Managing Assets in the Digital Age

While slick new web technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flex are adding welcome interactivity to the latest digital-asset-management apps, MediaBeacon''s new R3volution 3.0 (shown here) interface employs nonproprietary standards already built into browsers.

No big news here: Content owners, who once had only a couple of potential distribution channels, now are faced with a multitude of expanding venues for their work. At NAB Show 2009, for example, longtime audio console maker Solid State Logic introduced its Gravity media-asset-management system, citing users' desire to address growing markets including IPTV and broadcast playout.

What is new is that digital-asset-management (DAM) apps are getting cheaper and easier to implement. Entry-level systems from the top vendors can start north of $100,000, but many new vendors are targeting smaller businesses by offering cheaper apps or moving to a web-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach. ITC Infotech's Amit Kumar describes the company's new web-based offering as "a poor man's DAM," with prices starting at $25,000.

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Meanwhile, hesitant facilities and other small businesses can try DAM implementation without spending a nickel on software, as a recent trend toward open-source DAM from companies such as Montala and Razuna puts the pricey packages on notice.

"If you are producing content today, you have to make sure you get it out to more venues than ever before, whether its websites or the iPhone," says George Grippo, VP of media asset management at North Plains Systems. "Otherwise, you're losing viewers and advertising dollars. Digital-asset-management software simply helps you be quicker and more efficient with your content."

Demonstrating the updated interface and video annotation capabilities in the most recent release of North Plains' TeleScope Video Manager at June's Henry Stewart DAM conference in New York, Grippo said that robust metadata is more than a search enabler, it is the "value added to a workflow," since it streamlines product search for a customer and acts as the basis for a successful sales process.

Another concern heard at the conference: Proprietary standards were holding back broader use of metadata apps. "Don't integrate with proprietary DAM formats," says Jason Bright, CTO of MediaBeacon, adding that open standards are key for a future-proof DAM.

Adobe's Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) turned up in a number of new DAM products, including those from MediaBeacon. This open-source labeling technology for visual media allows users to embed metadata into each file—and if they're smart, keep it "strongly attached" through the file's whole lifetime. Adobe uses XMP extensively in Creative Suite; this allows users to capture, share, and leverage the metadata for more efficient job processing, workflow automation, and rights management.

MediaBeacon's R3volution 3.0 widget platform, which was introduced at the show, takes open source a step further. Employing a drag-and-drop interface, users mix and match the company's DAM-related widgets with Google Gadgets, Google Open Syndication, and Open Social Containers. "You don't have to work through the usual building of data classifications," Bright says. "You simply work with the data built into the object. This approach changes the rules of the DAM game."