In the world of graphics and animation, it's not uncommon to deal with an immense number of media assets created in different formats and resolutions. Considering the time pressure that artists work under, there's no question that digital asset management (DAM) can be of great benefit. While DAM solutions all do essentially the same things--such as allowing users to track, search, retrieve, transcode and access rich media assets on digital storage--they differ in the ways they get the job done.
One key differentiator is that DAM is offered as software you purchase or as a service you subscribe to. If you decide to purchase the DAM software outright, there's a substantial upfront capital cost for the software and whatever is needed to integrate it within your facility. You must also act as your own systems administrator, seeing to regular maintenance and upgrades whenever necessary. But software vendors say that once the installation is paid for, you can use it cost effectively for years to come.
On the other hand, the DAM service providers say that if you subscribe to their service, you can spare yourself that huge upfront capital outlay and simply "turn on" their asset management service and get right to work. This pay-as-you-go approach is also conductive to project-based and billable work. But, while you must pay their monthly fee for as long as you need to use their service, you're spared the systems administration headaches.
Either way, whether it's software or a service, the vendors we spoke with stressed that DAM can make a facility's workflow far more productive and efficient. For graphics and animation in particular, they say DAM and workflow management go hand-in-hand.
AVID ALIENBRAIN STUDIO
"Alienbrain Studio offers a return on investment [ROI] by dovetailing with a facility's existing workflow and tracking and managing assets as an intuitive, unobtrusive process," says Matthias , senior product manager for Alienbrain, at Avid Technology's computer graphics group in Tewksbury, MA. "With the use of software plug-ins, Alienbrain Studio 7.1 can work within the Softimage|XSI, Alias Maya and Autodesk 3DS Max environments, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office."
Alienbrain Studio can automatically track the comings and goings of each media asset as it moves about in the collaborative review and approval process. "If an artist searches for a particular file, every version of that asset and every asset relevant to the search will come up, whether the asset is stored online, near-line, or on an archival medium," says . "And that artist will be able to see the entire history of a particular asset and pinpoint who has it, if it is being worked on, where the bottleneck is, or if it's been approved.
"If artists need to create graphics and animations, they can search for similar assets already in the database so as to repurpose those rather than starting over from scratch," he says. "Also, when artists are working in collaboration, Alienbrain Studio can prevent duplicate efforts caused by two artists working on the same file at the same time without each other's knowledge."
And when it's time to move assets from valuable online storage, the digital files can be placed into "buckets" and moved as a group onto nearline storage or offline to DVDs or data tape where they continue to be tracked.
ONSTREAM DIGITAL MEDIA SERVICES
"With our service-based approach, small- to mid-sized creative shops can take advantage of enterprise-class DAM software at a very economical price-point," says Mike , VP strategic alliances for Onstream Media in Pompano Beach, FL. "Without the high up-front capital cost of buying DAM software and integrating it into the facility, these creatives can simply 'turn on' a service that enables them to start managing all of their graphics, animation and video assets. This approach is especially ideal for facilities that serve and bill clients for project-based work.
"Our goal was to simplify DAM for our customers so they could focus on growing their businesses versus managing and administering another complex technology system," says . While Onstream Media counts Disney, New Line Cinema, AOL and PBS among its customers, says creative shops of two to 20 people can leverage the same powerful DAM software large companies use by subscribing to its Digital Media Services Platform. The monthly fee is determined by such factors as the amount of storage or services required. Besides asset management, Onstream also offers Webcasting and Webconferencing, as well as its EDNet digital dailies service.
"Our Digital Media Services Platform offers support for over 250 file formats," says . "We have partnered with many best-in-class products, including the Virage Logger; Telestream Flip Factory and Clip Mail; Adobe Creative Suite; Digimark watermarking; and Apple's Final Cut Pro. These entertainment-specific tools integrate to form a scalable, flexible DAM solution that encompasses the ability to ingest, encode, index, manage, and even monetize, rich media libraries of nearly unlimited size."
"With the explosion of digital media, artists and animators can be dealing with literally millions of elements that comprise their finished product," says Todd Eckler, senior VP of North Plains Systems in Toronto. "The traditional model of linear organizational structure--organizing things in folders according to projects--just doesn't satisfy today's demands for media asset management."
North Plains' TeleScope software is a DAM whose capabilities fall into several areas: tracking renditions, different file formats of the master asset; the parent-child derivative relationship tracking graphics back to the original raw materials; and version control to ensure that TeleScope users are always able to identify the latest approved version of an asset. TeleScope supports all major metadata models, including MPEG-7, Dublin Core, Prism and MXF, as well as static and time-based media workflows.
