All posts by Dave Simon

Backblaze B2 x Suite Studios: S3 Native File Streaming Turns B2 Cloud Storage Into a High-Performance Drive

Post Syndicated from Dave Simon original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-b2-x-suite-studios-s3-native-file-streaming-turns-b2-cloud-storage-into-a-high-performance-drive/

A gradient background with Backblaze and Suite Studios logos and the words "S3 Native File Streaming"

Announcing a new integration between Backblaze B2 and Suite Studios’ S3 Native File Streaming that brings together scalable object storage and the familiar experience of working from a local drive.

Available today with Backblaze B2, the integration allows teams to mount a B2 bucket through Suite Studios and work with files as if they were stored on a high-performance NAS. Suite streams only the parts of each file an application needs, rather than requiring users to download entire datasets first.

Behind that experience, the data remains in Backblaze B2 as standard S3-compatible objects.

Ready to get started now?

To put Suite S3 Native to work on B2, contact Backblaze Sales or your Backblaze reseller partner. We can help validate your architecture, plan a proof of concept, and evaluate migration support for your existing data.

Your B2 bucket becomes the working file space

An existing Backblaze B2 bucket can now be used directly as a Suite file space. There is no separate storage environment hidden inside Suite and no proprietary segmentation happening in the background.

The relationship between the file system and the bucket remains straightforward:

  • One file in Suite maps to one object in B2.
  • The folder structure in Suite matches the structure in the bucket.
  • Files remain standard, whole objects.
  • B2 remains the system of record.
  • Suite provides the high-performance file access layer.

For users, cloud storage behaves more like a shared NAS experience. For IT, the underlying data remains in a storage platform the organization owns and controls.

If your files are already stored in B2 as standard objects, Suite can connect to the bucket and make them available through its mounted drive. There is no need to create another copy, convert the data, or run a separate ingest into Suite.

One dataset, multiple ways to use it

The immediate opportunity is media production, where teams work with large files across editing, media management, transcoding, automation, archive, and distribution.

An editor can open high-resolution media in Adobe Premiere Pro through the Suite drive. At the same time, iconik or another MAM can index the library, Telestream Vantage can process the source files, and automation can respond to new objects written into B2.

Each application works with the same underlying media.

But this is not exclusively a media workflow. The same model has practical applications anywhere teams need to work with large cloud datasets through file-based desktop tools:

  • Life sciences and biotech: Make genomic sequencing, microscopy, medical imaging, and instrument-generated data accessible to researchers without maintaining full copies at every location.
  • Geospatial and earth observation: Work with satellite imagery, drone captures, LiDAR scans, and GIS datasets while keeping source files centrally stored.
  • Engineering and design: Give teams file-based access to CAD assemblies, simulations, 3D models, digital twins, and high-resolution scans.
  • Research and higher education: Create shared access to large scientific datasets for distributed teams while maintaining a common storage foundation.

These are emerging applications for the architecture rather than packaged Suite solutions today, but the underlying opportunity is clear: Large datasets become much more useful when people and applications can access them without moving them into another storage silo.

Built for active data

Media, scientific data, and geospatial imagery rarely sit still. Files are opened, reviewed, processed, moved, analyzed, and shared throughout their lifecycle.

Backblaze B2 provides always-hot, S3-compatible object storage with straightforward pricing and free egress up to three times average monthly storage, plus unlimited free egress through select CDN and compute partners.

That makes B2 a strong foundation for data that needs to remain active and accessible. Suite adds another way to put that data to work by making a B2 bucket accessible through a high-performance file interface.

Available today, with migration support

Backblaze B2 is available today for Suite S3 Native workflows.

If your data is already in B2, you can use an existing bucket as your Suite file space. If it currently resides in another cloud, on a NAS or SAN, or on tape, Backblaze can help plan and execute the move.

Organizations making a qualifying commitment can receive assisted migration into B2 through our Universal Data Migration program.

Bring the data into the storage platform you want to keep. Let cloud applications access it through S3. Let people access it through a high-performance drive.

One dataset. One storage foundation. Multiple ways to put it to work.

The post Backblaze B2 x Suite Studios: S3 Native File Streaming Turns B2 Cloud Storage Into a High-Performance Drive appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup

Four Platforms, One Timeline: Bringing TAMS Workflow to Life on Backblaze B2

Post Syndicated from Dave Simon original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/four-platforms-one-timeline-bringing-tams-workflow-to-life-on-backblaze-b2/

An illustration with a cloud with the Backblaze flame logo and the word TAMS.

