OceanX dives into efficient media workflows with Signiant
OceanX is a New York-based nonprofit organisation with a mission to explore the ocean and bring it back to the world
While OceanX is a science-first organisation, capturing media and making content is also at the forefront of its storytelling strategy. The scientific team aboard its former vessel, M/V Alucia and current R/V OceanXplorer, has been featured on Blue Planet II, One Strange Rock and National Geographic’s limited series, OceanXplorer.
OceanX has a vast media library and has struggled with managing, archiving and sharing that content worldwide. Since they capture rare deep-sea oceanic footage, the content retains value long after its initial use. Large file sizes exacerbate OceanX’s distribution with external media partners, as do dropped transfers and short turn-around times.
Initially, OceanX relied on a partner’s Signiant Media Shuttle account to transfer their camera original media for footage licensing. Impressed by the platform’s reliability, they set up their own instance of Media Shuttle, making it their primary method for delivering large files to media and licensing partners and with scientists worldwide. The switch opened OceanX to centralised control and visibility across its partner network.
Using, Signiant Media Shuttle, the media team no longer faces challenges with timed-out transfers, failed uploads, or needing to physically ship hard drives, giving them peace of mind when working with global partners.
The most urgent requests always seem to happen at the eleventh hour. After months of production aboard OceanX’s research vessel, a production team found themselves deep in the edit when they realised critical shots were missing. To meet the show’s approaching deadline, they urgently contacted OceanX’s media team for more footage.
OceanX takes remote work to a whole new level. With missions in some of the most remote locations in the world, often hundreds of thousands of meters below the surface, it is a mission-driven nonprofit focused on ocean exploration and sharing those findings with the world. Its operations include a research vessel, OceanXplorer, which travels globally, capturing extensive scientific and documentary footage for both research and public media projects. OceanX operates with a small media team on board, producing footage for in-house and external projects.
Today, OceanX leverages the R/V OceanXplorer, the titular vessel of National Geographics’ limited series, OceanXplorers. OceanXplorer is the most advanced scientific research and media vessel in the world.
The New York-based OceanX Media team uses Media Shuttle to deliver original camera footage to media partners or stakeholders licensing footage, in addition to the researchers who come on board. Most of the over 2 petabytes of content which is stored in New York is evergreen, making it highly valuable for resale.
“Everything we shoot, especially the deep-sea footage, has value forever because it’s rare, it’s not easy to capture,” Tarricone stated. “We’re always looking for creative ways to utilise that outside of the context of the mission.”
However, servicing their distribution and resale business proved difficult, frustrating and time-consuming. After trying various online file-sharing solutions, none seemed to work for their requirements and keeping up with all the different types was a mess.
“When you get into hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes of content, web-based providers will time out — or your internet will disconnect, and it cancels the transfer,” Tarricone said. “You’ll leave something running all weekend, and then you come in, and you’re not sure what happened, but it didn’t work.”
And with emergencies like the production needing to send three terabytes of footage, using online file-sharing tools was a non-starter. “It would have been ‘We have to ship you a drive,’” Tarricone recalled. “And with this partner and others, they’re all over the world, which can take weeks. If we are going to try a web-based transfer, the time of uploading is so long, or if there is an outage for one minute, it cancels your 2.5 terabyte transfer, and then everything’s corrupted, and you can’t just pick up where it left off.”
That change came when an OceanX media partner temporarily stepped in and let OceanX use their Signiant Media Shuttle account.
With Media Shuttle, built on the Signiant Platform, OceanX has eliminated many of the challenges that previously complicated their large-scale footage transfers. Before adopting Signiant, OceanX struggled with delays and technical failures when transferring substantial media files across great distances. Signiant’s proprietary acceleration technology now enables OceanX to maximise available bandwidth, eliminating the impact of latency and ensuring their large media transfers are delivered with speed and efficiency.
“It takes a lot less mental effort and energy. I know that when I share files, I don’t need to worry about running out of space halfway through the transfer or sending a link that’s going to expire randomly,” she said. “I feel like I have more control over that stuff.”
Signiant has become OceanX’s main tool for transferring large video files to media partners, researchers, and licensing clients, making workflow more efficient and reliable. Beyond logistical improvements, Signiant adds value to OceanX’s business by enabling faster, self-service media access for partners, freeing up OceanX’s resources for other tasks.
After using Media Shuttle as an end user, OceanX also realised there were additional functionalities they could use with their own account for control, visibility, and reporting.
