Miami HEAT Transforms Content Production with Quantum and IMT

To rapidly produce rich media and video content for multiple destinations at once, the Miami HEAT’s creative services group needed a storage platform and asset management system that could support several applications and formats. “Our existing storage platform had a very rigid workflow,” says Blake Engman, director of creative services for the HEAT. “But we had creative services, animation, and media production departments that were using content in very distinct ways.”

The group wanted a single source of truth for all content while also supporting multiple broadcast teams. Performance was another top priority. The group’s 60 creators, animators, and other content contributors all need high-throughput storage for their work.

Implementing High-Performance Storage with IMT and Quantum
To deliver a complete workflow solution, the creative services group turned to leading systems integrator IMT, which has a proven record of working with sports teams and managing multiple vendors. IMT helped design and implement a flexible, workflow-agnostic solution to replace the rigid legacy system. Quantum was at the heart of the new solution.

After the proof-of-concept deployment demonstrated that a Quantum solution could deliver the bandwidth required to meet rigorous content production demands, the group implemented the Quantum StorNext file system with Quantum QXS-Series storage as the primary “work-in-progress” production storage platform. “We wanted a platform that we knew, understood, and could trust—so we chose Quantum,” says Engman.

Selecting CatDV for Asset Management and Workflow Orchestration
The creative services group next focused on building a new workflow for high-resolution content, which would be displayed on the huge new video screens installed in Miami’s Kaseya Center. That new workflow required a new asset management system. The group needed to rapidly and consistently organize the large amounts of video it was capturing every game and then provide all creative services team members with fast access to the right clips.

The integration of CatDV asset management and workflow orchestration with North Shore Automation’s Stats Injector presented a huge advantage over other options. Stats Injector automatically logs clips with data from the NBA’s statistics tagging format—making it easy to tag precise action shots within video clips.

“With CatDV, we can quickly find a player’s third bucket of the night and pull up all 17 camera angles right away,” says Engman. “The fact that CatDV was offered by Quantum was a bonus.”

Gaining the Flexibility for Evolving Workflows
CatDV provides significant workflow flexibility. For example, the creative services group integrated CatDV with Telestream Vantage—a leading video transcoding and workflow automation solution. The group can also use multiple software applications, including Adobe Premier, Cinema 4D, DaVinci Resolve, and Avid Media Composer. And team members can work with multiple formats, from RED files to animation content.

Building a Multi-Tier Storage Environment with Quantum
In support of increasingly higher-resolution workflows, the creative services group added Quantum F-Series NVMe all-flash storage, which delivers exceptional read/write performance. The F-Series solution delivers two gigabytes per second of read/write speed for each of the 60 members of the creative services group, while also supporting additional team members who might be playing back content at any given moment.

To efficiently archive and protect their entire asset catalog, the group chose Quantum ActiveScale object storage. CatDV seamlessly manages all assets and automates workflows across StorNext and ActiveScale resources. As an S3-compatible object storage solution, ActiveScale enables the group to maintain online access to active, lower-resolution proxy files and full-resolution cold content for years.

“Using ActiveScale, we know we’ll be able to sustain our growth rate for at least eight or nine years without having to make large capital purchases,” says Engman.

Increasing Agility for the Future
The creative services group is now prepared for changes ahead. “In the past, we were locked into a single platform and single way of working,” says Engman. “With Quantum storage and CatDV, we no longer have workflow limitations. We can choose which tools to use and how to work—and the content keeps flowing.”