Broadcast production has spent decades organizing media around files, servers, and the physical limits of the facility. That model is familiar, and it works until a live event creates hours of footage across multiple cameras, editors are distributed, the archive is growing by petabytes, and every copy of every clip becomes another operational and financial problem.

Time Addressable Media Store, or TAMS, offers a different model: Organize media by time, store it in object storage, and let interoperable tools access the same content through an open API. Pair that with affordable, high-performance storage, and the result is a practical path toward cloud-native production without forcing media teams into a single vendor’s ecosystem.

That is where a stack built on Backblaze B2, together with TAMS ecosystem partners LiveWyer, CuttingRoom, and Drastic Technologies, gets interesting.

What is TAMS?

When a live event is producing hours of footage across multiple cameras, editors should not have to wait for files to close before they can start working. TAMS, or Time Addressable Media Store, addresses that problem by organizing media around the timeline rather than individual files.

With TAMS, media is stored as timestamped segments that applications can access by time. A news editor can pull a quote from a press conference while it is still underway. A sports producer can create a highlight from a live game feed. A content team can reuse the same moment for social clips, a longer edit, distribution, and archive without creating a separate proprietary copy for every stage.

TAMS gives ingest systems, browser-based editors, desktop NLEs, MAMs, and archive platforms a common way to work with the same media. The store can run on one cloud, ingest can come from another provider, and editors can use the tools they already know.

The specification grew out of BBC Research & Development’s work on cloud-native media production and was published in 2023. Its purpose was practical: Give different companies a shared interface for building interoperable media workflows instead of recreating isolated storage silos in the cloud.

TAMS is not a replacement for an NLE, MAM, ingest system, or archive. It is the layer that helps those systems work together. In this article, we are focusing on three Backblaze ecosystem partners that demonstrate that approach: LiveWyer, CuttingRoom, and Drastic Technologies.

The solution stack

LiveWyer provides TAMOSS, a Kubernetes-native implementation of the TAMS API. TAMOSS is the store management and API layer. It handles the TAMS structure while orchestrating the underlying media segments stored in Backblaze B2.

CuttingRoom brings an editorial-grade video editing experience into the browser. In a TAMS workflow, editors can begin working with media while a live event is still being captured. They can find a moment on the timeline, create a clip, and assemble a story without waiting for an entire file to close or moving the media into a separate editing silo. The CuttingRoom solution allows real-time collaboration, import and exports from and to market leading MAMs and with the optional ShortCut AI assistant editing, editors can do more in less time.

Drastic Technologies’ NetX platform provides the TAMS-compliant readers and writers that handle both ends of the media flow: ingesting and writing media into TAMS, then reading it back for playback and use in professional applications such as Adobe Premiere and Avid. NetX is a key part of making TAMS flows usable across live ingest, playback, and established desktop production workflows including Adobe Premiere.

With Backblaze B2 providing the S3-compatible storage foundation beneath the workflow.

TAMOSS supplies the TAMS interface. CuttingRoom provides the browser-based editorial experience. Drastic NetX handles the critical ingest, writing, reading, and playback paths. B2 stores the media segments at a price that makes large-scale access practical.

These companies are part of a growing ecosystem of roughly 14 technology providers with publicly identifiable TAMS implementations, products, readers, writers, or integrations. That broader ecosystem includes AWS, Konstrukt, LOGIC media solutions, LucidLink, Mimir, Reuters Imagen, Matrox Video, Mavis, Norsk, Techex, and Zixi, alongside LiveWyer, CuttingRoom, and Drastic Technologies.

This is the broader idea behind an interoperable standard. No single company has to provide every part of the workflow, and customers do not have to replace every system they already own.

Where TAMS fits

The use cases are not limited to national broadcasters.

A news organization could ingest a live press conference, let an editor find a quote while the event is still happening, and publish a short clip before the full recording is finished.

A sports production team could create proxy media for immediate clipping while retaining higher-resolution source material for finishing. This is particularly useful because some high-resolution MOV and MXF workflows are difficult to segment and read while they are still growing.

A regional sports league or smaller event producer could avoid building a large on-premises storage environment and give remote editors access to the same media from wherever they are working.

