A new survey from Blackbird suggests cloud is impacting production but the vast majority of workflows remain inefficient.
The study, completed by Coretta Research, find that 90 per cent of respondents said they have adopted cloud production and remote editing in their workflows, with collaborative working and client review and approval as the top use cases.
However, most remote editing is still implemented using old-school workflows – with 65 per cent of users moving original high-res media files around the internet to support remote editing workflows.
The research says that many other video professionals are moving proxy files, or logging in remotely to an edit workstation in a facility, which it suggests is a model that is wasteful of expensive resources.
Over a quarter (27 per cent) of remote editors are using a cloud-native browser-based production platform like Blackbird, which the research found to be twice as popular as using PC-over-IP to connect to a cloud edit workstation.
Cloud workflows were already in use by 60 per cent of users before the Covid-19 pandemic but grew significantly as a result: 84 per cent of users said they saw cloud production and remote editing grow in response, and 58 per cent expect it to expand further as business gets back to normal.
The top benefits of cloud production identified by respondents are faster production workflows, the freedom to work from any location at any time, and cost savings over using traditional tools.
Robert Ambrose, Caretta Research’s co-founder and managing director, said: “From our experience of talking with hundreds of industry professionals, we’re seeing a distinct shift from cloud-enabled workflows to cloud-native workflows. This study shows just that – the flexibility of working remotely has unlocked new value and savings but has often been compromised by adapting legacy ways of working. We’re now seeing the adoption of workflows and tools that are optimised for cloud, avoiding the cost and security issues of constantly moving content around.”
