Storj Brings New Production Cloud to Partners, Media Teams

Storj today announced a new offering built with two of its existing products to enable media teams throughout the content lifecycle.

Combining distributed cloud storage and media access in one solution

Media production – from broadcast and creative agencies to film and TV – has evolved rapidly in recent years, with more remote collaboration, massive file sizes, global delivery timelines, unpredictable cloud bills, and non-stop deadlines. 

Storj’s solutions are tailored to the needs of media production teams, offering distributed cloud storage, advanced compute, and unique GPU consumption models. Now, the company is combining its high-performance distributed object storage and Object Mount cloud media access into a unified media solution.

“Storj’s storage tiers and file-based access already address key bottlenecks in media production,” said Alex Holtz, Research Director, Worldwide Media & Entertainment Digital Strategies at IDC. “And now, the Production Cloud puts everything M&E teams need to move faster, scale on demand, and simplify workflows into one integrated platform.” 

How the solution enables editorial and media teams to scale from anywhere

The new solution offers a variety of efficiency gains and opportunities for media producers, post-production teams, and others, including: 

• Ingest: Fast ingest, less wrangling with direct S3 access for camera-to-cloud workflows.
• Dailies: Frame-accurate playback for reviewing LUTS, enabling instant remote review and faster creative decisions.
• Assistant Editing: Proxy generation, metadata tagging, and global clip access for editorial prep.
• Selects & Assembly: Instant bin and timeline access lets editors start rough cuts without delay.
• Editing: Multi-track support, VFX pulls, and remote preview deliver full editorial control from anywhere.
• Conform & Delivery: Ultra-fast final conform and master, export directly from cloud storage in real time.

“Storj is focused on solving the challenges in the world’s most demanding workflows,” said Colby Winegar, CEO of Storj. “We now have the storage, compute, and access solutions to give creative teams the speed, scale, and flexibility to work without limits.”

Storj also announced that cloud compute for media is in beta and will soon be added to the platform.

Additional features of Production Cloud include:

• Features and pricing for media: Transparent, bundled model that reflects how media teams actually work. By combining infrastructure into a single offering, Storj eliminates the inconsistency of egress fees and eliminates the need for regional replication, resulting in predictable and reasonable costs.
• Consistent performance globally: Storj’s distributed architecture stores data across tens of thousands of nodes worldwide, where only a small portion of the data from the fastest nodes is needed to deliver file access. This design provides consistent low-latency performance. See recent performance benchmarking analysis. 
• Global access without replication: The unique design of Storj enables remote teams to access content anywhere in the world without copying data to additional storage regions. This approach delivers 11 nines of durability and multi-region availability without the cost or complexity of traditional cloud replication.

The partner angle: why Tyrell leverages Storj to support clients

Storj claims that the new solution, in conjunction with its comprehensive approach to supporting media teams, enables more efficient workflows and global connectivity at a fraction of the cost of running on hyperscaler products, including AWS S3. 

That’s held true for Bryan Malone, the managing director at Tyrell, a value-added reseller focused entirely on supporting all types of content creators, from small influencers all the way to large broadcast news operations.

“Storage is the biggest expense underpinning this work,” Malone said. “I strongly believe in the concept of microservices and pay-as-you-need models.”

How Production Cloud comes at the right time for resellers and the industry

Malone founded Tyrell 25 years ago and has spent the last five or so building a cloud-based platform that he says challenges manufacturers to work with Tyrell on building out those microservice models to keep creative teams from sinking costs into expensive storage deals they don’t fully maximize use of.

“About two years ago, we stumbled across Storj, and once we saw what they were building, it blew our minds a bit in terms of the potential,” said Malone.

“Storj has built an infrastructure of global, high-speed connectivity with storage that doesn’t destroy files or slow anyone down,” he continued.

Now, Malone says, Production Cloud will allow the Tyrell team to approach traditional media clients with a new way to build, manage, and control their assets. Malone views the solution as a means for teams to reduce costs while acquiring new capabilities in file-sharing and asset management, thereby equipping them for success in a remote production environment.

“We’ve been wanting this for five years, and with Storj, we have a true partnership in how we collaborate. Our North stars are aligned on what’s important,” Malone said. 

To Malone, the Storj release is one tool in the box that Tyrell is building as it evolves within the VAR model, providing a platform through which clients can experience automated, simplified billing and support for all their needs.

“No one organization is ever going to solve for everything a media workflow needs. I’m taking my traditional reseller business and ultimately plumbing it through the cloud,” Malone said.

“At Tyrell, we’d like to be true media consultants to our clients, bringing together all of their solutions together and making things simple to consume. I think Storj will be able to underpin the entire media ecosystem.”

We spoke with Storj CEO Colby Winegar at the end of 2024, as the company announced its first formal partner program. Revisit that interview to learn more about how Storj works with its channel partners.