SGI Unveils StudioCentral Library 3.0
Story Filed: Monday, April 23, 2001 12:00 PM EST
Third-Generation Asset Management System Provides Robust Environment
For Enterprise-Wide Deployment
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 23 /PRNewswire Interactive Press Release/ -- With more than 100 hundred small to enterprise-size SGI(TM) StudioCentral(TM) Library installations already in place worldwide in the entertainment, education and government markets, SGI (NYSE: SGI) today announced the availability of SGI StudioCentral Library 3.0-the first digital asset management system for enterprise-wide deployment. The powerful asset management application immediately benefits any organization wanting to better manage the creation and delivery of content. Unlike other out-of-the-box solutions, StudioCentral Library is engineered from the ground up to seamlessly scale to global, multiplatform usage; harness the content-sharing power of fiber-optic wide area networks (WANs); and rapidly integrate other off-the-shelf asset management software.
StudioCentral Library's flexible and scalable infrastructure enables customers to start with a small workgroup on a local, single server containing repository, database and content and then evolve to multiple workgroups using multiple geographically distributed servers and repositories. Assets are secured and shared between workgroups, and, with the Web-based administration tool in StudioCentral, system administrators or asset archivists can manage users, groups, assets and repositories as well as transfer assets between repositories from any desktop on the local area network (LAN)/WAN.
StudioCentral Library's new Asset Management Protocol (AMP) provides a programming language and platform independent open architecture for developers, including software development companies, application service providers (ASPs) and IT departments, to quickly build applications and services for the specific needs of their digital asset management environments. E-commerce-enabled XML output provides standard delivery of assets to third-party devices and software.
Among the digital assets that companies may need to store, share, find and play are photos, videotapes, film, graphical images and sound clips. With StudioCentral Library, any type of file can be managed, including versioned or nonversioned assets and assets that represent a variety of formats, from text files to streaming media.
StudioCentral Library 3.0 allows users to choose the right technologies to integrate into their asset management environment, including:
-- Automatic cataloging and thumbnail generation for common media formats
-- A plug-in facility for non-supported media file typing and event
creation
-- A versioning feature that tracks changes made to assets as they evolve
-- Extensive data modeling for defining metadata attributes of assets
-- Database independence, providing support to relational and
object-relational databases
-- Access to a variety of content servers, including filesystems,
streaming video and audio servers, hierarchical storage management
systems and other storage devices
-- Kasenna(TM) MediaBase Player support
-- Support for SGI Media Server(TM) for broadcast asset archiving
-- QuickTime(TM) movie support
StudioCentral Library is a complete asset management system that can be tailored for unique organizational requirements by internal IT departments or through SGI Professional Services. In addition, SGI asset management software partners utilize StudioCentral as the base on which to build their asset management solutions.
"Asset management is at the core of our Media Commerce strategy that enables our customers in media and entertainment as well as government, defense, education, sciences and manufacturing to create, manage, deliver and transact any type of content over any type of network," said Jason Danielson, director of market development, Telecommunications and Media, SGI. "StudioCentral Library as an enterprise solution or a development platform for our asset management solution partners combined with our scalable SGI Origin family servers and storage systems enables new applications for workgroup collaboration, learning-on-demand, asset repositories and e-commerce."
StudioCentral Library Installed Base
More than one hundred small to enterprise-sized customers in entertainment, education and government are using StudioCentral Library worldwide. For example, media companies use StudioCentral for tracking all aspects of production, from managing and archiving images, text and audio to workgroup collaboration across continents and contracts and rights management of production materials. Government agencies use StudioCentral for the capture, archive, analysis and distribution of still and streaming files. Universities and schools use StudioCentral as a way to enable distance learning and learning-on-demand (LOD).
Kasenna MediaBase
For customers who are already using Kasenna MediaBase for LOD and video-on-demand (VOD) and require an asset management system for efficient management of video content, StudioCentral is designed to integrate with MediaBase on the same server.
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) recently added StudioCentral to its existing MediaBase VOD library as a way to more effectively manage its expanding collection of MPEG-1 videos. UT Austin is currently developing an in-house client for StudioCentral that will be used by professors to create LOD courseware.
Keyvia Key-MediaWorks(TM)
Key-MediaWorks is a digital asset management solution for the broadcast, post-production and corporate training markets from Keyvia (formerly Keops Broadcast). Key-MediaWorks is built on top of StudioCentral Library and utilizes its asset management search and retrieval functions. It is also integrated with SGI Media Server for broadcast to store high-resolution video clips. Key-MediaWorks records video to SGI Media Server and to a frame accurate MPEG-1 file server at the same time. This enables the low-resolution files to be browsed and edited at the desktop client while the high-resolution files can be edited or played to air on SGI Media Server. The typical Key-MediaWorks installation includes SGI(TM) Origin(TM) family servers for StudioCentral, SGI Media Server for broadcast for high-resolution video storage, SGI(TM) 1000 series servers and SGI storage products for control applications and low-resolution video storage.
At Danish Radio, Key-MediaWorks is being used in a trial for ingest, management, browsing and rough-cuts editing of news programming. Training divisions of the U.S. military use Key-MediaWorks to quickly turn video, shot during battlefield training exercises, into edited training and debriefing material.
Rumble Group/Blastmedia
Leveraging key extensibility and scalability improvements in StudioCentral Library 3.0, Blastmedia, in conjunction with SGI Professional Services, is developing RichNet 2.0, an ASP-delivered digital asset commerce application running on SGI Origin family servers.
Delivering digital asset management and commerce functionality directly to the user's desktop via a web browser, Blastmedia RichNet 2.0 enables content owners to share their valuable content with a spectrum of end-users and in a variety of commercial and non-commercial environments.
"Without SGI Professional Services and StudioCentral Library 3.0, we wouldn't have a scalable product. In today's ASP environment, you have to be prepared for the 'hockey stick' growth pattern, and when you're dealing with high-volume, high-bandwidth applications such as digital asset management, only SGI can deliver that level of linear scalability," said Sean-Michael Daley, CEO, Rumble.
Kreode Technologies
Kreode Technologies of France offers an ASP-style asset management service for any company's multimedia assets. A key part of the Kreode offering is SGI StudioCentral Library, which is used as the asset management engine of the Kreode system, along with SGI Origin family servers.
The service offered by Kreode Technologies is built around consistent management, transport and publication of content. In the management phase, Kreode will structure and organize the mass of information belonging to a company as well as store and archive it, allowing for true collaborative processes to be developed. Data transport uses a telecommunications architecture that calls on various resources, including satellites. The publication aspect is handled by a customizable intranet or extranet portal infrastructure. Subscribing customers are, in most cases, equipped with a KreoBOX that locally manages services. Nonsubscribers can access the system through a Web-based client application.
Mindport
The Mindport MCT product set consists of modular software components integrated to provide comprehensive content management for digital broadcasting systems, as well as for content streaming over IP/Broadband networks. This solution enables operators to stream content over their networks and also manage all the back-office activities related to rights and content management. This includes planning acquisition, scheduling, reconciliation and payment functions.
"Mindport is pleased to use StudioCentral Library as its preferred digital asset repository solution," said Allan Rosenzweig, CEO, Mindport. "Its scalability and fully featured asset management infrastructure is easy to integrate into our products and offers a cost effective solution to our customers." |
