Skinny MAM - What you’ve always wanted in a media management solution….and nothing you don’t
A MAM philosophy for a world requiring nimble production workflow from any location By Sunil Mudholkar – VP Product Management – EditShare
Media Asset Management Systems are everywhere. There’s a small MAM at the heart of every video editing system (NLE). These are, after all, essentially databases whose reports are in the form of a timeline. And, on a larger scale, in every modern media production facility there will be one form of video content management system or another. Most of these solutions have grown over time adding features and functions to a monolithic software stack that may end up providing the set of features you are looking for. However, these monolithic systems also end up with a lot of stuff you don’t need, and consequently, things you don’t want to pay for.
As more remote production workflows are supported and as media production workflows move to the cloud, the requirements of a media management system also change. One way to address these new requirements would be to continue adding to the stack. However, this isn’t actually helping solve the problem.
The better path: Skinny MAM
There are two essential parts to achieving skinny software, and hence Skinny MAMs. These are microservices and APIs. Microservices are the smallest possible fragments of software that still do something useful. An API is a standardized way to exchange data between software, including microservices.
Let’s just drill down here into what exactly defines a microservice. How do you distinguish a microservice from another, similar-looking piece of code that isn’t one? Simply this: ask what it does. If, in the description of the functionality of a piece of software there’s an “and” (as in: “it does this and that”), then it’s not a microservice. You can’t use an “and” when it only does one thing.
Microservices would be of little use if they were like single cell amoeba, floating around in an electronic sea, with no means to communicate with each other. That’s where APIs change everything. APIs are standardized, published interfaces to software modules. And because they’re public and fully documented, there are no surprises: if you send the right data through an API, it will respond with whatever it is you’ve asked for, as long as you stay within its capabilities, and obey its rules.
APIs aren’t just used for communication between microservices: they are for liaising with the outside world as well. This makes a microservice-based Skinny MAM incredibly flexible. All kinds of external services have APIs, so building a highly customized workflow becomes simply a matter of integration. New and previously untried workflows become dependable solutions, not science experiments, simply by selecting from the API a la carte menu.
Our FLOW media management solution embodies the characteristics of the Skinny MAM. It is lightweight, modular, and open – composed from the start as a set of microservices and complemented with a robust set of open APIs. Our strict adherence to a solution composed of microservices and APIs, allows us to deliver all the advantages of this modern architecture.
Applying microservices and APIs to collaborative video editing workflows
Imagine an educational establishment that uses Zoom for online teaching. Even though Zoom can record sessions, the options are limited and quite inflexible for anything other than a broad-brush approach. However, Zoom has a useful API that can talk to EditShare’s FLOW (a Skinny MAM). It means that a far more granular approach is possible. More importantly, it means you can make use of FLOW to edit and manage the content of your Zoom recordings leveraging Zoom as an input to build your content.
Another example: Closed Captions. Legally required in the US, closed captions contain text that can be utilized as metadata for the related video content. Since they exist with every piece of video, it makes sense to capitalize on the information they contain, treating them as free, instant metadata. FLOW’s openness allows you to connect with third party speech to text APIs, allowing you to build a system that will programmatically search for video footage according to what is being said in the closed captions.
There is an almost limitless roster of ways that the FLOW APIs can be used in combination with external data and other services to create an extended palette of capabilities.
A complete solution suite
EditShare’s Skinny MAM approach is the key to secure an open MAM functionality that’s also able to integrate with best of breed third party hardware, software and services, without any compromise.
FLOW sits at the top of the MAM technology stack. It’s equally at home on-premise and in the cloud, but it’s not the only part of the EditShare technology suite. At the other end of the stack, there’s storage, which can be implemented in on-prem, cloud, or hybrid configurations. Like FLOW, EditShare’s file system and storage management layer, EFS, has a full set of APIs. This set of APIs not only connect with the upper levels of the stack, but also allow EditShare users to work across storage platforms, with full redundancy and scalability, while maintaining superior performance.
COVID has most of the world following ‘shelter-at-home’ and ‘work-from-home’ protocols. And, it certainly looks like we will be observing some form of social distancing for some time as we cautiously step back into what’s to be the new normal. Of course, for many of us, that means endless Zoom meetings (thank goodness for the stability of Zoom) while we attempt to go on with our daily lives. In between those work and school moments, we are seeking some moments of entertainment. All of this has creators of video content working overtime to do what they love – tell us stories – just in a different way.
Our newscasters are collaborating to deliver the news from their homes. Late night and daytime talk shows are getting creative on entertaining us – inclusive of guest celebrity appearances – from their homes. Somewhere out there, someone is creating a reality TV series about life during COVID. Hopefully they will run the gamut of heartbreaking, funny, emotional and informing stories to share with future generations.
