Back to Workflows
Digital Media Team Streamlining Video Production with RAID and LucidLink
Company Situation
The company operates within the digital content production space, managing a dynamic team that produces a high volume of video content for both their own channels and external companies. Their work involves creating extensive online courses, each comprising multiple episodes, requiring significant collaborative editing and post-production efforts. The team includes specialists in video editing, visual effects, and graphic design, with a distributed workforce including overseas virtual assistants (VAs).
Existing Workflow
Currently, the team relies on an on-premises RAID storage system that houses approximately 80 terabytes of content collected over the past few years. They frequently shoot large volumes of footage — often between one to two terabytes per shoot — and handle editing primarily through Adobe Premiere Pro. For remote collaboration, they use cloud storage solutions such as Google Drive, but experience bottlenecks due to slow upload/download speeds, even with high-quality internet. Physical shipment of drives is also considered but seen as inefficient and time-consuming. The team is exploring tools like LucidLink for real-time collaborative editing and cloud-mounted drives.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
The RAID system, while fast locally, slows down drastically when multiple editors access it simultaneously, causing workflow bottlenecks.
Uploading large files to Google Drive is prohibitively slow, sometimes taking days, which delays remote collaboration, especially with overseas VAs.
Reliance on multiple separate tools for storage, collaboration, review, and approval creates a fragmented workflow requiring piecemeal solutions.
Physical shipping of drives for remote editors is inefficient and introduces unacceptable delays.
The current setup prevents the core creative team (editors, graphic designers) from focusing on higher-value tasks like content strategy and scripting due to logistical burdens.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade offers a cloud-native platform that integrates storage, real-time collaboration, review, and approval workflows into a single system. By mounting cloud drives that function like local storage, Shade allows editors to stream large video files instantly without long uploads or downloads. Its built-in digital asset management (DAM) and media asset management (MAM) capabilities reduce reliance on multiple separate services like Frame IO or LucidLink. Advanced features such as AI-powered search and customizable metadata enhance project organization and retrieval. This unified platform supports remote teams and VAs working concurrently on the same project files, streamlining collaboration and reducing delays.
Benefits
- Dramatically faster access to large media files without local storage constraints or slow uploads.
- Seamless real-time collaboration on Adobe Premiere Pro projects across distributed teams.
- Consolidation of storage, review, approval, and asset management workflows into a single platform.
- Reduced operational complexity and costs by eliminating the need for multiple disjointed tools.
- Enhanced productivity allowing core creatives to focus on high-impact work rather than technical bottlenecks.
- Scalable storage options tailored to the company’s growing content demands.
Technologies Used
Want to see how Shade can improve your workflow?
Book a Demo