Quantum Corp. today announced that Platinum Platypus, creator of video, motion graphics and animation for both media and corporate enterprises, has implemented Quantum StorNext® Pro Studio to realize faster, more scalable storage and sharing of high-resolution video content. Quantum's workflow-optimized StorNext Pro™ Studio solution provides high-performance storage that Platinum Platypus can expand smoothly and economically to accommodate its rapid growth and its work with ever-larger media files. The complete storage solution from Quantum supports an efficient and agile workflow in which creatives can quickly and simultaneously access and edit video. Connecting to a Scalar® LTO library, StorNext Pro Studio also facilitates archive and protection of older projects while keeping them available for the creative team.
Rapid Growth Demands a New Approach to Storage
Platinum Platypus creates video, motion graphics and animation for everything from Hollywood movies and the NFL to corporate boardrooms, but the company began as a startup with a small production team and a few Macs. As success brought the company more and bigger projects, its use of portable drives for file sharing grew unsustainable, requiring extensive coordination. Its subsequent use of a file-hosting service failed to provide the speed of access critical to meeting tight deadlines. The company's increasing involvement in large-scale projects — with footage shot in 5K resolution, often with heavy CGI — caused major delays that created a backlog and prevented the business from seizing new opportunities.
"As our work continued to attract more potential clients, we found ourselves being asked questions like 'Can you do these movie scenes for us right now?' and 'I've got a Fortune 500 client sending video from three continents. Can you handle it?'" said Pete Sussi, president of Platinum Platypus. "We wanted to say yes, but the backlog got so big and the delays were so long that we needed to do something different to be able to keep growing the business."
Addressing Current and Future Needs With StorNext Pro Studio
Knowing that Quantum's StorNext workflow storage is used by major motion picture studios and large postproduction houses, Platinum Platypus called on Quantum to help it identify the optimal workflow storage solution for a small but quickly growing company with a limited budget. With Sussi and his team, Quantum assessed the specific needs of the business and its projects, as well as the company's growth trajectory, and then specified a StorNext Pro Studio workflow storage solution that would meet current performance needs and provide a smart path for future expansion.
StorNext Pro Studio is a complete appliance-based workflow storage solution designed for smaller media production companies that need streaming performance and room to grow. The Platinum Platypus StorNext Pro Studio solution includes a dual-redundant StorNext M441D metadata controller and high-speed QX-1200 RAID storage. The company added to that a Brocade Fibre Channel fabric, along with a Quantum Scalar LTO library to provide long-term retention of the digital assets. With copies of the company's work maintained on the Quantum Scalar library, the Platinum Platypus team can retrieve older projects quickly and better meet customer requests for repurposing or re-use of finished video content.
Building a Faster, Better Workflow
Quantum managed the installation in a way that kept ongoing Platinum Platypus projects on schedule. The racking, configuration and tuning of the StorNext Pro Studio, fabric and library were completed rapidly, after which the Platinum Platypus team was able to work once again with all its usual Adobe Creative Suite applications, with files that were presented through the Mac OS interface. Today within the new StorNext-enabled workflow, all content is ingested into the Quantum system, which gives the entire creative team access to the same files over high-speed Fibre Channel connections to the RAID array. As the company continues to take on new clients and projects, StorNext Pro Studio also will provide a highly scalable foundation for further growth.
"StorNext Pro Studio has helped my company realize gains in terms of speed, time and money," added Sussi. "I really can't see how the growth that we've had in the past year could have happened without the Quantum storage solution. If I could tell a business that's in the same predicament that we were in four or five years ago, I would say, 'What you need is a Quantum solution.'"
For additional details on the Platinum Platypus success story, visit: www.quantum.com/customerstories/platinumplatypus/index.aspx.
About Platinum Platypus
With over 25 years of ad agency experience, Platinum Platypus is a full-service motion video and animation specialist that provides innovative, solutions-oriented results for a wide range of clients. The Long Island, New York-based company's projects include visual effects for major motion pictures and television broadcasts, motion graphics for the NFL and Major League Baseball, and animation for ads for everything from consumer products to corporate videos. Platinum Platypus's international customer list includes both not-for-profit public service groups and some of the largest corporations on the planet. http://platinumplatypus.com
About Quantum
Quantum is a leading expert in workflow storage, archive and data protection. The company's StorNext 5 platform powers modern high-performance workflows, enabling seamless, real-time collaboration and keeping content readily accessible for future use and re-monetization. More than 100,000 customers have trusted Quantum to address their most demanding content workflow needs, including top studios, major broadcasters and cutting-edge content creators. With Quantum, customers can Be Certain™ they have the end-to-end storage platform they need to manage assets from ingest through finishing and into delivery and long-term preservation. See how at www.stornext.com.