A corporate video team could record a town hall, create short internal clips, publish social content, and retain the full event in the archive using the same underlying media.

The same approach could support houses of worship, education, government, live entertainment, and creator workflows. The common requirement is quick access to a growing body of media without multiplying copies and handoffs.

What if the editor reviewing a live feed did not need to ask where the file was? What if the answer were simply a time range in a shared store?

Why Backblaze B2 matters

Live video is a storage problem before it is almost anything else. A multi-camera sports event, a continuous news operation, or a large livestream can generate terabytes of content quickly.

Backblaze B2 starts at $6.95 per terabyte per month, with free egress up to three times average monthly storage and no egress fees through many compute and CDN partners. That combination makes it easier to keep large live datasets available for editing, review, distribution, and archive.

A TAMS workflow backed by B2 can look like this:

  • – Use Drastic NetX to ingest and write live feeds into a TAMS store.
  • – Segment and index the media as it is captured.
  • – Let editors begin clipping and assembling stories in CuttingRoom.
  • – Use NetX readers to play and access the same media from Adobe Premiere or Avid.
  • – Keep the objects available for near-live production, distribution, and archive.
  • – Add a MAM where richer search, rights, governance, and catalog workflows are required.

Our deployment test offered one final lesson. Getting media into the store was straightforward. Making the service usable by the rest of the team required attention to the operational details. Open standards reduce lock-in, but production still depends on good deployment practices.

That is a healthy place for the industry to be. The pieces are becoming more modular, the interfaces are becoming more open, and media teams have more freedom to assemble the workflow that fits them.

TAMS gives those tools a common language. TAMOSS makes the store deployable. Drastic NetX handles how media is written into and read from the workflow. CuttingRoom makes the content useful to editors and production teams. And Backblaze B2 provides a scalable storage layer that makes the economics work.

The question is no longer whether live media can be stored in the cloud. It is whether we can make that media available to the right person, in the right tool, at the right moment.

The post Four Platforms, One Timeline: Bringing TAMS Workflow to Life on Backblaze B2 appeared first on Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage & Cloud Backup

Stack to Win: A Powerful Solution for Sports Media Production

Post Syndicated from Dave Simon original https://www.backblaze.com/blog/stack-to-win-a-powerful-solution-for-sports-media-production/

A decorative image showing the text Stack to Win with Boomer Esiason. In the background, the logos for Backblaze, Suite Studios, and Iconik are displayed on media screens.

I recently joined an incredible group of thought leaders for a panel discussion on the future of sports media. Hosted by sports commentator and former NFL MVP Boomer Esiason, our Stack to Win panel featured Jeremy Strootman from Iconik, Jay Maxwell from Suite Studios, the NFL’s VP of Broadcasting Mike North, and me—Dave Simon from Backblaze. Together, we explored the complexities of modern sports content creation and how our integrated cloud-native solutions from Backblaze B2, Iconik, and Suite offer a powerful blueprint for radically streamlining workflows and unlocking new opportunities for efficiency, speed, and monetization.

The traditional, linear model of sports media production is a thing of the past. It’s been completely changed by new technology and a shift in what fans expect. Today, media teams are in a real-time battle for attention against every other form of entertainment. This new world demands a different kind of setup, one that’s built for the cloud and designed to handle the entire media lifecycle. The solution we’ve built, a powerful combination of Backblaze, Iconik, and Suite Studios, is exactly that. It’s the playbook for staying ahead.

Watch the full interview

There’s so much more that we could summarize in just one blog post. Check out the full video below:

The (data) problem

Game day content is immense—we’re talking 6–7TB of data nightly. In the past, this was a logistical nightmare. As Jeremy Strootman from Iconik pointed out, “It used to be we’d get a hard drive and I’d get a hard drive, and we made sure that we just took different flights on the way home. It was literally that archaic.” When speed is everything, old methods like shipping hard drives are a huge liability.

This pressure comes from fans who have an insatiable appetite for content across every platform imaginable. They expect teams to produce their own content in real-time for streaming and social media. For many, the “second screen” is now the main screen, with 73% of fans using mobile apps for real-time updates during live events. If your workflow is slow, you’ve already lost the competition.

