Mediatech Africa is gearing up for a successful exhibition from 17-19 July at The Coca-Cola Dome, Northgate, Johannesburg. The tradeshow is in its 7th edition, delivering an array of products and services in advanced technology for industry professionals and tech enthusiasts.
Along with 800 brands on display by 125 leading companies, the interactive hub is a portal for the latest in cutting-edge technology and trends. The collection and management of digital assets has become a growing conversation among local industry professionals, who are starting to grasp this method of storing and presenting content.
Media asset management (MAM) is a very broad term. It means different things to different people as to what functions it encompasses, or more importantly, what it doesn't. Despite this confusion MAM has become just as important to a small production company as it is to the biggest of broadcasters.
The terminology, media asset management, or its abbreviated form, MAM, encompasses several functional areas, including ingest, annotation, cataloguing, short term storage, archiving, retrieval and delivery and/or variations of the above.
The bottom line is that the overall function of a MAM system is to keep track of where content is located and help users find it. As the adage goes - if you know you have it but you don't know exactly where it is... then it doesn't exist.
In the early days, the forerunner to MAM consisted of pieces of paper and filing cards. As libraries grew and technology improved, the filed paper sheets and cards were replaced by computer spreadsheets to track which shots were on which film reels or tapes, and on what shelf in the archive library.
Several years ago, production workflows were much more linear than they are today. For example, in a broadcast environment, a tape would come into newsroom after the shoot, someone would mark and label the tape and fill out a basic log sheet, an editor would pick up the tape, edit and deliver the finished story to the control room for inclusion in the next news bulletin. If the story was particularly important, the tape would put it on a shelf in the library and its location catalogued for later retrieval.
New technology and process workflows have enabled major changes to the old way of working. Today, the archive serves as a central repository for content, and the MAM system allows users to locate the material they need at a fast rate. Several editors can simultaneously work on the same source material to create different products. For example, a producer may send a particularly important news story directly to air as it arrives from the field. At the same time, the MAM system transcodes and sends the source material to the archive. Editors begin creating rough-cut stories from the source almost immediately, simultaneously versioning the content for later news bulletins, mobile content and internet feeds.
In the post environment, many people may want access to the same content at the same time. This was near impossible when editing systems were primarily tape-based. But as we move to networked and fibre-linked editing environments, it becomes possible for the user to change from a linear workflow to a collective, shared environment. That is the function of a MAM system - to help multiple users find, share and keep track of where content is located.
Approach to development
Most companies looking at adopting a MAM system face a number of issues from the outset. The first one is the inevitable transition from film and tape to file. The second (not often considered) is the increasing number of platforms and content demands of each of these platforms. Both of these issues require a substantial investment in new technologies which are costly, but choosing the correct technological solution will ultimately add new revenue streams.
Another issue that project planners need to take into account is the time it takes to implement a MAM system into their environment. It would probably take up to a year to specify, design and build the project and then another year odd to refine the system to optimal performance. A common error often made is not allocating enough time up front to define the requirements, if the initial specifications are not right, the project is doomed for failure from the outset.
There are some prime examples of companies that spent a lot of time and money on research for the ideal MAM system suited for their business needs. Take Associated Press (AP) for example. This 160-year-old company is home to one of the most extensive collections of news, film and video footage in the world. AP decided to look into conversion from film and video to digital file formats which would open their unique archive to a new audience across a new set of platforms, and enable delivery of new high resolution content through their distribution networks. After months of discussion and consultation Prime Focus Technologies (PFT) was selected to deliver AP's vision.
Driven by CLEAR, PFT's content operations platform, a total of 900 000 film asset files were created and 2 900 000 video assets were created, totalling over 3 800 000 new assets, digitised, catalogued and archived in just 18 months. The MAM system has changed the way AP operates. Through working with PFT to digitise its archive, AP has made its valuable content available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world.
On the local front in South Africa and on a smaller scale but with equal success, Aquavision TV Productions adopted Squarebox Systems CatDV media asset management software 18 months ago.
Housing the largest high definition (HD) wildlife library in Africa and representing contributors from around the world, Aquavision has digitised its entire library creating reference proxy files for the HD tape content, which remain as their archive masters, and uses the MAM system to archive all file-based material to LTO tape as well as create reference proxies which are stored on a 32TB NAS array for offline editing purposes.