"'Children,' or assets derived from graphics, can have multiple 'parents' and a rendition can have numerous versions," Eckler explains. "So that's why the volume of graphics in the database can grow exponentially. When we developed TeleScope 11 years ago, we envisioned that content creators would deal with millions of assets organized in complex relationships. We designed TeleScope with this graphics and animation environment in mind."
OPEN TEXT'S ARTESIA
The challenge for content creators, especially those doing graphics and animation, is that their files can be up to film resolution," says Guy , VP of product management for Artesia, an Open Text Corporation company, in Rockville, MD. "Yet they often need to manage them down to the frame level, as well as to track every version as it moves through the review-and-approval process."
Open Text, which recently acquired Artesia, is a provider of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) software, which is now benefiting Artesia by broadening its capabilities.
Since Artesia was first formed in 1999, it has been in use by HBO, Discovery Communications, Electronic Arts and Major League Baseball's Advanced Media. Leading videogame developer Electronic Arts in San Francisco uses Artesia DAM software to support every aspect of its workflow, including graphics and audio files.
"Think about a videogame about NASCAR, where every animated car has brand imagery all over it," says . "When artists search for particular logos to put on the cars, they need to know which versions have been approved and any usage restrictions that apply. Asset and rights management is critical for Electronic Arts, considering the huge volume of graphics in their database."
New York's HBO has been using Artesia to search, find and manage media assets since they first began producing promotions for the hit series Sex and the City. "They not only needed to find and manage image files of Sarah Jessica Parker, they needed to ensure that they were only using those assets according to the rigorously-defined terms in her talent contract or they could have been sued," he says .
HBO phased in the use of Artesia, starting with promotions production, so as not to throw the organization into shock from changes to the workflow. says, "Change management is critical to the use and acceptance of DAM software by editors and artists. In our upcoming Version 6.5 [due out in August], we have included a feature called the 'Creative Desktop,' which allows Artesia to track assets as a background process from within the creative software tools that editors and artists are using without their realizing that asset management functions are even being performed."
Also, for small- to mid-sized facilities, or those ramping up for the production of a single project, says that Artesia is also being offered as the basis of a DAM service by Thought Equity and Globix.
ASCENT'S HUB
"By offering asset management as a service, our customers do not need to make a huge upfront capital investment for DAM software, any computer hardware necessary, or resort to developing their own proprietary DAM solution," says Philip , VP/GM of Hub, an Ascent Media Creative Services company, in Santa Monica. Ascent Media Creative Services offers Hub, a service for DAM and storage of both digital media files as well as physical media assets.
"By leveraging a Web platform, Hub users can access the system via the Internet to view, manage and download their assets--including all types of graphics file formats--as low-resolution proxies, or download the assets in full-resolution. They can also request that the physical media we have put in storage be sent to them," says Francesca Cohn, VP strategic development for Ascent Media Creative Services.
Because Hub is flexible and customizable to the user's workflow, Hub users can either ingest and encode their own videotapes and enter their own metadata, or hand some or all of those tasks to Hub to do for them. "We customize their Hub experience to support whatever metadata terminology or nomenclature they prefer," says Cohn. "Also, Hub's asset management core supports industry-standard protocols for file and metadata management."
Hub's clientele includes Sony, Coca-Cola, Mattel, Nike and Toyota, all of whom have massive media asset libraries to manage. But, because Hub offers sophisticated system management and support technicians who maintain the system and ensure that databases are safe and secure, it can also benefit smaller organizations as well.
Hub allows users to access the system from any location and extend permission to access their asset databases to third parties, such as their post facilities or ad agencies. "The return on investment for Hub is realized by time saved searching for media assets and dubbing them off to videotape for others to use and review," he says . "Revenue opportunities can also stem from being able to re-use and re-purpose valuable archival media assets more efficiently."
PROXIMITY ARTBOX
"With our Artbox DAM solution, it's easy to access assets sitting on different platforms and to configure the environment to support your workflow," says Sai , SVP sales and marketing for Proximity Corporation in New York. Launched in June 2004, Artbox automatically scours the contents of different servers as well as storage devices peripheral to systems by Quantel, Avid, Discreet, Adobe and more--and creates thumbnail or low-rez proxy images representing any new media it finds. "Low-rez proxies and thumbnails can remain on our system indefinitely so that users can always determine where the original media has been moved," says . High-res image files could reside on Artbox's server, but doing so would consume the storage capacity at a faster rate.
