The Role of GPUs in Media & Entertainment

One of the biggest opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce costs and deliver content more rapidly in media and entertainment lies in optimizing the workflow of content creation —spanning production, postproduction, and content delivery. GPUs play a critical role in each of these stages, powering everything from augmented special effects to virtual production environments and efficient media distribution. 

The challenge is simplifying the technology so that we focus on delivering content rather than managing its complexity. Innovative solutions that create greater complexity may invariably lead to system fragility and downtime, impacting content delivery while increasing project costs.  Wherever possible, we need to minimize these risks when deploying innovative solutions. 

Scaling Virtual Production Efficiently 

One of the major advancements in production is the rise of virtual production environments. Modern stages now feature high-resolution volume walls—dynamic displays that let creators design and switch between environments in real time. GPUs are at the core of this technology, enabling the creation of large, high-resolution environments that run on off-the-shelf servers at scale. 

A key challenge is achieving the right balance of environment size, resolution, and content generation, all of which require significant compute power. However, traditional setups often limit GPU density, leading to inefficiencies. At Cerio, we focus on scaling the core technology behind these environments, optimizing both the applications generating simulations and the systems displaying them. 

Reducing Infrastructure Overhead 

Current virtual production setups typically use a low number of GPUs per server, requiring more infrastructure—more servers, networking, power, and cooling—all of which increase costs and environmental impact. 

To address this, we’ve explored ways to minimize overhead while maximizing quality and scale. Traditional setups may only allow two GPUs per server, limiting resolution and display footprint. At Cerio, we help customers increase GPU density, enabling at least four times the number of GPUs (and outputs) per server, with a goal of going even higher. This approach allows for larger, high-resolution environments without expanding server infrastructure. 

Optimizing Postproduction Workflows 

Once production is complete, the focus shifts to postproduction, where content is refined with special effects like denoising, color grading, and material rendering for different formats. Efficient GPU allocation is crucial here—each artist may need different GPUs or varying amounts of compute power depending on their task. 

If an artist is working on-site, GPUs used in virtual production can be repurposed, without the need to physically move these GPUS, for postproduction. Even when working remotely, having the right balance of GPU types and capacities ensures an efficient workflow. Poor management leads to either over-provisioning (increased costs) or under-provisioning (workflow slowdowns). 

Striking the Right Balance Between Cost, Flexibility, and Simplicity 

Traditionally, simplifying GPU deployment meant purchasing larger servers with built-in GPUs. While this reduces complexity at a high level, it comes at a high cost and limited flexibility. On the other hand, prioritizing flexibility often results in over-provisioning, increasing infrastructure costs. 

At Cerio, we help customers scale efficiently, enhance flexibility, and reduce costs by ensuring the right mix of resources is available to the right users at the right stage of the workflow, without the complexity of physically redistributing compute resources. Our goal is to deliver the best of all three—cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and simplicity—without compromise.