managing assets
DAM Systems
24
BY Ryan Salazar
BEST PRACTICE:
Asset Management in Broadcast and Post Production
Many assets are in different formats, making their management even trickier.
The better Digital Asset Management products keep all sorts of things in check. They organize everything into a single interface and keep track of clips, project files, scripts (as in copy!) and some even monitor available storage. Comprised of both content (or “essence” — the actual clip) and metadata (a description of the content, which includes the title, author, creation date, description and other things, such as the standards used, like the format or bit rate), the handling of an original clip can be a formidable task. Taking an original from the server, sharing it among a few workstations (capable of altering the original in an undestructible fashion) creates a new number of assets (as many as was shared) to be tracked; the more artists with their hands on the clip, the more assets to catalog.
“The key to Media Asset Management systems is the understanding that ‘media’ has been disentangled from a ‘medium’ in the modern production environment,” explains Karim Miteff, Sales Account Manager at Niche Video Products. “This is especially significant in an age where primary acquisition storage is reused and overwritten, unlike traditional tape which was, once transferred, usually consigned to a shelf along with a shot list or some other description of its contents. Today, most audio visual material is acquired and then transferred, usually to a form which is unsuited for long-term storage or retrieval. A DAM system is designed to act and is most useful when it is deployed as a central clearing house for all acquired assets for a production. The assets are allied to projects via metadata tags with the ability to link them as deemed necessary, making them eminently searchable and often providing thumbnails and persistent audio-visual playback whether an asset is ‘online’ or in deep archive.”
News organizations experience reuse of digital assets, as well as consumers. Although archiving assets, many in different formats with their varying metadata, is a Herculean chore, it is made easy by today’s equipment and know-how. Much raw footage is shot for news stories and ends-up unused — the final cut being shown and then forgotten. The unused footage becomes fodder for future use by the newsroom or others, for varying purposes. These are the assets that must be kept track of and stored properly. Today, modern DAM includes its handling from its raw stages to its many incarnations, and even to its finished form(s). “This is where Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems provide the crucial, often missing component in otherwise technically sophisticated organizations,” says Miteff.
In the past, I have walked into edit suites and watched an editor label footage without any thinking involved. For example, I’ve seen a video to detail should be paid. (Continued, next page)
Broadcast Beat Magazine / Sep-Dec, 2014