Global television producer and distributor Beyond International – responsible for popular shows including Mythbusters and Highway Thru Hell (pictured) – has adopted fasp from Aspera to speed content movements around the world. Fasp is a unique protocol developed by Aspera’s founders to obtain the maximum throughput on any IP connection.
For a show like Mythbusters, which is shot in San Francisco but edited in Australia, with an executive producer in the UK, fast but secure transport is vital. Before using Aspera Connect Server, Beyond was using standard FTP to move content internationally, and experiencing the usual latency, dropouts and slow speeds.
“The predictability of Aspera transfer performance and the added efficiencies in our workflows has allowed us to focus on the creative aspect of our business,” said Billy Cobbe, IT manager at Beyond International. His colleague Dan Tapster, executive producer of Mythbusters, pithily added “we don’t just like Aspera, we love it!”
Infinite Studios in Singapore is also now using Aspera. A specialist in visual effects and CGI as well as post, it is widely used by advertising agencies, production companies and broadcasters, not just in south-east Asia but further afield. Infinite uses Aspera not only to communicate with its clients wherever they are, but to ship content between its facilities in Singapore and Indonesia.
Before Aspera, Infinite typically used hard drives to move content, adding time in the facility to write the drives as well as the shipping delays and costs. “With Aspera Connect Server we are able to achieve much better transfer performance and reliably predict delivery times,” said Lawrence Ang of Infinite.
“We can drastically reduce the turnaround time needed, resulting in smoother operations all round,” he continued. “The scalability of Aspera makes it a great investment for the future.”
