“If I were to send you a MASV Portal URL right now, your content would upload directly into the correct Frame.io project and likely be wrapped up and ready to start working within an hour.”
The Client
A leading Dublin-based events company that hosts some of the hottest technology conferences in the world, including the annual “world’s largest technology conference” in Lisbon and Tokyo. Other events are held in Toronto and Kuala Lumpur. Every event features a world-class lineup of high profile speakers including some of the top names in tech, innovation, and human rights.
We spoke with an Executive Producer at the company; who is responsible for producing compelling video content from each event, along with receiving content from presenters (which, inevitably, includes large video files). The latter is an especially important function in the age of virtual conferences and remote workflows.
The Challenge
Every live events business ran into previously unseen challenges in 2020, and the company was no different. The producer says the biggest initial issues with virtual conferences and remote workflows centred around planning and receiving presentation content from hundreds of speakers.
“The phrase I like to use internally is that, for the first time, we have to be a hundred percent delivered before the event ever starts.”
That means no more fixing issues on the fly, or receiving a presenter’s content on a USB stick 20 minutes before they’re due to speak – a common occurrence in the world of live conferences.
“That’s a big shift for any event producer. We’re used to dealing with last-minute bookings and changes up to stage time, but with virtual events, we are a hundred percent locked 24 hours in advance. If the content isn’t ready, it doesn’t get played.”
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
That means no more fixing issues on the fly, or receiving a presenter’s content on a USB stick 20 minutes before they’re due to speak – a common occurrence in the world of live conferences.
That means no more fixing issues on the fly, or receiving a presenter’s content on a USB stick 20 minutes before they’re due to speak – a common occurrence in the world of live conferences.
File Transfer Alternatives
Every virtual presentation is composed of live and recorded video content, which often includes several large RAW files. The company first tried a handful of other file transfer solutions on the market, such as WeTransfer, but weren’t happy with the performance or reliability.
“The idea of asking a high-profile speaker to upload the file, put in their email, go get the code from their email, do all of these steps – that was just a no-go for us. We needed something that was drag and drop.”
The company’s developers initially pivoted and quickly built their own, in-house file transfer solution.
“It worked but didn’t look great. What it did for us was actually prove the need for a tool like MASV.”
The producer says the company’s initial process for receiving and using large video files after going virtual was also needlessly complicated and time-consuming, largely due to the limitations of their previous file transfer software.
“In our first remote cycle, our key attendees uploaded their files to a file transfer service. Whoever received the files had to manually download them, then re-upload into cloud storage. Then an editor or another producer would download those files again, create the edited asset, and then re-upload that into Frame.io. And at the end of all that, we were actually then re-downloading assets to then re-upload them into our scheduling tool and get them sorted for the event.”
The Solution
The company realized it needed to streamline its content collection and collaboration funnel – fast. Since the company had begun testing MASV at around the same time, it was able to quickly set up a series of nearly 250 MASV Portals running concurrently to keep various projects separate and organized.
While the initial intention was to use Frame.io’s API to sort files into various projects as they arrived, rapidly approaching deadlines meant the company had to lean on the flexibility of MASV Portals to get things done quickly.
“We were able to get them [Portals] set up almost instantly,” the producer explains, adding that Portals also work seamlessly with the company’s internal content identification system.
“Every project ID in Frame is the same as every asset in production in our project management tools, which is the same as the URL for the Portal, which is the same as the cloud integrations.”
Each Portal is connected to the company’s cloud storage and Frame.io accounts, and is custom branded, which has helped provide a positive first impression with high-profile speakers. Project IDs were the same across all tools including project management tools.
“Our ability to make the file upload experience look professional is really important. The comfort behind that has been one of the biggest benefits we’ve seen this cycle compared to previous solutions. It’s a seamless experience.”
READ MORE: How To Receive Large Files with MASV Portals
The Results
The producer says MASV’s various integrations with cloud software and services such as Google Cloud Storage, S3, Azure, Adobe Premiere Pro and Frame.io have resulted in time savings on an order of magnitude scale.
“MASV kind of just takes care of things. If I were to send you a MASV Portal URL right now, your content would upload directly into the correct Frame.io project and likely be wrapped up and ready to start working within an hour. Every one of those steps (I mentioned earlier), up to when we move content into our scheduling system, has been removed because of MASV.”
But cloud and SaaS integrations are only one part of the value MASV now provides to the company. MASV’s dashboard-based reporting tools provide crucial data on who accesses which files, and its speed and lack of upload limits are huge assets when working with large files on tight timelines.
What’s Next?
The company now plans to explore MASV for other use cases, such as sending branded videos to speakers of their live appearances and for uploading content during in-person conferences for a more unified workflow.
That means even when someone shows up with a USB key 20 minutes before their time slot, will still be able to upload that file to the cloud right from the conference floor.