Following what called a "subscription-response model," Artbox can be programmed to conform to any workflow by sending prompts to which the user responds. For example, it can be configured to send alerts to content creators that new media has arrived into the Artbox. And it can prompt users to respond by specifying the actions to take--such as add metadata, send a work order to notify producers that the asset is ready to be worked on, or to move it to the archive. "Artbox will capture whatever metadata is associated with any media asset, however, we allow users to add far more detailed metadata into user-definable, searchable fields than most solutions allow," says .
Proximity's Artbox has a wide customer base in the broadcast market, including MTV and Channel 5 in the UK, both of which use it for tracking assets related to the production of promos. However, says Proximity is now interested in introducing Artbox to the post community, beginning with facilities doing graphics-intensive commercials and promo production.
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FRONT PORCH'S DIVA-DIRECTOR, DIVARCHIVE
"The case for buying DAM software versus 'renting' it through a service provider is that with the service-based approach, your TCO is extremely high because your costs never go away," says Brian , CTO for Front Porch Digital "You can argue that the money you spent subscribing to a service could have been applied to capital costs of owning your system."
Front Porch Digital, a division of Incentra Solutions in Boulder, CO, counts many large media companies among its installed base of nearly 100 customers, including Disney, MTV, Discovery, Comcast, A&E Networks and Sony Pictures.
Front Porch's flagship product is DIVarchive, a modular, integrated storage management system with powerful, built-in file transcoding capabilities. Front Porch also offers a low-cost, entry-level DAM solution called DIVAdirector, which includes tracking of all assets, low bitrate proxy browse and robust metadata search. While DIVAdirector acts as the complementary DAM module, customers can use many third-party DAM softwares with DIVarchive.
Proximity's Artbox has a wide customer base in the broadcast market, including MTV and Channel 5 in the UK, both of which use it for tracking assets related to the production of promos. However, says Proximity is now interested in introducing Artbox to the post community, beginning with facilities doing graphics-intensive commercials and promo production.
FRONT PORCH'S DIVA-DIRECTOR, DIVARCHIVE
"The case for buying DAM software versus 'renting' it through a service provider is that with the service-based approach, your TCO is extremely high because your costs never go away," says Brian , CTO for Front Porch Digital. "You can argue that the money you spent subscribing to a service could have been applied to capital costs of owning your system."
Front Porch Digital, a division of Incentra Solutions in Boulder, CO, counts many large media companies among its installed base of nearly 100 customers, including Disney, MTV, Discovery, Comcast, A&E Networks and Sony Pictures.
Front Porch's flagship product is DIVarchive, a modular, integrated storage management system with powerful, built-in file transcoding capabilities. Front Porch also offers a low-cost, entry-level DAM solution called DIVAdirector, which includes tracking of all assets, low bitrate proxy browse and robust metadata search. While DIVAdirector acts as the complementary DAM module, customers can use many third-party DAM softwares with DIVarchive.
"Until now, we've been focusing on the broadcast space," says . "But now, we are looking to develop interfaces between our software and top graphics and animation software to provide DAM and storage management for this key marketplace."
CANTO'S CUMULUS
Cumulus, a DAM software package from Canto Software, allows users to create a database tracking all types of digital files, including images, audio and office documents. Users can use that database to manage, find, retrieve, share, distribute and reuse digital media content.
"At the time that a digital asset is cataloged in the database, Cumulus will extract the metadata associated with that file and create thumbnail representations of it, provided it has a filter for that particular file format. If it does not have the right filter for that file format, Cumulus will still create an entry into the catalog, but it will only include basic information, such as the file format, file creation data and file size," says Robert Welch, fulfillment manager for Canto Software Corporation, at the US sales and technical support office in San Francisco. Canto's headquarters are in Berlin, Germany.
"The database itself is also customizable so you can create additional fields of information that you need to have associated with the various files," says Welch. "Given that the file itself is not part of the Cumulus catalog, there is no restriction to file size. What matters is that the information about the file doesn't exceed 4GB in capacity, including the thumbnails and metadata entries."
Cumulus is available as a single-user or workgroup edition, both for Windows or Mac OS X. The workgroup edition is a server-client architecture designed for creative collaboration by multiple users over a LAN (Local Area Network), and it runs on Windows, Mac OS X or Unix servers.
Lastly, these vendors indicated that another important differentiator is what percentage of the DAM vendor's business is actually focused on DAM. They said it's advantageous to choose a vendor for who DAM is their core competence rather than just a part of a diversified product or service portfolio.
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