The latest advancements in shared storage at this years NAB conference won’t be found on the trade show floor. That’s because LumaForge, the Los Angeles based storage company is instead arranging appointment only demos in their ShareStation Workflow Suite at nearby Encore Hotel.
LumaForge Co-founder Josh Minney explains the decision to forgo the traditional approach, “Every year it’s easy to get caught up in spec sheets, buzz words and empty promises, there’s a lot of noise out there. Where the ShareStation really shines is in a real world edit environment, and that’s what we’ve decided to recreate at the Encore. Our clients are invited to spend an hour or so with us, walk through our systems, ask questions, and really get a feel for how a ShareStation would deploy at their facility. We also encourage people to bring their own footage and computers to work from; investing in shared storage can be a major part of a company’s budget, and they don’t want surprises. We’d rather our customers gamble downstairs in the casino than with their storage vendor.”
The company’s has gained steady momentum over the past year with a number of high profile case studies featured in various user groups and message boards throughout the web. The most prominent case study came from Swiss National Television; a large European broadcast operation that was months away from abandoning the Final Cut platform after a two-year long search for suitable storage left them empty handed and unable to upgrade their edit bays. In a last ditch effort the team came to LumaForge with their requirements and have been working smoothly on a ShareStation ever since. Additional case studies have been released centered around VFX, Color, DIT, and VR workflows.
LumaForge’s ability to simplify complex networking and package high performance shared storage into various form factors has opened doors into many segments of the M&E market that have been underserved thus far. “Traditional SANs are often out of the question for many facilities because of cost and the need for dedicated IT personnel to manage them. It’s these sorts of companies are that could most benefit from getting off sneakernet and onto shared storage, that’s who we’re trying to help.” says CEO Sam Mestman.
The ShareStation Workflow Suite at Encore will be open Monday, April 18th through Thursday, April 21st. Clients interested in visiting are encouraged to email contact@lumaforge.com to set up an appointment. The suite will be open for media briefings Sunday, April 17th in the afternoon.
