Signiant Inc., a market leader in intelligent file transfer software, is excited to announce a global business relationship with NEP Group, the world’s leading technical production partner for premier content producers of live sports and entertainment. NEP has selected Signiant Media Shuttle to enable accelerated file-based operations across its fleet of OB trucks, Studios and Flypacks. With Media Shuttle, NEP clients can easily and quickly move media assets and associated metadata to and from the venue. The flexibility of Media Shuttle allows NEP to offer fast, secure content exchange globally to any-size production working over any IP network without requiring additional hardware on the truck.

File-based workflows have long played a critical role in live event production, enabling enhancements to the viewer experience and expanding monetization opportunities via fast-turnaround distribution of highlights. The complexity of sports workflows and the data payloads involved have both increased dramatically in recent years. More cameras create more content, higher resolutions result in larger files, and a large number of distribution partners are typically now in the mix. Powerful tools are therefore required to optimize file flow to and from the venue before, during, and after a live event. The truck must be loaded with graphics and pre-recorded segments ahead of the game, and after the game there’s a rush to make sure that all valuable recorded content is safely sent home. It’s file flow during the event, however, where NEP clients and production partners may see the highest leverage from this new toolset.

Media Shuttle makes it easy to get content off the trucks quickly during the event and ingested into the desired storage or cloud-based platform, like NEP’s Mediabank media asset management platform. Once there, the content can be distributed to global partners quickly, made available to remote editors and moved to the customer’s own archive systems for future use. This content flow model aligns perfectly with live production trends that were accelerated by the COVID pandemic. Remote operations with fewer people on-site can easily be supported, and NEP’s clients and production partners can set up, reconfigure, and break down workflows on demand.

As NEP helps bring the most iconic sporting events, television programs and one-time-only events to audiences on any platform, the company required a single solution that offered flexibility to work in a wide variety of situations.

Key benefits of Media Shuttle include:

• Fast, secure, reliable movement of any-size file over any IP network, fixed or mobile, taking advantage of all available bandwidth
• No additional hardware is required on the trucks, making the solution available to any-size production
• All structural metadata, including real-time time code and file names from highlight servers, remain intact along with the capability to add descriptive metadata on the fly
• Media Shuttle can move content into and out of any type of storage and is integrated with NEP’s Platform for Virtual Editing and Asset Management
• Web-based administration makes it easy to onboard new users and report in real-time on all transfer activity
• Modern APIs are available to easily integrate Media Shuttle with other systems

“We’re always looking for smart ways to help our clients and production partners produce and deliver better content. Productions require a more simplified file delivery workflow to make more content available to production stakeholders, who are not necessarily on-site anymore,” explains NEP Group’s Jay Deutsch, Director of Media Solutions in the U.S. “Media Shuttle provides the flexibility to work with our newer IP and UHD trucks, plus our compact Flypack and Studio solutions, all of which can now easily leverage delivery of media to those not on-site at the production.  This is a real game-changer for our clients looking for more efficient means of content archive than removable hard drives.”

“We’re proud to work with NEP to provide software solutions that make it easy to enhance any-size live production with file-based content,” says Dan Marshall, Signiant’s Chief Revenue Officer. “This agreement highlights the power of our SaaS platform which can easily scale to meet the needs of the largest global events as well as support smaller productions. That flexibility aligns well with both the market dynamics and NEP’s specific requirements.”

The industry continues to change quickly and the agreement between NEP and Signiant will provide more flexibility to enhance live productions, regardless of size and location.