FORT WORTH, Texas–At Front Row, our mission is to redefine entertainment by pushing boundaries and mixing imagination with innovation. One of our regular productions is the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, a 21-day event and one of the most prestigious contests in classical music.
The 2025 edition delivered more than 130 hours of multicamera 4K HDR coverage over three weeks. The preliminary and quarterfinal rounds took place at Van Cliburn Concert Hall at Texas Christian University, with the finals at Bass Performance Hall, all in Fort Worth.
The broadcast for each Cliburn competition gets a little bigger and, along with our producing partner Framework Productions, we try to push the envelope more each time, both technically and creatively.
Blackmagic Cloud
Between recent competitions, we solved some workflow problems, but we also upgraded to 4K, doubling the data rates and creating a new challenge, because storage is very expensive. By leveraging Blackmagic Cloud, we recorded directly to a Blackmagic Cloud Store 20TB and enabled point-to-point remote offloading to our post facility with Blackmagic Cloud Store Max 48TB.
At the facility, a Blackmagic Ethernet Switch 360P ensured seamless performance across seven or eight different editing stations, all working off the same Cloud Store Max, by providing the “air traffic control” we needed for efficient collaboration.
We managed Dropbox deliverables for media outlets and distribution partners, including “The Cliburn” YouTube channel, local television, Chinese distribution partners and Medici, the largest classical music platform in Europe. We ran Blackmagic Cloud for our ProRes files and high-resolution ISOs, which were live-synced to our backup facility, while smaller deliverables synced via Dropbox.
With nine 45-minute shows plus 2.5-hour line cuts, ISOs, etc., the ability to have a complete set of “transferred” media immediately after each segment saved us hours of 4K transfer time. Orchestrating both Dropbox and Blackmagic Cloud deliverables streamlined the entire process, removing the complications of running hard drives between multiple locations.
We still created hard-drive backups, but even that was simplified: connecting via a 10G cable to the Blackmagic Cloud Store 20TB allowed overnight transfers, replacing the usual scramble to clear Solid State Drives (SSDs) for the next day’s show. We were able to completely eliminate the bottleneck of SSD transfers and having five or six decks of content that had to be dropped. The peace of mind of having all those programs in the cloud the entire time was amazing. For the first time ever, I didn’t worry about the safety of our media.
Security Plus
It was also a game-changer from a disaster recovery perspective, since everything was backed up immediately. It made our media manager’s job so much easier, because he could start organizing and naming everything, focusing on more important tasks instead of spending hours copying files.
Looking ahead, we are already anticipating replicating the workflow at the junior version of the competition in 2027. The Blackmagic Cloud workflow enables us to do so much more in terms of remote media management, simplifying the process and reducing the number of people that are onsite in the control room.
This year marked our most successful distribution strategy to date, thanks to the freedom we had to focus on our content delivery rather than worrying if the media was where it needed to be. With Blackmagic Cloud at each and every step of the way, the entire workflow was streamlined end-to-end, enabling us to concentrate on telling the story of the competition.
For more information, contact Blackmagic Design at
408-954-0500 or visit www.blackmagicdesign.com.
