arvato Chooses Signiant Technology for New Multi-Site Collaboration Platform and Media Distribution
BURLINGTON, MA (September 7, 2011) – arvato, an international network outsourcing provider, has chosen Signiant’s technology to accelerate digital file-based exchanges for its media distribution businesses and its ScreenerONE service, a multisite content collaboration platform. By switching from DVD and tape distribution to Signiant and ScreenerONE, leading daytime TV drama producer Grundy UFA has realized significant savings in addition to major productivity and quality improvements. Grundy UFA uses Signiant’s agents for the delivery of daily TV productions into its central archive at arvato. Based on the new arvato service for Grundy UFA, the content is directly available for post production and creative work. arvato provides the new infrastructure and services as an expansion of its offerings out of its technology center in Gütersloh, Germany.
“Signiant’s technology was the ideal choice to provide the digital content exchange components of ScreenerONE,” said Christian Horz, V.P. of media technology and business development for arvato. “ScreenerONE is fulfilling its promise for our global media customers by eliminating the need for time-consuming creation and costly distribution of physical media. The result is faster turnaround for screenings, reviews, and approvals using a service that enables a mobile work style and reduces time to market.”
Powered by Signiant Media Exchange, ScreenerONE is a Web-based tool for managing end-to-end digital asset logistics in the TV and film production process. Built as an enterprise YouTube-like solution for video production, the cloud-based service not only ensures effective collaboration with remote users, it also supports future re-use of content and multichannel distribution. From the early stage of a concept through the development of the completed project, ScreenerONE enables decision makers and stakeholders to share, review, and approve all digital components such as dailies and rough cuts.
“We had tested a number of content exchange tools, and the Signiant solutions were superior,” said Alexander Steinberg, head of global IT and networks for arvato Entertainment Europe. “Signiant transport and automation systems are well-known in the industry as a fast and efficient means of content transfer with little or no restrictions on file size — and it is many times more secure and efficient than using FTP.”
The flagship user of Signiant and ScreenerONE, the Fremantle subsidiary Grundy UFA is a market leader in daytime TV drama in Europe — producing more than 100 hours of TV content a week. Previously, in order to provide its own customers with production “dailies” and other digital components, Grundy UFA personnel were burning DVDs and sending them physically via overnight courier — an expensive, time-consuming, and error-prone process. Now, Signiant Media Exchange provides a rapid, secure, and reliable means for Grundy UFA producers to upload digital assets to the ScreenerONE cloud service, where they can be easily accessed by customers for review — effectively removing physical media from the process. During back-and-forth editing sessions with customers, the Signiant system gives operators the ability to transfer only specific changes to the content rather than the whole file, saving transfer time and bandwidth especially for large files.
About arvato Entertainment Europe
arvato Entertainment Europe offers an extensive range of services and solutions for its business partners in the games, video, audio, sports and TV/broadcast industries. The European presence includes six countries. More than 1,500 employees in Europe are standing by to provide the highest quality support for customers, following a tradition that goes back over 50 years. arvato Entertainment Europe provides integrated solutions that include every step of the value chain from replication and e-commerce to fulfillment, from distribution/supply chain management to electronic content distribution. All of these processes are supported by innovative end-to-end IT systems. The developed solutions create added value and equip customers to meet the challenges of today’s market. arvato Entertainment Europe is part of arvato AG, a leading networked outsourcing provider.
