{"id":111805,"date":"2024-11-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=111805"},"modified":"2024-11-25T22:30:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T06:30:26","slug":"5-ways-to-use-event-notifications-to-advance-your-media-better-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/5-ways-to-use-event-notifications-to-advance-your-media-better-faster\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways to Use Event Notifications to Advance Your Media Better, Faster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In the hurry-up-and-wait world of media production, anything you can do to speed through the hurry-ups and avoid or shorten the waits is not just a gift\u2014it\u2019s an advantage that can mean happier team members, delighted clients and fans, and more revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backblaze Event Notifications can help.This new B2 Cloud Storage feature can help you streamline a range of your production tasks\u2014like automatically starting transcoding of video and distributing new images\u2014across your preferred workflow tools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, I\u2019m sharing five ways you can use Backblaze Event Notifications to operationalize media production efficiencies. If you\u2019re interested in Event Notifications for applications, check out this post<\/a>; and stay tuned for a future post on how to use Event Notifications for IT backup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Event Notifications for media production: Simplified automation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Event Notifications monitors your B2 Cloud Storage for data changes that you designate\u2014think raw video uploads, content version updates, deletions, etc.\u2014and delivers near real-time alerts where you want them about these changes. These alerts can be used to create awareness faster, and even more powerfully, to initiate streamlined end-to-end processes that can save you time and hassle, and avoid unnecessary manual tasks and\/or the cost of complex intermediaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are webhooks?<\/h4>\n

Webhooks, if you\u2019re not familiar with the term, are HTTP-based callback functions that enable event-based communications between software applications. Backblaze Event Notifications can uniquely work with any external service that accepts webhooks. This means you can use it to your advantage across your media production workflow\u2014and this is novel when most vendors\u2019 alerts features are limited to closed ecosystems or require significant and sometimes costly workarounds to communicate beyond a limited set of production tools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Top 5 use cases for media production<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here are specific, practical ways people producing and managing media can take advantage of Event Notifications for immediate benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. New content processing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Event Notifications can be used to trigger tasks immediately after new content is uploaded. Imagine one of your team members uploads a video or image: Event Notifications can be sent to a transcoding service to format it and a tagging service to categorize it for better content organization. Set up to furthermore extract valuable metadata too\u2014all in near real time, without manual intervention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

General workflow (abbreviated)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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By automating these processes, companies can ensure that user-generated content is formatted correctly, appropriately tagged, and moderated without delay. This not only saves time but guarantees a consistent user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s more, you can even go full Jedi Knight and handle errors programmatically with Event Notifications logic that triggers reprocessing tasks whenever issues arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Integrated alerts in go-to tools<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Event Notifications can easily integrate with your communication tools like Slack and productivity tools like Zapier, to inform internal and external stakeholders of updates without them needing to check for them manually. Users have told us this is a great way to keep people updated when assets are added, updated, or advanced to key stages in production and post cycles\u2014setting them up to consider taking downstream actions that don\u2019t lend themselves to further process automation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asset change announcement workflow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Additionally, for teams using workflow tools such as Zapier to connect various services, Event Notifications makes it simple to trigger actions across multiple platforms, enabling powerful, automated workflows with your data in B2 Cloud Storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Over-the-top (OTT) streaming automation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of whether your streaming model is AVOD, TVOD, or SVOD, Event Notifications can help automate processing and distribution workflows. Users can enable them so that every time a new title is added to B2 Cloud Storage, it then triggers alerts that initiate transcoding, compression, and prep for delivery or playback via content delivery network (CDN).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OTT streaming platform workflow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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4. Backup completion monitoring<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An important (if unglamorous) aspect of managing media is backing it up for extra safekeeping. After all, it\u2019s a precious asset worth a lot of money now and later. So whether you back up nightly, monthly, at project\u2019s end, or on some other cadence, with Event Notifications, customers can set up to receive updates when their media backups are successfully uploaded to a Backblaze B2 Bucket\u2014providing peace of mind when data is protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve also had a few users already tell us that not seeing backup completion alerts when expected helped them realize that they had other, previously unknown workflow hiccups to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backup complete workflow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Tangentially related, media organizations are also using Backblaze Cloud Replication to programmatically store their content to two or more geographically distributed locations for added protection\u2014this isn\u2019t the same as Event Notifications, but is another automation tool for enhancing your protection posture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Monitor data usage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since Event Notifications messages are sent within seconds of files being uploaded and deleted, and they contain the size of the file in question, you can easily and reliably track your data usage in near real time, helping you identify trends and potential issues. For example, if you know large raw files are coming in and then messages indicating much smaller than expected file sizes were uploaded, it can alert you to begin to QC it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve also seen such data monitoring prove highly beneficial to IT personnel who support them because the near real-time monitoring allows faster responses to situations as they are happening, thereby mitigating risks, reducing costs, and\/or nipping issues in the bud so the production teams remain disruption and distraction free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monitoring workflow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Beyond these example use cases, Event Notifications opens up a wide range of possibilities for automating and optimizing workflows. This flexibility makes it easy to automate how your infrastructure interacts with and reacts to file changes in B2 Cloud Storage, simplifying workflows across your distributed services. So go ahead and get creative\u2014and please do share with us the cool things you\u2019re doing with Event Notifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Event Notifications matter for production workflows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The benefits of real-time notifications extend beyond simply saving time\u2014they transform the way teams work, automate processes, and reduce the margin for error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n