The definition of sports content has also expanded. It’s no longer just about the game itself, but also the stories around it—the players’ lives and the team’s entire ecosystem. Jay Maxwell of Suite Studios captured this perfectly:

The product is not just what’s on the field anymore. It’s also what’s going on in these, you know, athletes lives, what’s going on in the peripheries of the team and the organizations.
—Jay Maxwell, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Suite Studios

This includes pop culture crossovers, fantasy sports, and in-game betting, all of which demand instant video highlights.

A great example of this is when Eagles wide receiver AJ Brown was spotted reading a book called “Inner Excellence” on the sidelines. The moment went viral, and the book, which was previously ranked 585,000 on the bestseller list, vaulted to number one instantly. As the NFL’s Mike North noted, this is how fans can instantly “go deeper” and connect with their favorite players. The ability to capture and distribute these moments instantly is a fundamental requirement for success.

A modern technology stack

An integrated, cloud-native tech stack provides a seamless workflow that removes risk and speeds up the content pipeline. It’s a powerful combination of three key layers:

1. Foundation: The active cloud archive

Modern media workflows are built on a cloud storage foundation that replaces old systems like tape libraries and shelves full of hard drives. The key is an active cloud archive that gives you instant access to your footage. This eliminates the costly delays of older solutions and offers predictable costs, so you never get hit with surprise fees when you need to access your own content.

2. Intelligence: Media Asset Management (MAM)

This is the smart layer that makes your vast archive searchable and valuable. Instead of producers manually sifting through hours of footage, a multimodal AI search engine can find the exact clip they need in seconds. As Dave Simon explained, you can use a natural language search to describe exactly what you’re looking for, such as “Jerry Rice catching a ball over his left shoulder wearing a white jersey”. AI tools in a media stack can automatically transcribe interviews, search for specific quotes, and even identify abstract concepts like emotion or reframe a video for different social media platforms.

3. Accelerator: Real-time cloud editing

This component handles the final stage of production, allowing editors to access high-resolution media without a download delay. This technology streams data directly from the cloud, so editors can start working immediately. This is how a remote team can instantly cut and create content from footage uploaded on the field. 

The real magic is all of these elements combined: A clip is only useful if an editor can work with it right away, and a huge archive is only valuable if you can find what’s in it. This is a single, cohesive system that manages the entire media lifecycle from start to finish.

Reshaping the business of sports

Adopting a modern tech stack empowers rights holders—leagues, teams, and athletes—to manage and distribute content on a massive scale. They can bypass traditional media gatekeepers and build direct relationships with their fans. This opens up several possibilities, such as: 

  • Archive monetization. Vast archives, once a simple cost center, have now become a major source of revenue. With an accessible, intelligent archive, organizations can unlock new revenue streams.
  • Licensing storefronts: You can create B2B portals for broadcasters and filmmakers to license and download footage, which essentially creates a self-service revenue engine.
  • Direct-to-consumer (DTC) fan platforms: Launch your own subscription services with exclusive access to historical games and behind-the-scenes content.
  • Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) channels: Program and launch FAST channels using repurposed archival content.
  • Creator economy partnerships: License parts of your archive to creators to reach new audiences and share in the revenue.
  • Enable the athlete as a media entity. This same technology is behind the rise of athletes as media producers. Today’s players are actively shaping their own stories and building media businesses. The low barrier to entry for these cloud workflows is the foundation of this movement, giving athletes the same scalable tools once reserved for major networks. A great example of this is Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions, which started as a player-led media company and became a leader in the space.

The future fan experience

This revolution is transforming the fan experience from a one-way broadcast to something personal, interactive, and instant. The future of sports consumption is personalized feeds tailored to individual interests. As Mike North noted, “You don’t really need to watch the game anymore to still be a fan.” For a fan who wants to know everything about a player, a custom feed can be created. For a fantasy football enthusiast, clips and highlights related to their team can be pushed to them in real time.

The experience will also be interactive. Streaming platforms are already using augmented reality (AR) overlays and multi-angle camera views. The next step, powered by AI and accessible archives, is allowing fans to directly ask for content, like, “‘Show me all the Hail Mary plays from this season?’” and instantly get a custom playlist. This shifts passive viewing into active exploration.

For any sports organization, the biggest risk is standing still and maintaining the status quo. As Jay Maxwell put it, “The barrier to entry to try is, you know, cheap if not free.” An integrated, cloud-native workflow isn’t just a competitive advantage—it’s the fundamental requirement for survival and success.

Check out the full solution below:

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