Digital media asset management
Jun 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By Christine Jecko
DMAM systems help maintain brand awareness and monetize assets effectively in a multiplatform market.
A workflow engine can process video to prepared templates, in this case, capturing and
resizing frames, and then storing them as a single JPEG files.
Select figure to enlarge.
Broadcasters and other content providers realized enormous gains in flexibility as they transitioned from tape-based operations to digital media. Coincident with this transition came the rapid expansion of content distribution channels, which extended beyond conventional print and broadcast media to include a variety of new platforms, such as Internet portals and mobile media services. Making it easier than ever for consumers to access and “pull” content at their convenience, these new technologies and platforms put increased competitive pressures on content providers. They recognized an urgent need to offer services over new channels if they were to maintain audiences and the corresponding ad revenues vital to the bottom line. The entry of telcos and ISPs into the fray further heightened the urgency of effective multiplatform delivery as newcomers to the broadcast industry began acquiring rights to content; providing voice, video, and data to customers; and billing for those services.
To remain competitive and to meet consumer demand for content across multiple platforms, many content providers initially established parallel production chains for delivery of repurposed content. Facing growing volumes of media in multiple versions — and facing still-increasing numbers of distribution targets — many media companies found it necessary to recast their operations with a new focus on managing a single brand across multiple outlets, including broadcast TV channels, newspapers, radio stations, Web portals, mobile TV and iPhone applications.
This brand-focused model is defined by one primary objective: keeping consumers on the brand from dawn until dusk, across all activities performed and locations visited in the course of a day. To satisfy this challenge, the content provider must be equipped to feed each platform and device on a daily basis. Building more and more production chains to achieve this goal is a highly inefficient exercise. Rather, for the brand-focused multiplatform model to be economically viable, the content provider must be able to provide significantly more content with a minimal incremental increase in the cost of producing that content. If deployed appropriately, today's advanced digital media asset management (DMAM) systems offer the flexibility and functionality to enable the necessary efficiencies and economies of scale required for maximum revenue in multiplatform distribution.
Workflow definition
The shift to digital media and IT-based workflows represents more than a technical change; it has a practical impact, too, changing the way content providers work. When operations were dependent on tape as a vehicle for moving content through a facility and workflow, it was tape that served as the link between proprietary, independently operating storage, automation, post production and other essential systems and determined how they would work together. Moving from that world of proprietary technologies to more open IT-based environments, content providers must capitalize on the opportunity to optimize overall workflows through smooth interoperability and seamless integration of critical systems.
Prior to taking on technical and infrastructure issues associated with implementation of a DMAM, the content provider must define the desired workflow and identify the roles staff and systems will play in that workflow. After determining the distribution chains that must be supported, the company must create a step-by-step model and parallel processes by which raw material is transformed into the products delivered to different platforms. In building this digital media factory, the content provider needs to account for future growth in network size, increase in number or capacity of server systems, the addition of transcoding facilities and any other changes that might require scaling up of the DMAM system. Finally, the DMAM system should include a mechanism for monitoring the software and hardware comprising the overall workflow and for detecting issues and resolving them before the production chain is disrupted.
Technical and infrastructure issues
The content provider rarely starts from scratch when implementing an end-to-end workflow supporting multiplatform media distribution. The requisite servers, archives, nonlinear edit systems and other major production and broadcast systems are likely in place already. The key lies in building both the technical foundation and the operational model to support a streamlined workflow that allows producers, journalists, archivists and others to access, prepare and deliver content via the appropriate channel.
By supplying content owners with a strategy for linking vital systems and by facilitating the ingest, indexing, broadcast/publishing and archiving of content — whether video, audio or images — on any medium or platform, a single DMAM system can support effective management, repurposing and monetization of media assets. The DMAM must address four fundamental challenges to perform this role successfully: interoperability, integration, compatibility and ergonomics.
Interoperability
In an ideal IT-based environment, all systems should be interoperable. In reality, it often is up to the DMAM system, relying on standard IT technologies, to enable interoperability among different applications running on different platforms or frameworks. This is made possible by a Web Services Architecture, which uses HTTP with an XML serialization, along with other standards, to exchange messages with third-party systems and streamline their operation across the workflow. Additional “connectors” enabled by the system's API and SDK can provide command lists that allow the DMAM to send and receive information from other third-party systems in a standardized manner. Thus, each time the DMAM interfaces with a particular system, it is equipped with a set of rules guiding and governing the interaction.
Integration
In a departure from the history of proprietary solutions developed for the broadcast industry, a high degree of interoperability is a vital characteristic of a DMAM system intended to support multiplatform media delivery. High interoperability enables tight integration, and established DMAM systems typically offer more of this functionality — and do so more reliably — as a result of already being installed across a large base featuring a variety of third-party systems.
The capacity of a vendor to provide an API and SDK for its solution is critical to successful integration, as these tools offer users a way to enter the DMAM system and to create a bidirectional dialog with the system and other devices in the workflow. Without this dialog, the system is a black box.
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