A team of loggers have catalogued the entire library to their own specifications and Aquavision is planning on publishing the data base in XML format to make them accessible on the web within a browser so that outside clients can view, select and purchase stock footage for their productions.
How is SA doing?
Is the local market 'catching on' to the concept of MAM or are we lagging behind because of a lack of understanding?
Says Ivan Bridgens, CEO, LaserNet: "The local market is getting its feet wet in a small way but growth in this section of the market will escalate at a rapid rate once understanding takes hold and reliable ways of storing and presenting content emerge.
I think South Africa is starting to understand the digital media world now and is beginning to realise that storing content in a digital form is affordable and secure. Storing content on a hard drive on the shelf has burnt a lot of companies - they now realise they can't retrieve their old content. As a result these companies are thinking differently about how to store content.
Jaques Welthagen from Zimele Broadcast Services comments: "I don't think it's a case of not 'catching on' but rather stretching the rand to see how far they can push it and get away without MAM, thus broadening the divide. One-inch tape (Umatic), even Betacam, is going to be nearly impossible to retrieve in the future and where are those assets now? MAM is a tool, just like a router in a facility and must be approached in that fashion and not like a necessary evil. It is the core of the digital asset driver."
Most NB functions
So, what functions do South Africans in general deem most important in a MAM system?
Concilium Technologies Andrew Cole comments: "Within the large broadcasters, the ability to improve workflows across multiple channels is the big driver. Of course this encompasses ingest, archiving and integration with scheduling and automation systems. One of the key advantages is the ability to move material off legacy tape and into the MAM environment for repurposing."
Bridgens adds: "We have found that managing the movement of digital media, tracking the content and presenting the content has increased rapidly in South Africa."
Zimele's Weldhagen adds: "Every facility or owner has unique requirements but I would certainly think that media integrity (QC) must be one of the top requirements. That coupled with a strong and mature workflow must be identified right from the outset."
Cloud impact
Has the advent of the cloud made any difference to companies approaching MAM solutions or is local storage still key to decision makers?
Welthagen responds: "In this case I suppose the 'owner' of the content will have to make a decision on a couple of things like security, retrieval costs and data speed and service costs but I think for smaller enterprises the cloud has huge advantages. The term 'content everywhere' is used quite often lately. With fibre rolling out and the last mile being made more affordable we can certainly expect growth here as this market is still in its infancy. Positives are scalable, affordable hardware while on the downside software should be able to run in a virtual hosted environment, so safety still remains an issue."
Bridgens notes: "The cloud companies are being increasingly utilised and the understanding of what is possible is becoming more evident. A lot of agencies and broadcasters are using LaserNet cloud service to manage their content easily and effectively. Currently, LaserNet stores between 30TB to 40TB a month of data in our CLEARvault."
Cole adds: "Local storage is still key to MAM solutions in the African context. The lack of cost-effective high speed data connections will continue to hamper efforts to move content into the cloud."
On the international scene Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource based in the USA, comments: "The toughest part of cloud computing (in asset management) is that getting large amounts of data in and out of the cloud is almost impossible no matter how fat your network connection is. The fastest way to transfer 3TB to 5TB of data is still FedEx. It really is hard to get your data - large amounts of data - in and out."
OpSource, a Dimension Data company, is a multi national cloud and managed hosting solutions company which provides scaled management services to a growing number of companies.
Return on investment?
The biggest challenge in implementing a system is figuring out how to pay for it. MAM systems typically generate costs in one area, but deliver high value not only in that area and other areas as well. It may cost a significant amount of money to purchase, install and train personnel to operate the systems and the archive group may incur additional costs in time and personnel during logging and cataloguing.
But the true benefits of MAM systems typically provide the advantage to other users of the system - researchers, scriptwriters and post-production departments, for example. This usually means that the archive department incurs all the costs, while other departments receive the benefits.
It is often said that nobody with a sane mind can run a modern digital based business without a MAM - it would be like having the internet without search engines. Too true, it's time for all of us to manage our assets... now where did I save this document?
It has become apparently vital, not only to participate in the benefits of these emerging digital tools but to stay ahead of the pack in terms of the latest trends in cutting edge technology. Mediatech Africa is an interactive hub where visitors are invited to engage and experience technology in keeping with leading industry developments. By providing unique access to workshops, live demos and international speakers, the exhibition remains a must see on everyone's calendar. Join in on the action by registering online at www.mediatech.co.za, before 7 July to avoid paying R50 at the door.
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