Case Study: FileCatalyst & Leading the Way

Leading the Way produces television and radio programs, DVDs, CDs, books, a monthly devotional magazine, solar-powered navigators and daily e-devotionals to spread the light of Christ. In 2009, the ministry launched THE KINGDOM SAT television channel to broadcast Biblical Truth from 50 ministry partners across five continents on five satellite platforms in English, Arabic, and French. Leading the Way also partners internationally with in-country follow-up teams to encourage new believers in their faith.

Leading the Way broadcasts its television and radio programs in over 24 languages across over 190 countries. Broadcasting content to such a wide area with a diverse number of languages inevitably led to challenges in their workflow. One challenge Leading the Way faced was the inability to efficiently and effectively transport their large media files in and out of their facility to broadcast locations.

Previously, Leading the Way had used free web-based applications such as FTP and Dropbox to perform all of their file and data transfers. While leveraging these web-based applications and third-party solutions, Leading the Way noticed significant amounts of degradation in their overall network performance. This degradation was unacceptable to their workflow, and they required a solution that would overcome latency and packet loss.

FileCatalyst implemented two solutions for Leading the Way: FileCatalyst Direct and FileCatalyst Workflow. FileCatalyst Direct — a suite of client and server applications that enable point to point accelerated file transfers —was deployed to allow large volumes of content to be sent weekly, at accelerated speeds, to their playout servers in the South Pacific. FileCatalyst Direct was also used to send and receive content from freelance editors. In addition to FileCatalyst Direct, FileCatalyst Workflow — a web-portal for file transfer needs — was deployed to act as a gateway for third parties sending and receiving large files, which leveraged FileCatalyst’s file transfer acceleration.

By deploying FileCatalyst Direct and FileCatalyst Workflow, Leading the Way gained the ability to send and receive large media files at accelerated speeds of up to 10Gbps. Using FileCatalyst’s HotFolder application – a desktop application installed on the end user’s machine allowing for the creation of scheduled, automated takes – Leading the Way was able to reduce the manual process of downloading and uploading via FTP, which saves the company time and money.