One of the biggest takeaways at this week’s NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, is that technology is now so integral to media and entertainment that it can’t be separated out anymore. There’s a real danger of the narrative that drives cinema and television getting lost in the technology. A 3-D explosion in film may be attention-getting, but it still needs to fit within the storyline, according to Erik Weaver, (pictured), global director of M&E market development at HGST Inc. (a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp.).

“Tech is simply there to empower the story. If you lose sight of that, you’re lost,” Weaver said.

Weaver spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during the NAB Show. (*Disclosure below.)

They discussed new technologies in the media and entertainment industry, as well as how to effectively manage data within the cloud.

Properly managing data in the cloud

Weaver made an interesting analogy that until Niagara Falls made electricity economically viable, aluminum smelting wasn’t a cost-effective proposition. Entire forests were being cut down to fuel furnaces that could be hot enough to smelt aluminum. The advent of water-powered electricity made the entire process much easier and far more cost-effective. In a similar fashion, because of the maturation of cloud technology, content providers such as YouTube and Netflix can now scale at a level that was never possible before.

In order to effectively use cloud, it’s not just a matter of “lifting and shifting” your entire data center, Weaver stated. Organizations need to think about what data needs to move, and why it needs to move. If the data is merely “dumped” up in the cloud and then has to bounce back and forth between the cloud and where it’s processed, it’s extremely inefficient, he added

“So learning how to create the proper workflow … is absolutely critical, and it will save you a fortune,” Weaver concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of the NAB Show. (*Disclosure: Western Digital is sponsoring theCUBE’s coverage at the show. Neither Western Digital nor other sponsors have editorial influence on content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE