“I would recommend Wasabi to other content distributors, channel owners, and OTT platform owners for the same reasons we switched to Wasabi: service, cost, integration ease, and scalability.”
— Donald J. Slaughter, Sr., Chief Executive Officer, PCEN Media and MYTVTOGO

Overview

The media and entertainment industry faces huge storage challenges. Higher video resolutions and frame rates, 4K and 8K formats, virtual reality, and other emerging technologies are increasing file sizes exponentially. Meanwhile, consumer demand is unpredictable, remaining steady only in the fact that consumers expect access to what they want when they want to watch it. Video retention and accessibility has become critical to maintaining a competitive advantage.
Meeting consumers’ fluctuating expectations and projecting storage costs for growing video files could keep someone like Don Slaughter up at night. But he’s not losing sleep. Slaughter, CEO of PCEN Media and MYTVTOGO, switched from AWS S3 and Google Cloud to Wasabi hot cloud storage. PCEN Media is a global entertainment company focused on broadcast production, distribution, and licensing. Its subsidiary, MYTVTOGO, runs 80+ different networks streaming 24/7 through major OTT platforms like iOS, Android, Roku, and Smart TV. Over 100 million viewers in over 150 countries enjoy MYTVTOGO on a monthly basis.

PCEN is using Wasabi to archive videos served up by PCEN’s content management system (CMS) on 44 linear channels. Effectively a content library, the archived videos can be easily accessed through APIs. Wasabi also stores PCEN’s video-on-demand (VOD) content, grouped into playlists. VODs are simply moved over for playout, as needed.

Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage for Affordable and Efficient Active Archiving

Service Sans Bureaucracy

With business growth in mind, PCEN needed an easy-to-scale storage solution and responsive provider. “We were using AWS S3 and Google Cloud. Those solutions are adequate for other companies but not for us and where we see ourselves going,” Slaughter said. “We want technology partners that, like us, are dynamic in their thinking, not mired in bureaucracy. So, we don’t have to wait to talk to someone live or we can resolve an issue via chat. Responsiveness was number one for us when we were looking to move from our previous providers.”

No Pricing Tiers, No Egress Fees, No Problem

Cost was a close second to service in PCEN’s decision to switch to Wasabi. Wasabi doesn’t have complicated pricing tiers. It’s one-fifth the cost of AWS S3, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure and doesn’t charge for egress or API requests. “Not having egress fees is very attractive. Considering our current traffic and looking at our projections, there was no comparison between Wasabi and the other providers. Wasabi allows us to freely move content without the recurring fees.”

Simple And Seamless Integration

Wasabi hot cloud storage provides 100% S3-compatible connectivity, and has been validated with hundreds of storage applications, business applications with native cloud storage interfaces, and SDKs. All this compatibility makes Wasabi easy to integrate without business interruption. PCEN experienced not only seamless integration with its CMS and VOD playout systems, but also improved processes. “Moving to Wasabi has allowed us to be more efficient in our workflows, especially in how we schedule our linear channels. Not having to use individual playout storage for each of the 44 channels we own makes distribution easier and faster,” said Slaughter.

Moving Toward Immutability

Data security is paramount in the media and entertainment industry, and Wasabi brings the highest level of security to data storage and backup. With Wasabi’s Object Lock data protection feature, PCEN can designate certain files or objects to be immutable, meaning they cannot be altered or deleted by anyone until the retention period has expired. “The ability to protect digital content from threats like ransomware is so important to content providers, distributors, and owners. We get this protection from Wasabi,” said Slaughter.

Business Growth

Wasabi fits well in Slaughter’s plan to bring additional affiliate channels and networks onto the PCEN platform. “Wasabi will play very prominently in our scalability,” he said. “You can’t beat Wasabi’s service, cost, and easy workflow integration.”