Aframe vs Level 3 Cloud Content Exchange

Aframe, one of the leading SaaS platforms for video production collaboration, has been going strong for the last 4+ years, winning some big media accounts like Fox Sports. Level 3 entered the same market a few months back, with its Cloud Content Exchange Platform. Level 3 is just getting started, but over time they’ll start adding more features to their media platform making it more Aframe like. In a nutshell, Aframe offers a B2B media cloud platform enabling movie studios, broadcasters, producers, directors, editors, and post production houses the ability to upload, store, edit, tag, secure, and exchange mezzanine, uncompressed, and raw media files over the cloud.

The B2B media platforms work best when editors and producers working on the same file are located in different locations around the world. In the past, tape drives and disks were the main method of native video file distribution. Aframe, Level 3, and others alike are making tape/disk drive delivery method instinct. One of the key components powering the media platforms are Aspera, Signiant and SmartJog, the high performance file transfer products. In their native format, video files such as dailies, episodes, and features range in size from 25MB (components) to 100GB, and everything in between. Without Aspera or Signiant, file uploads would take days. After files are uploaded to the cloud, the media platform creates a proxy, or streamlined version that editors work on completing their specific task, such as coloring, dubbing, and so on.

Currently, Aframe is ahead of the competition in its technology, including Level 3. However, it’s only a matter of time before Level 3, and others alike, catch up to Aframe. The Aframe’s of the world, like MediaSilo are changing the video production collaboration space. Their platforms are making the old ways of collaboration extinct. What was once done onsite with expensive hardware, is now being done in the cloud on a pay-as-you-go basis, enabling producers to edit, store, and exchange raw video content using the cloud. The digital media file exchange technology has wiped out an entire industry, the duplication services market.

At one time, the post production houses made millions in duplication services. That business has completely disappeared. Now the B2B media platforms are doing the same to other collaboration processes in the professional video production space. Level 3 has seen the dramatic change, and is positioning itself to reap the rewards. The question I have for Level 3 is why don’t they just buy Aframe, it would be easier, cheaper and faster than creating B2B media platform features from scratch.

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