Understanding Media Asset Management
MAM System Architectures—Workgroup to Enterprise
MAM systems can be deployed on any scale. Many organizations decide to "test the waters" by implementing a small workgroup system designed to allow a handful of users to ingest and find video assets. Typically, systems like this are found in a corporate video library or small media production environment. In this scenario, the role of the MAM system is to simply provide a digital catalog of assets that enables users to quickly locate and preview video by performing keyword searches. Even though there is a streaming media proxy to preview a video clip, the video master may still be a tape on a shelf with a barcode sticker. Any fulfillment requests such as tape dubs, preview reels, etc. are still handled manually.
The Naval Media Center in Washington, DC, mentioned earlier in this article, is currently using this type of system. It is a huge leap forward from relying on Wilma and her three-ring binder. However, the Naval Media Center is closely watching how users interact with the system, how workflow can be improved, and what features need to be implemented next. The information they have been gathering over the last year has created the foundation for the requirements of the bigger, better system they hope to install next year.
On the other end of the spectrum, University of North Carolina Television issued an RFP last year soliciting bids for an enterprise MAM system that would automate almost every aspect of video ingest, archiving, production, and even broadcast-to-air. The system, which was to be used by several regional public television stations, would have included many terabytes in storage, thousands of hours of archive-quality MPEG-2 video, multiple bit rate proxies in both Real and Windows Media for every video clip, integration with their existing digital broadcast servers, enough video logging stations to ingest several TV stations on a 24/7 basis, and full offsite redundancy so that all this could still operate in the event of a catastrophe. Needless to say, fabulous bells and whistles like those come with a hefty price tag. The average bid for a system that met all of their requirements was about $8,000,000—not surprisingly, the University of North Carolina Television did not move forward with the project due to lack of funds.
The Role of Streaming Media
While many MAMs handle streaming media as an asset type, streaming media technologies play a particularly central role in any MAM system designed to handle video. Many organizations with modest budgets choose to run their video through a logging tool that operates one or more streaming media encoders automatically to create a proxy (or preview file). Then they put the logged videotape back on the shelf instead of using valuable disk storage to store a large high bit rate digital file. The streams can be served from local servers or a Content Distribution Network so that users anywhere can search the archive.
Companies with more robust budgets may choose to create 25 to 50Mbps MPEG-2 archive-quality digital video files, which can then be transcoded on-the-fly into a streaming format if needed. This file can also serve as a digital master—it can be broadcast, composited, or used in editing.
MAM systems vary widely in their ability to handle streaming media files in a useful way for video professionals. Since streaming media formats do not natively carry SMPTE time-code markers, the best MAM systems will use stored SMPTE references for a streaming file and provide an interface that mimics a real-time code display as users watch the preview file. This is very important to those in the video production or post-production fields.
Many MAM systems also have the ability to accommodate more advanced streaming-specific issues like Content Distribution Network (CDN) serving and Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. If you have settled on a CDN or a DRM package, make sure your MAM system can be integrated by studying the Software Developers Kit (SDK) and Application Programming Interface (API) provided by the vendor.
Related Articles
Whether they're called digital asset management (DAM), media asset management (MAM), or production asset management (PAM), they all help organize digital libraries.
06 Oct 2015