggest driver of storage demand is mergers and acquisitions, which are on the rise as the M&E industry consolidates. Mergers and acquisitions require the storage systems of individual companies to be unified under a single platform.
Jon noted that media content production across industries is rapidly growing, citing that approximately 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute. In addition to the modern-day independent content creation boom, traditional broadcasters like Channel 4 are also doubling down on their YouTube strategy, generating huge quantities of media content. Jon stated that ever since he started working with Pixitmedia, his observation based on the interactions he has had with customers is that every business is looking at starting a video production division, and it is only natural for them to look at an optimal and efficient way to store the media assets they produce.
Alana added that cybersecurity concerns are also a significant driver of storage demand. With backups being the primary target of cyber attackers, media businesses are trying to ensure that their backups are stored securely, with essential disaster recovery measures.
Transitioning from outdated storage systems
Leanne followed up by asking the panel how businesses are being affected by continuing to rely on outdated storage systems. Josh responded by saying that outdated storage systems ultimately put the assets stored at risk. He added that he comes across several businesses that have stored several thousand terabytes of assets on outdated external hard drives. Such assets residing on outdated storage systems require reingestion and the addition of necessary metadata before being archived. Josh also mentioned that the customers are aware that they need the ability to retrieve content quickly and efficiently, which is also something that the legacy storage systems are not very good at.
Jon added that he has seen quite a few businesses that did not have a proper backup and disaster recovery system end up facing a disaster of some sort and lose their media assets. He stated that media companies must, at the very least, back up the assets residing on outdated storage systems and look to extract more value from modern storage solutions.
Scaling smartly with a consultative approach
Leanne asked the panel how a media company can quickly identify when storage expansion is needed. Josh stated that an indication is when a business is not able to retrieve their media assets quickly. Such a situation can hinder them from utilizing or monetizing their assets. At such times, businesses should firstly look at getting the right tools in place to ensure that their assets are accessible. Next, they need to focus on increasing their capacity and fostering resilience to safeguard their assets in the long run.
Simon added that the media businesses typically expand their legacy storage based on projected needs. A common practice is to expand when they are at around 80 to 85% of their current capacity. However, traditional setups often lack tiering, such as nearline, active archive, or deep archive options in the cloud. He stated that is what Pixitmedia offers today. He added that Pixitmedia provides workflow consultation, which traditional storage solution providers do not. Pixitmedia helps businesses keep their content easily accessible from remote locations with a flexible disaster recovery system, he said.
Simon then shared his views on more effective ways to scale. He stated that storage needs to be looked at from a business operations perspective—whether it is used in a collaborative environment, and is it an entity within a single, siloed environment—as these factors are what determine the flexibility and scalability required in a storage solution. A key consideration when expanding storage is the degree of ownership the customer wishes to maintain over their assets—whether they want to maintain full control by having it within their own premises or if they are okay having it stored on the cloud.
Scaling without workflow interruptions
Leanne advanced the discussion by asking the panel how media and entertainment companies can scale storage without disrupting workflows. Alana shared her experience of collaborating with customers, serving as their advisor, and devising a phased-out approach. Such a multi-phased deployment ensures that the customer can schedule or plan for downtime if there is any.
Turning the conversation toward customers’ decision-making process, Leanne inquired how media businesses can determine the right fit—cloud, on-prem, or hybrid—and how Periphery supports that process. Simon responded, stating that Pixitmedia typically follows a consultative approach, where our team understands the end-to-end workflow of the customer and how they are looking to grow into the future and then comes up with a few proposals—one based on efficiency, one on growth, and one on cost—and then recommends what’s best suited for customers’ needs. He added that integrating into customers’ environments is also a key factor that helps customers seamlessly expand their storage. He further mentioned that customers benefit from Pixstor and Ngenea’s ability to integrate with a wide range of media asset management and workflow management platforms, including Grass Valley, Projective Strawberry, VizOne, and Telestream.
Josh then highlighted another offering from Pixitmedia—OM Cloud—and how it is optimized for user accessibility. It is situated within Pixitmedia’s own data centers in the UK, supported by the in-house product support team. He added that OM Cloud has consistently been a compelling topic of discussion for customers. He also emphasized OM Cloud’s ability to generate proxy files of assets, a key benefit for M&E businesses working with cloud-based workflows.
Leanne sought the panel’s thoughts on strategies M&E businesses can adopt to avoid vendor lock-in. Jon pointed out that Pixitmedia’s consultative approach helps customers avoid vendor lock-in. Simon backed up Jon by stating that solutions offered by Pixitmedia essentially free up the data and make it independent of the underlying architecture. So, as customers’ needs for storage density and access speeds change, Pixitmedia enables them to modify the underlying architecture without any hassle.
Fostering collaboration with easy accessibility
To wrap up, Leanne asked how having efficient storage solutions can enhance team collaboration in media production. Josh said that the web-based file browser and metadata-based searches offered by Pixitmedia’s products help in retrieving media assets quickly and efficiently, enhancing collaboration among users and accelerating workflows. Simon pointed to Ngenea as a product that fosters collaboration among remote teams. “Let's say a film has been shot locally here in the UK, and actually that content has been ingested daily; the guys in LA may want to see the daily rushes. You could load that onto a Pixstor, provide a multi-access pathway to view content, edit content, and collaborate on content, while production can still be going on, on a daily basis,” said Simon.
Simon then spoke about how media businesses with global presences can leverage solutions offered by Pixitmedia to foster collaboration. If a media business makes use of storage solutions that are geographically dispersed and technologically different from one another and has a large central repository, they could index everything across storage platforms and have stubs of each asset that can be accessed through a single-pane user interface. This enables businesses to use their storage more efficiently while maintaining easy access to all assets, he concluded.
You can watch the entire webinar on demand here.
Join us at NAB Show 2025
Heading to NAB Show 2025? We’d love to meet you! Visit us at booth #SL10916, where we’ll be showcasing our latest integrated solutions. See firsthand how our multi-tier technology streamlines content management and movement — making it faster and easier to find, access, and deliver assets exactly when and where you need them.
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