All of this still requires filming, and editing, and producing. Very little of this was done remotely before. We are all learning as we go. While we all step out of our comfort zone a bit, we have the opportunity to take advantage of amazing technologies that are right at hand and turn lemons to lemonade. There is one thing for sure… we are getting good at Zoom.
Several days ago, I was at the end of a long week and sat back to do my weekly status report. I realized that I spent a good percentage of my day on video calls. Internal meetings, webinars – those we produced and those I attended, happy hour with friends, and catching up with the parents. It made me realize that we aren’t really social distancing as much as we are physical distancing. We are using video more than ever before and have an amazing opportunity to capture these moments and share them with the world.
This got me thinking – could we bring together the world of video conferencing and video production so that anyone can craft stories from all this new material we are capturing. Quickly editing together Zoom recordings of a webinar into bite-sized highlights, creating an education package from a Zoom classroom (removing the five minute chaos half way through when one student spilt drink over their laptop) and helping news agencies quickly pull together different recordings to formulate a heartwarming interview (without the “you are on mute” prompts).
With this in mind, I started playing around with the combination of Zoom and EditShare’s Flow media management tool. I thought – what if we could give any creator/producer an easy way to ingest all their recordings, index the associated metadata, and easily combine them into a timeline to produce a story – all in the cloud. After all, we know how to do this. We do it all the time. Just usually with different inputs.
The video I’m sharing with you here is the culmination of those efforts. If you want to simplify the process of telling stories with EditShare’s Flow and Zoom recordings, we have an integration ready for you to try.
So, get in touch. Let us work with you. Let’s create amazing, together.
15 APR 2020
Media workflow experts build advanced, secure editorial workflows and remote productions with EditShare media engineered shared storage and management solutions
Boston, MA – April 16, 2020 – EditShare,®a technology leader that specializes in collaboration, security, and intelligent storage solutions for media creation and management, today announced that CIS Group has joined the EditShare Channel Partner Program. Known for its exceptional consultative approach to media workflow design and system integration, CIS serves all media verticals including entertainment, broadcast, news, corporate, houses of worship, and digital agencies across the Eastern United States and Brazil. In addition to leveraging EditShare’s software defined storage, asset management and cloud solutions to build open and highly scalable media workflows, as a part of the partnership, CIS offers a special EditShare-based Remote Editorial Core bundle. The NLE-agnostic offering enables a variety of remote production workflows including advanced proxy editing.
“CIS Group’s greatest asset is its institutional knowledge of media workflows. This is especially crucial as their customers seek guidance in leveraging the real benefits of APIs, cloud and AI capabilities for building agile on-premise and remote productions,” states Greg Lawler, Vice President of Sales, EditShare. “With EditShare’s open and highly extensible platform, CIS can design and deliver truly transformative workflows that not only simplify the art of storytelling but also offer companies entirely new ways to use their valuable media assets to engage, entertain, communicate and educate.”
Under the new channel partner program, CIS has access to the full product portfolio of EFS media engineered shared storage and FLOW media management tools, including SaaS and perpetual licensing models for on-premise, hybrid, and cloud configurations. CIS will also work closely with the EditShare customer success teams, enabling them to architect robust, multi-vendor tailored production and distribution workflows that achieve new levels of productivity.
“The opportunity to utilize emerging technologies like cloud and AI to reinvent your operation and ultimately expand your business has brought forth an interesting era. If capitalized on correctly, the opportunities are endless. However, with all the hype and promises, it’s important to have a clear path forward,” comments Matt Silva, CEO, CIS Group. “EditShare brings that clarity and they do so on every level. They have clear core values, clear principles they abide by and they are clear on what their solutions can do with regards to expansion through APIs, cloud and AI. For a channel partner, that clarity translates into a confidence that you can design media infrastructures that propel entirely new media workflows for your clients. EditShare is the brand we trust to transform our clients’ vision into reality.”
EditShare’s longstanding strategic relationship with CIS Group has grown over the years and today represents a wide range of shared customer successes, including news outlets like The Wall Street Journal, regional broadcast stations in the United States; multi-site operations across London, New York, and Singapore; and large corporate brands like Ashley Home Furnishings.
“It’s clear that EditShare has stepped into their customers’ shoes and designed the solutions from their unique perspective and needs. They understand the pressure points and opened EditShare solutions to integrate with tools our customers want to use, adding out of the box capabilities like auditing and health performance that offer tremendous transparency and peace of mind,” Robson Fernandes, Director of Engineering and Professional Services, CIS Group. “EditShare’s concern for the customer experience can also be seen in the incredible effort they put in educating and supporting their channel partners. We are responsible for the design and delivery of their solutions and their training and support ensures that the entire process is a great experience, from our very first encounter to every single one thereafter.”
