NEW YORK—Snippies is one of the largest creators of sales and marketing video in the world. Our database of more than 300 clients includes Amazon, Google, AppNexus, Microsoft and Boston Consulting Group. These companies and others like them rely on us to deliver everything from case studies and testimonials to product demos and consumer research.
Video production is a fast-turnaround industry. It’s not unusual for us to get a call from a client on Monday asking us to interview a customer in Iceland on Wednesday and then create a polished testimonial for use at a conference on Friday.
With a network of video journalists in every major city around the world, capturing high-quality content on short notice was never an issue. The real challenge was getting the footage back to our headquarters in New York in time for editing.
Snippies team utilizing Signiant’s Media Shuttle platformTRIAL AND ERROR
Over the years, we’ve experimented with different approaches to this problem. FedEx was a reasonable solution, but shipping a hard drive across the world is expensive and, most importantly, time-consuming. Footage wouldn’t arrive until two or three days after it was originally shot. FTP was fine for small files, but not for hours of full-resolution HD footage; not to mention the fact that many of our videographers had difficulty understanding the highly technical FTP interface. Getting them the proper training was an ordeal, and even when a videographer had done everything correctly, sometimes the FTP link would fail in the middle of the night, forcing us to start over the next morning.
After researching several large file transfer solutions, we chose to go with Signiant’s Media Shuttle, mostly because of the affordable cost and simple user interface. Media Shuttle’s SaaS architecture and pay-per-use pricing model allowed us to try it out without having to risk a ton of upfront investment buying software outright and managing it on our servers, as other solutions required. Also, Media Shuttle automatically scales to our usage and doesn’t have any data caps or file size limits.
Media Shuttle’s simple user interface and checkpoint/restart functionality were also influential factors. We needed something fast, intuitive to use and far less complicated than FTP; something that could pick up transfers where they left off in case of interruption.
SIMPLE INSTALLATION
Installation was relatively simple. Signiant’s customer onboarding specialists helped us install the “file pump” software on our network server and from there we set up our Media Shuttle portal, which is hosted and delivered by Signiant’s cloud software and infrastructure, allowing us to easily make changes to users and track transactions.
We were also able to add images and branding to our portal, so it’s customized with the Snippies look and feel. So far, we’ve worked with only one portal in the “share” mode—there’s also “send” and “submit”—which allows our field teams to upload and download files within designated folders, and for our New York headquarters to transfer finished videos to our clients.
Three months in, we are very happy with Media Shuttle and see the difference reliable electronic large file transfers make to our business and our stress level. As a global video production company that relied solely on FedEx and FTP, it’s clear this is a type of technology our industry will soon be unable to do without.
Tom DiCerbo has been managing partner and co-owner of Snippies since 2010. Prior to joining Snippies, DiCerbo worked for several prominent media outlets such as the New York Times and Newsweek after graduating from California State University in San Marcos. He can be reached attdicerbo@snippies.comor 212-594-9500.
For more information, visitwww.signiant.comor call 781-221-4051.
