Until a few years ago, the term “ingest” was relegated to medical usage, usually meaning “take into the body.” Ingest might be through inhalation, injection, absorption or simply through the mouth.
Today, of course, the word has been embraced by digital technology and the manufacturers that market related products and systems. In video production, ingest simply means to bring a new program elements into a studio or facility. Ingest can be in the form of conventional video, compressed data streams or data files. Usually the material is stored on a server.
As video facilities migrate toward an IT infrastructure, files are usually the fastest and most reliable form of ingest material for a compatible server.
Once in the form of a file and with appropriate metadata attached, ingested media elements can be turned into easily used assets. Ingest, and the newly emerging technical standards associated with it, is one of the hottest areas in asset management.