Established in 1988, CIS Group’s history includes a lot of evolution as a result of the team’s desire and ability to always stay ahead of the curve. CIS Group’s mission is to enable story tellers to share their experiences with their audiences by providing them with the most effective media workflow solutions for their respective production goals, and by supporting their technical and operational requirements post-delivery. Covering both Brazil and the United States extensively, CIS is considered a reference in the systems integration space as a result of its specializations in content production & post-production, solutions for broadcast & news, workflows for asset management systems, acquisition, shared storage, media services, graphics and multi-platform distribution on-premise or in the cloud. Headquartered in Florida, USA, CIS has offices in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo); New York, USA; and Porto, Portugal, serving markets globally. Learn more at www.cisgroup.tv.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology innovator in media engineered storage and advanced workflow solutions for storytellers that need collaboration without boundaries. EditShare’s open solutions and APIs enable secure collaboration and maximize efficiency every step of the way. The award-winning product portfolio enables end-to-end workflows, on-premise and in the cloud, through media optimized shared storage, workflow aligned media management solutions, robust APIs, and an Emmy award-winning non-linear video editing application.
FLOW enables secure, modern editorial workflows and collaboration; support in demand for remote workflow design consultancy and finishing services
Boston, MA – April 7, 2020 – EditShare,®a technology leader that specializes in collaboration, security, media management and intelligent storage solutions, today announced that UK based post-production company, The Finish Line, is using EditShare’s FLOW media management workflow solution to scale its post-production business through remotely enabled workflows. Known for its high caliber finishing services, The Finish Line chose EditShare’s open and collaborative media management solution to create a secure cloud-based media control layer that enables advanced, remote editorial workflows including ingest of rushes, storyboarding, and review and approval.
“Our core business has been based around installing and staffing internal finishing services for production companies. I am always looking at solutions to help us manage our team of creative talent while also ensuring that our clients have a consistent experience that is as good or better than that of a traditional facility,” states Zeb Chadfield, founder and finishing artist, The Finish Line. “Until recently, remote workflows were not commonplace and we spent a lot of time helping production companies migrate over to these services with the intention of helping their budgets to be better utilized.”
The impact of COVID-19 has changed the work dynamic for production facilities and given an urgency to deploying remote work solutions. Chadfield adds, “At The Finish Line we have been working as a distributed business for a long time and are in a position to help companies quickly pivot their operations. Luckily there are very mature tools on the market which are simple to deploy in the cloud like FLOW and QScan from EditShare. We can build all of the technology our clients are used to having access to in traditional facilities but within a virtual environment. We can then automate their ingest processes and provide them with easy and secure access to view their media. They can collaborate with their editors even while they are continuing to shoot or need to stay home because of a global pandemic.”
FLOW seamlessly connects to industry storage platforms, adding a control layer that manages millions of assets and supports a myriad of codecs and resolutions ranging from Standard Definition up to 4K and 8K. Embedded production tools let users search, browse, retrieve, assemble and distribute content with automation capabilities to orchestrate complex migrations and or redundant tasks. The advanced public API enables extensible workflows and integration with leading creative tools. AirFLOW provides secure remote access with the features The Finish Line requires to facilitate finishing workflows across distributed teams and clients, even when the teams are all working from home. Chadfield concludes, “The benefits of working from home are immense, and we will come out of this knowing that we can work effectively from home, even when not forced into it. Everyone should be trying to find ways to enable their teams to work remotely as much as possible.”
The Finish Line fulfills an important post-production need for many production businesses. Its impressive roster of clients includes EditShare customers Argonon Films, Endemol Shine Group, and FremantleMedia.
“The Finish Line’s business model takes the best of all worlds and delivers on the highest standards. Physical walls, geographical and time zone boundaries have no effect on the efficiency and delivery of high quality productions,” states Rob Adams, vice president worldwide sales, EditShare. “Rapidly changing global events have forced a rethink about workflow collaboration. The traditional office, or in this case, the cutting room, is no longer the norm. Zeb is thinking – and working – light years ahead in terms of remote production. We are honored that he is driving this new approach and putting FLOW right at the core of what is likely to be the industry’s next big shift.”
Learn more about The Finish Line and Zeb Chadfield @ EditShare’s “Remote Production: Balancing Work and Self” webinar on April 8, 2020 – https://editshare.live/finishline.
For more information on EditShare’s EFS, FLOW and other solutions, please visit www.editshare.com.
About EditShare
EditShare is a technology innovator in media engineered storage and advanced workflow solutions for storytellers that need collaboration without boundaries. EditShare’s open solutions and APIs enable secure collaboration and maximize efficiency every step of the way. The award-winning product portfolio enables end-to-end workflows, on-premise and in the cloud, through media optimized shared storage, workflow aligned media management solutions, robust APIs, and an Emmy award-winning non-linear video editing application.
