In Broadcast - May 2012 - 58

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 8 - MAY 2012

InMEDIA
MAM Platforms Update Cont.
is the same as with video – there are so many standards there is almost no standard at all. It’s a mess.” Tedial’s Peter Gallen sees metadata as a “potential problem” for broadcasters but says it is used all the time in commercial IT. “People have been led to think it is complicated and under the bonnet, in the background, it is,” he says. “But the way it reaches the user is what it is all about. If you think about the metadata that is involved in cash machines, that is very sophisticated but when we come to get our money out the user interface is simple.”

Maturing Systems
MAM is no longer a novelty but it is apparent there is still some consolidation and education needed before it becomes just part of the overall broadcast production process. “The number one consideration for MAM technology is to simplify and make cost-effective the processes for today’s broadcasters in handling their transitions to ﬁle,” says Eivind Sandstrand. “If the MAM systems are too expensive and complex, many broadcasters 58

Sophisticated metadata – golf logging from IPV

will opt out and try to implement ‘half-baked’ solutions that are ‘good enough for today’s need and wallet’. MAM system manufacturers need to use the technology of today to

produce solutions for today and also tomorrow.” Jon Folland wouldn’t call MAM mature yet, mainly because there is a broad spectrum of what people need the technology to do: “At one end there are people using small ﬁles and at the other organisations with heavy broadcast assets and big ﬁles. What people need in terms of asset management is something in between.” And while MAM is establishing itself, the market is beginning to change again as broadcasters consider storing material in ‘the cloud’ instead of physical, on-site storage. Folland comments that with scalable MXF (Material eXchange Format)-based systems users have the choice of using a private cloud or a server in their broadcast centre for storing and managing material. “The thing that makes our customers put something on a private cloud rather than on-site is cost,” he says. “If you have the infrastructure in a building then it doesn’t make sense to put something into the cloud.” P e t e r G a l l e n regards the cloud as “another incentive to have MAM” because it becomes an extension of the physical facility and the user has to know “what is Harris Euro_GUI where”.

Out Of The Box
As for the future in general, Gallen feels today’s MAM systems are “pretty good” and deliver more than they did two to three years ago. “But we need to get away from customisation and have systems that can be deployed out of the box and still give the conﬁguration people need.” A possible set-back could be the adherence of some consumer electronics giants, including Apple and Microsoft, to the proprietary way of doing things, with speciﬁc asset management methods for their own products. While that is a further possible hurdle for broadcasters to face, as Andrew Winter concludes, having technology like iTunes and Sky+ in our homes has made us all aware of MAM, even if many people wouldn’t recognise that term. So if broadcasters can combine the two philosophies, perhaps managing their assets won’t be too much of a trial after all. ■

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In Broadcast - May 2012

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