IBM > Case Studies > Cinedigm - Powering global distribution for leading aggregator of independent digital content

Cinedigm - Powering global distribution for leading aggregator of independent digital content

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

IBM® Aspera® Connect Server
IBM® Aspera® Desktop Client
IBM® Aspera® Sync
IBM® Aspera® Point-to-Point Client
IBM® Aspera® Connect Browser Plug-in

Tech Stack

FASP® technology

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Cost Savings

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Use Cases

Digital Thread
Supply Chain Visibility

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services

About The Customer

Cinedigm is a full service digital entertainment distribution company and the largest worldwide aggregator of independent digital content. Cinedigm delivers award-winning content for a variety of distribution platforms, including digital, cable video on-demand, Blu-ray, DVD, and theatrical release, and reaches a global audience through its partnerships with Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Amazon, and many others. Cinedigm relies on Aspera’s patented FASP® technology for digital content deliveries to all of its partner distribution platforms, as well as to pull in content from independent film producers and studios.

The Challenge

As Cinedigm’s business continues to grow, the company is faced with the dilemma of how to retrieve more content from production companies and disseminate more content, and faster, to their distribution partners located across the country and even internationally. Presented with full-length HD films, often uncompressed or in ProRes or other high-res versions, Cinedigm needed a transfer solution that could accommodate very large file sizes while maintaining speed, efficiency and security. Along with receiving content from producers and delivering to distribution partners, Cinedigm also needed a faster transfer mechanism for their internal business needs. Files needed to be quickly delivered to storage facilities located in Dallas and Chicago as well as content sent from New York to their sister office in Los Angeles for sharing and collaboration. Shipping media content on hard drives back and forth across the country and internationally was too costly and time-consuming, while FTP presented challenges with speed, bandwidth consumption and reliability. Cinedigm sought a faster, more dependable solution to shorten the end-to-end delivery workflow.

The Solution

After evaluating their options, Cinedigm selected a software suite from Aspera to fulfill their transfer requirements, citing Aspera’s prevalence within the media and entertainment industry as well as the technology’s ability to scale alongside the growth of the business as key influencers in their decision. Because Aspera is used or affiliated with the back-end delivery system of nearly every company that Cinedigm works with, adopting Aspera opened the door to an existing ecosystem of Aspera-based workflows, making transfers between partners and clients easier than ever. Cinedigm adopted the Aspera Connect Server to enable content partners to deliver files directly to Cinedigm. Once content is received, it goes through a series of steps including processing, transcoding and ingest, and subsequently Cinedigm uploads the files to “workflow watch folders” where the Aspera Connect Server picks them up for high-speed delivery to distribution channels. Partner distributors such as Netflix and Hulu can use their own Aspera clients or the auto-installed IBM® Aspera® Connect Browser Plug-in available at no charge to download content. Internally, Cinedigm selected Aspera Point-to-Point to transfer feature-length films directly to their Tier 3 mirror SAN storage facilities and to their sister office, enabling collaboration between cross-country team members.

Operational Impact

With Aspera, Cinedigm does not have to worry about whether their content is going to land in the hands of their distribution partners in a consistent and timely manner; FASP transfers are fast and reliable without requiring a lot of user effort on either end, so Cinedigm administrators and users with varying levels of technology proficiency can initiate transfers with ease.
Aspera provides a seamless user experience while offering comprehensive monitoring and control for Cinedigm administrators, who can set transfer priorities and define bandwidth allocation, monitor all incoming and outgoing transfers in near real-time, and provide access to unlimited users with defined access rights and transfer settings for each.
Aspera’s patented FASP technology provides maximum speed transfers throughout the delivery chain, from content producers to Cinedigm and out to distribution partners, regardless of file size, transfer distance, or network conditions.
As Cinedigm continues to grow and build out their business, Aspera will scale to accommodate growing file sizes and greater throughput, with the ability to support thousands of concurrent transfers per server host.
With an expansive network of businesses already using Aspera within the media and entertainment industry, Cinedigm can leverage its partners’ existing Aspera workflows while benefitting from partners’ trust in the Aspera user network.

Quantitative Benefit