In Broadcast - July 2012 - 30

WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 10 - JULY 2012

InREPLY
Media Asset Management Trends
Masstech’s Vice President of International Sales and Marketing Brad Redwood talks to InBroadcast about the future impact of Media Asset Management (MAM) technology
Brad Redwood

InBroadcast: The importance of Media Asset Management (MAM) is growing but how is it being implemented? Brad Redwood: In today’s fastpaced broadcast industry media and entertainment companies – be it broadcast or news channels – are charged with assembling the most relevant media content as quickly as possible. The speed of media asset management (MAM) along with highquality speed (HQS) transcoding and bridging of digital workﬂows directly affects competitive edge in the marketplace for news, production and broadcast organisations that create and distribute rich content. To maintain high levels of productivity, staff members require an alternative to the manual process of hunting down video tapes in the archive library before previewing the content and then taking the tape to the editing system to dub or ingest it before editing. Broadcasters that still utilise videotape-based

archiving systems have slow access to valuable resources, which can compromise productivity when putting programmes together on tight deadlines. Broadcast editors need to be able to rapidly preview, access and assemble programme content straight from their desktop. To accelerate MAM tasks and boost productivity, media outlets and production houses require a uniﬁed suite of software tools on a cost-effective platform in order to streamline and optimise digital workflow processes for every stage of Media Asset Management. Masstech has achieved a technology breakthrough with its streamlined Media Asset Management solution TOPAZ version 7.5 that fully integrates with all the leading broadcast devices. Professionals working in broadcast, production and news can harness this all-in-one solution to enhance productivity by creating automated workﬂows to manage c o n t e n t f ro m ingest, to QC, to playout, to archive storage, bridging non-linear editing (NLE) and storage systems. With more valueadded features bundled in than comparable systems, TOPAZ is the proven MAM solution “TOPAZ is the proven MAM solution that will scale that will scale with your business”

with your business. Engineered for scalability, bandwidth and dynamic assignment of DataMovers, TOPAZ delivers the power required for medium to large scale facilities with high performance nearline caching and patented DRAC automatic fail-over redundancy. TOPAZ integrates seamlessly with third party MAM systems as the ultimate broadcast HSM solution. Its proven media framework has over 150 interfaces to all leading broadcast devices, NLE platforms and broadcast control systems, including Miranda iTX interface and web-based MAM tools. TOPAZ also comes equipped with support for LTFS (Linear Tape File System) material interchange and portability, enabling ﬁles stored on tape to be directly accessed in the same way they would be on an external hard drive. InB: What are the challenges in instituting good MAM systems? BR: Many media outlets face the additional challenge of controlling and managing vast amounts of media assets. Digitising and archiving content in a ﬁle-based system with requisite storage capacity enables users to easily locate and reuse valuable media assets. However, the upfront costs of assembling a MAM system on a piecemeal basis can often prove uneconomical from a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective, and are further complicated by the absence of reliable technical support.

InB: What are the specific considerations differing data sets such as HD for MAM systems? BR: HD requires a faster transcoding engine. Masstech’s in-house developed HQS (stands for high quality speed) transcode engine is able to transcode content on average four to sometimes six times faster on HD than any of their competitors and 15 times faster than real-time for SD. InB: How do you see the future for MAM developing? BR: We think MAM has never been so affordable and powerful. Our mini MAM solutions like Emerald version v.6 LE (Light Edition) offers digital archiving, content management and transcoding all on one common platform. MAM is an attractive investment that allows broadcasters to preserve their valuable content and re-purpose the media as new business opportunities arise Regardless of a facility’s size and requirements, they should still invest in MAM. With the increasing demand for content for domestic audiences and to export around the globe, any technology investment that focuses on reducing OpEx will improve the bottom line. We are seeing a higher adoption rate of MAM in regions such as APAC and the Middle East and in the USA for digital archiving precious news content. InB: Thank you for taking time out to answer our questions.

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In Broadcast - July 2012

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