Media Shuttle Comes to the Rescue of Animated Superhero TV Show

The Product Factory defeats the pitfalls of global TV production workflows with cloud-based file transfer

With 95% of the world’s animated broadcast content originating from studios outside of the U.S., production firms face a huge challenge in moving­ animated TV show files between international collaborators. Uncompressed HD animated video files range from 200 – 250 GB for a typical 30-min episode files sizes too massive to handle via FTP or consumer-oriented cloud file sharing solutions.

At The Product Factory, a Burbank post-production house specializing in animation content, Signiant’s Media Shuttle came to the rescue.  Working in partnership with children’s TV producer Rollman Entertainment, The Product Factory used Signiant’s Media Shuttle file transfer software to expedite the debut of an animated TV series featuring an 11-year old superhero and a sports theme, a series that debuted on cable recently.  The Product Factory used Media Shuttle to move large animation files from a content partner in India back to Los Angeles – with all the speed, security and control that TV production companies need to achieve highly efficient workflows and competitive advantage without costly capital outlays.

Based on an existing online sports world for kids, the animated TV show features such stunning graphics and rich animation that each 26-minute episode took three full days to transfer via FTP from India to Los Angeles – the same time as overnight shipments. Emerging cloud-base file transfer solutions typically limit file sizes to 2GB, lack acceleration and can require the file to be received at a third-party location – effectively doubling transfer time.

“With Media Shuttle, we have the ease of use and flexibility of a cloud-based solution, but files arrive directly on a server sitting on our premises, which cuts delivery time in half compared to other products on the market,”  said George Rizkallah, founder and CEO of  The Product Factory, which positions itself as ‘a small facility with huge ability.’  “As a subscription-based solution, Media Shuttle also lets us avoid multi-year contracts and sizable capital outlays.  After working for years with animation customers that routinely send us large digital files using Signiant’s solutions, it’s a delight to be able to access all of the key capabilities of Signiant in an affordable, easy to use tool like Media Shuttle.”

The newest addition to Signiant’s software product suite, Media Shuttle provides an effective alternative to FTP with file transfer speed up to 200X faster over the public Internet while delivering the ease of use of consumer-based file sharing solutions – but without file size limits or associated security risks. Users simply access Media Shuttle through a powerfully simple cloud-based interface, while assets remain securely stored on the customer’s network. Onboard Checkpoint Restart features assure file delivery by automatically restarting transfers if they become interrupted.

Try Media Shuttle for yourself.  Send a large file now.