Amazon Web Services, Axle AI Help Bleacher Report With Media Assets

Axle ai has announced that Bleacher Report has chosen axle ai media management solutions and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elemental video processing solutions to prepare, manage, and deliver media assets across its online and social media properties.

In the last few years, Bleacher Report has grown into a go-to destination for sports news and opinion, with millions of site visitors, mobile app users and social media followers. Their viewers receive a continuous stream of highlights, viral video, news and analysis, animations, podcasts and more. Content originates from Bleacher Report’s studios and a vast array of third-party sources, with video quality that ranges from broadcast-ready to user-generated mobile phone video.

To manage its massive, rapidly growing library of media assets, Bleacher Report selected axle ai’s media management software.

“We need to keep things simple. Our staff wants things instantly and doesn’t have time for a lot of training, so we felt that a traditional MAM would not be appealing to them,” says Steve Pellegrino, senior manager, video production and technology for Bleacher Report. “The ability to share proxy video with non-technical users in a simple, browser-based interface was important to us.”

The company deployed axle ai across its networked media storage infrastructure to enable fast metadata tagging as video footage is generated adding as many as 1,000 files a day to its asset library, which now exceeds 700 terabytes. The axle ai team bundles its media management software with AWS Elemental Server solutions, allowing Bleacher Report to process video content quickly for distribution through online and social media platforms.

“Content drives our brand. It has to be engaging, high-quality, and easily accessible, and on top of that, it has to reach viewers as fast as possible,” says Pellegrino. “axle ai and AWS Elemental make it easy for our editors and producers around the world to find the assets they need to build outstanding content and create streaming video that looks great and runs smoothly on any platform or device, regardless of the source.

Bleacher Report accesses the axle ai solution through a browser-based interface. Simple-to-use metadata tagging enables search functionality across the media storage infrastructure and is accessible to content groups throughout the organization. The combined solution generates proxy-level video that can be viewed and shared via the web, with no need to upload to third-party hosts. Non-technical users and outside parties can easily view and interact with content and adopt the search functionality and proxy tools quickly, with no need for formal training.

“When we started working with Bleacher Report, they had a massive library of file-based assets and no way to search for source files,” says Sam Bogoch, CEO, axle ai. “We were able to deploy our software and immediately enable content tagging, proxy generation, and global search functionality, without disrupting their existing infrastructure. They were up and running with a complete, easy-to-use solution with no need to change their file structure or even move a single file.”