Archive of the Digital Asset Management Category

Back from the show. I like taking a day or so after my last postings to look through everything I’ve collected, selecting some last items to include in a final wrapup. While that’s not a lot of time for deep reflection, I am at least far enough away from the hype of the moment to enable a bit of perspective.

At the NAB press office earlier this week I overheard an NAB official talk to the editor of one of the leading trade mags. He was asked about what he thought would be among the most exciting developments of the show. Instead, he begged off answering, stating that as far as he was concerned it was all just a rehash. He could find nothing new or interesting worth commenting on. more

With the increasing use of capable high-end digital cameras, the ability to manipulate data as soon as possible looks to yield great benefits in speeding production as well as ensuring delivery of the directors vision. UK-based FilmLight made a move in this increasingly competitive space–Arri, da Vinci, and LaserPacific are just a few of the companies working on products and proposed solutions–with the introduction of Truelight On-Set at the show.

The company has made a name for itself as one as the leaders in color management technology in post. On-Set takes that capability to the earlier stages of a production, enabling the director and DP to set a look during the shoot that will serve as the foundation for color correction in post. more

GridIron Flow is a project organization tool for people who don’t want to take the time to get organized. Think of it in the context of Adobe Production Studio, with content like PSD and AI files. At a high level, it provides a workflow map that shows all the content you input into a Premiere Pro, After Effects or even Final Cut Pro project (see Figure). From the map, you can track a particular piece of content through project.

For example, say you created a Photoshop file that you used to create a motion menu in After Effects, as a background for titles in Premiere Pro and a menu in Encore. Client calls and asks you to change the font size or adjust the color. A quick look at Flow shows that while the initial change will probably take 30 seconds in Photoshop, the “collateral damage” in the other applications could take hours to resolve. more

As HBO’s Christian Wilson urged me to do on Sunday, I stopped by the Aspera booth (SU15509) this morning to learn more about that company’s high-speed file transfer software suite. I was fortunate to run into Michelle Munson, Aspera’s president and co-founder, while I was there, and she filled me in on the company’s story.

While the technical explanation of how Aspera’s “fasp 2.0″ software suite addresses the twin issues of speed and ultra-security for major entertainment clients like HBO, Technicolor, Ascent Media, EFilm, and many others–most of whom are building Aspera, one way or another, into their larger digital asset management suite of tools–is interesting and important, I was most struck by another part of the story Munson addressed. more

After years of hearing about it, we’ve learned that we at least aught to be open to using metadata, even if we’re not too clear about what it is or where it fits in with our day-to-day work life.

At the show, a number of new and upgraded products are making us think we better get with the program.

GridIron Software’s GridIron Flow offers a pretty slick solution. Due to hit public beta in a few months, it still managed to win a Best of Show at Macworld 2008. It’s digital content management software for those working on graphic design, web, and video projects. The software (Mac and PC) tracks the design process by creating a graphic image file to represent the relationship between the software on a computer and the files that software creates. more

At the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in April, MTI Film, a world leading developer of tools used in digital film restoration, digital film mastering and digital dailies processing, will begin offering delivery of its ground-breaking new dailies deliverables product CONVEY for CONTROL Dailies. CONVEY, with its Auto-DVD module, represents a major advance in the processing of digital dailies by automating the creation of file-based deliverables—resulting in significant time savings for busy post production operations. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

I had an interesting chat at the Digital Cinema Summit yesterday with Christian Wilson, manager of HBO Studios West. Christian and I last spoke in August 2006 when I penned an article about HBO’s workflow for remote-editing and collaboration on the mini-series Rome–shot in Rome, and edited in Los Angeles over a highly secure VPN network. Christian points out that, like many other technology advances, in less than two years, that type of workflow, including ultra-high security, which is extremely important to networks like HBO, has advanced greatly.

HBO can now share high-resolution, exact-source frame rate and image sized files and make final decisions about those images long-distance using improved versions of the Rome-style workflow, he says. Among the shows being produced remotely in this manner by HBO right now are Generation Kill, which is being shot in South Africa, and Pacific, which is being shot in Australia. In both cases, the backbone is high-speed data transfer via the Sohonet private network system, with secure encrypted files managed by Aspera high-speed file transfer software, among other bells and whistles. more

The Digital Content Producer and millimeter bloggers—Editor at Large Trevor Boyer, Senior Contributing Editors David Leitner and Dan Ochiva, and Contributing Writer Jan Ozer—continue their discussion the upcoming show, and the conversation turns to portable media platforms. Listen to the exclusive NAB Show podcast

(music provided by Dead Girls Ruin Everything, Reignition Recordings)

Check out part one

The Digital Content Producer and millimeter bloggers—Editor at Large Trevor Boyer, Senior Contributing Editors David Leitner and Dan Ochiva, and Contributing Writer Jan Ozer—discuss the upcoming show and what they’re looking forward to seeing and hearing more about. Listen to the exclusive NAB Show podcast

(music provided by Dead Girls Ruin Everything, Reignition Recordings)

Check out part two

Digital asset management (DAM) is an amorphous concept to many in the production and post communities. Having heard that it‘s the coming thing, and further, that implementing it could make your business more efficient, saving money in an increasingly competitive environment, well, no matter: jumping in to such high concept stuff that isn‘t a part of your day-to-day world can still be scary. Where do you start?

That’s why latest version of Xytech System‘s Xytech Enterprise software might be just the thing to make you take the plunge–rather than starting out with all sorts of abstract database concepts, the company backs into DAM, building out from its familiar schedule sheet structure to, in Version 10, transition to a file-based system that integrates digital assets (media files) and physical ones (staff, rooms, hardware). more