Training The Next Generation Of Media Pros

For the past 14 years, Studio12 has been giving the young people of Leeds access to industry-standard equipment, teaching them the skills they need to work behind the scenes in the city’s burgeoning media sector.

Leeds City Council have seats on various industry bodies, and use this to get insight into what software, hardware and skills their users will need to master, before teaming up with IT partner Jigsaw24 to work out how to implement these without breaking the bank. When it was time for their latest refresh, they knew two things: they wanted to make the jump to 4K, and they would need to update their hardware in order to perform post on such large files.

Getting ready to perform 4K post
"Storage, speed and adaptability were the main things that we wanted to get out of the new system, but we also wanted to be able to use the latest versions of Adobe Creative Cloud and Logic, which required a new OS," said Jamie Hutchison, Studio12's manager.

The first thing we did was replace Studio12's ageing Macs with 12 high-spec iMacs running the latest version of macOS, ensuring they have the firepower to stay at the forefront of creative workflows until their next refresh. They've also updated to the latest versions of Creative Cloud and DaVinci Resolve for video post, Logic and Cubase for audio, and even started working with on camera records to push their native shooting rates even higher.

High capacity shared storage
The increasing popularity of Studio12 meant that the team wanted to upgrade their shared storage.

We helped them design and deliver a shared storage system that delivered ten times more capacity than their previous one. This happens over a faster network than they've ever used before, so they can, as Jamie says, "deal with huge file sizes and all of our processes across multiple users." To ensure that the system was up to the challenge, we actually built and tested it at our site before even quoting Studio12 for the installation.

"That Jigsaw24 took the time to test the system before quoting was one of the main reasons they won the tender," Jamie told us. "We have to work within a council system, whether we're using Mac, PC or Linux, and Jigsaw24 really understood that, and spent time investigating and considering our needs before designing a bespoke system."

Seamlessly updating the suite
The installation went so smoothly that Jamie claims "some of our users haven't even noticed, which I think means it's gone really well, because it's been nondisruptive. They're able to just come in and get on with their work, but now we've got the speed and the space to continue to develop the next generation of media producers, and that's what's really important to us."

Want to know more about infrastructure, storage or studio builds? Get in touch on 03332 409 231, email [email protected] or visit Jigsaw24.com/broadcast.

This article also features in the October edition of Broadcast Film & Video.

(JP/LM)