Eliminating Post-Production Headaches:
How Strawberry Changed the Game for ZDF Digital
Unprecedented Collaboration empowered ZDF Digital
to unlock reliable, flexible media workflows.
- •Rock-solid reliability replaced performance headaches of the previous production system.
- •Effortless media search and preview via the highly intuitive front end.
- •Lighting-speed review & approvals through Strawberry’s web browser for remote collaboration.
- •Projective as a true extension of the ZDF Digital team.
ZDF Digital, a creative engine within the ZDF corporate family, manages a massive volume of complex media projects. Relying on an outdated storage environment, they faced slow, manual archive processes and a fragmented system that hindered efficiency. As their workforce grew and remote work became the norm, teams spent far too much time navigating technical hurdles to locate, access and review content.
They needed a tool that could unify their production pipeline without forcing a complete infrastructure overhaul. Strawberry provided the exact Production Asset Management (PAM) framework they required. By layering over their new Qumulo storage, Strawberry automated their workflows, empowered remote collaboration, and delivered absolute reliability to the IT department.
About ZDF Digital: Shaping the Future of Media Production
Operating under the ZDF Studios umbrella, ZDF Digital specializes in future-facing digital solutions, creative content, and interactive media experiences that engage broad audiences. The company relies on a dynamic team of nearly 400 professionals, including core staff and project-based freelancers.
With more than half of this workforce operating remotely, ZDF Digital requires a highly agile production infrastructure. Their editors, producers, and reviewers need immediate, reliable access to heavy media files, whether they are working in the main facility or their home office. Plus, production needs to be integrated: teams simply do not have time to upload rushes to a separate platform for review.
The Challenge: Manual Workflows and Storage Limitations
Back in 2018, ZDF Digital recognized they needed a new approach for their production workflows. Their previous storage environment had become a source of mounting problems, creating bottlenecks that slowed down the entire production pipeline. As output demands increased, the cracks in their legacy systems began to show.
- •Lack of storage flexibility: The team felt constrained by hardware limitations and constantly fighting access issues.
- •Manual archiving processes: Moving finished projects into the archive or retrieving old footage required tedious, manual work that needed constant supervision. Editors lost valuable time moving media instead of creating content.
- •Forced on-site collaboration: All production and editing had to be done in the office. This limited creative flexibility and drove up infrastructure costs.
- •IT strain: Unexpected system crashes and manual asset management generated constant support tickets, keeping the IT team in a reactive state.
The Solution: Flexibility and Automation with Strawberry
ZDF Digital implemented Strawberry to bring structure to their production supply chain. As a dedicated Production Asset Management solution, Strawberry completely transformed how the team interacts with their production storage, adding crucial intelligence over their files.
“When we first saw a demo of Strawberry, we were amazed. It solved problems that we didn’t even know we had!“
Christian Koch
Head of IT, ZDF Digital
- •Secure, Storage-agnostic architecture: Strawberry integrates directly with ZDF Digital’s chosen storage. It instantly mounts editing projects as workspaces, removing the guesswork about where assets live on shared storage. This also dramatically improves content security by prescribing where assets live and controlling access at the project level.
- •Automated archiving: Strawberry streamlined the archival process by automatically moving media to the archive in the background. This allowed editors to search and view archived material as if it were an extension of their primary storage. By automating project archival and enabling easy retrieval of assets, Strawberry eliminated manual tasks for IT administrators and removed delays from archive requests, leading to faster project delivery.
- •Real-time collaboration for remote teams: The Strawberry web client provided a comprehensive window into ZDF Digital’s entire production environment, regardless of team location. This allowed producers to search, preview, and annotate proxies directly from their web browsers, enabling seamless, real-time collaboration with editors. All this without extensive training or having to upload media to a separate platform.
The Results: Dramatic Time Savings, Better Access, and Streamlined Workflows
The integration of Strawberry delivered immediate, measurable improvements across ZDF Digital’s operations. The platform’s rock-solid reliability significantly reduced the IT burden, shifting system maintenance entirely to planned downtime and eliminating the stressful, unexpected outages of the past.
By automating the archive process and providing intuitive search features, the team reclaimed hours previously lost to media management. This efficiency gain also eliminated the need to dedicate an expensive edit suite just for manual archiving, effectively multiplying production capacity for ZDF Digital.
When the pandemic forced a rapid shift to fully remote production, the platform proved its true value. Strawberry Cloud Access allowed off-site producers to view proxies, leave frame-accurate feedback, and approve cuts, all without downloading massive files.
“Strawberry’s web client became an absolute game changer for us, particularly during the pandemic. It allowed our remote teams to work together without having to be together: add annotations, handle review and approval seamlessly, keeping our production moving with maximum flexibility. It just works.“
– Christian Koch, Head of IT, ZDF Digital.
Today, around 50 team members rely on the Strawberry web interface every day to quickly locate and work with media files. What began as a tool for editors has rapidly expanded: the subtitling department transitioned its core workflows to Strawberry, and many other departments are requesting access; some the IT team hadn’t even anticipated, like the sign language team, which now manages its own media with Strawberry’s intuitive tools.
The platform’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for new users to be up and running with little guidance, often in a matter of minutes.
Seamless Implementation and Trust
Deploying a PAM system across dozens of users requires precision and strong partnership. Projective worked closely with ZDF Digital to ensure the platform mapped perfectly to their specific production needs, adapting the solution to fit their workflows rather than forcing the team to change how they work.
For the ZDF Digital team, this collaborative approach stood out. Projective focused on clear communication and deep technical support, resolving issues rapidly while continually taking user feedback into account.
Christian Koch shared, “Before Strawberry, our IT team would head into the weekend on high alert, bracing for emergency calls from production. Now, with Strawberry’s reliability, we enjoy real peace of mind.”
What’s Next?
ZDF Digital continues to scale its operations with new production requirements and technical challenges to consider. Tests are currently underway with Strawberry’s Adobe panel to integrate the solution into their Premiere and After Effects pipeline.
The IT team is also exploring Strawberry’s latest media intelligence features for visual search, automated transcription, and translation. Looking ahead, cloud archiving is a seamless next step, as Strawberry can adapt to any storage backend ZDF Digital chooses. This flexibility allows them to grow their infrastructure with absolute confidence.
Christian’s final words: “Working with Projective never feels like dealing with a typical software vendor. They operate like a peer team that truly understands our actual production challenges.”
Interested in what streamlined asset management could look like for your creative teams?
Connect with us to see how Strawberry Skies could support your post-production operations.
Published: 3 June 2026