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“Low Ez Proxies” – “Asset Management”- and the “Holy Grail”
It was mentioned a few times in the PP Wishlist thread that Asset management is a desireable feature.
Asset Management means different things to different people. I have the need to constantly update and repurpose existing video assets into updated and new programs. That’s why, to me, asset management involves creating low rez proxies of all your archival images that can be searched via relational database and “Virage” type functionality. All these low rez proxies are available online all the time. The need for low rez proxies will continue until the cost of storage comes down by an order of magnitude of about 2. And the the speed of networks increases by an order of magnitude of 2 also. I don’t see this happening in the next 2 years.
With a low rez proxy- high rez system, a producer can look up a shot of a 35 year old black female in a doctor’s office having her blood pressure taken if it’s in the DB- look at it in low rez, and even put it into a cuts only timeline. When the timeline is sent over to the “craft” editor, the software recognizes the proxy data and uses the the high rez stuff or knows where to retrieve it if it’s off line.
This type of integration is way beyond what any traditional editing sytem does.
I hope that Adobe puts in the hooks so 3rd party software can integrate with it to do the non-editing relational DB and asset management functions. You talk about workflow. These types of non editing tools would be used throughout the production process.
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5 Replies
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That would be a really useful feature Richard. This is something Avid already provide in a system called Media Browse Select. It automatically creates lower res proxies and adds them to the Media database. They clips are then fully searchable and can be played back on any PC (edit or not) via the Media Browse player over the network.
I doubt however that Adobe would ever add this to their product line as it requires a significant investment in additional hardware – something that Adobe don’t sell, to ensure it works and other than the professional and broadcast markets, there probably isn’t enough demand for it.
What would be good is something similar based on Adobe Bridge with the option to automatically create lo-res proxies during capture. Adobe, are you listening?
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[R. Hewitt] ” doubt however that Adobe would ever add this to their product line as it requires a significant investment in additional hardware – something that Adobe don’t sell, to ensure it works and other than the professional and broadcast markets, there probably isn’t enough demand for it.”
I agree with you that Adobe wouldn’t invest in it only for professional and broadcast markets, but asset management is needed across the Adobe family of products for large corporate America as well as the smaller shops. i believe that Adobe is already reacting to this need- the first step being Bridge.
As far as the low rez- hi rez scenario, there’s nothing to stop Adobe from setting up the Bridge or PP SDK to allow integration using a plug-in architecture that allows hooks into external relational databases. Premire already assigns unique media identifiers (UMID used in AAF. these unigue identifiers makes it possible to utilize the infomation into traditional IT relational database products.
While Adobe’s software products wouldn’t be the only elements in the system, they would take advantage of their core competencys(sp).
[R. Hewitt] “What would be good is something similar based on Adobe Bridge with the option to automatically create lo-res proxies during capture. Adobe, are you listening?”
I’ve looked at the Adobe Bridge that comes with Photoshop CS. It has a long way to go before it could work that way, but it could work as long as it would allow utilization of external Relational DB tools.
It could possibly work like this.
On ingest of the video, there would be two or more data streams created
–one hi rez that would be used for final editing-
one or more that would be used intranet( 1-3mbits/second) and possibly one for Internet(150-450kbits/second). Each clip has a unique UMID.
The asset management/editing application would permanently link these clips within a relational DB.
For pre-production and preparation for editing, all the assets would be available at low rez to the producer/director via any PC. The low rez proxies makes permanent disc storage affordable. While Premiere pro would have a huge variety of tools, Only a limited set of tools for use over an intranet(100Based T)- focusing more on organizing the media than getting it down to a final cut.
The final edit would be for the “craft” editor- have the broadest set of editing tools( Adobe Video Collection?)using the hi rez media.
When the final edit is done, the hi rez stuff that is no longer needed is transfered to offline or nearline storage. Again, the cost of the media is the key. If we could store 2500 hours of 25mbit for $1,000 then there is no longer a need for the low rez high rez solution- unless the hi rez is HD.
What do you think?
Richard
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This asset possibility would be a killer app, because right now I’m looking for a way to archive all my tapes and have not come around to see an ideally suited application.
I would have to capture everything again, and since this is done on every project it would be nice to use the same capture session for logging to a seperate DB.
Nice thought, if Adobe listens…
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I couldn’t agree more Richard.
It would be well within the capability of someone like Matrox to produce the hardware that could create the low-res streams at the same time as capturing the primary stream DV25 or above.
As you say the unique ID could be used as the identifier to tie all the versions together.
Database handling could easily be done through the cutdown version of Microsoft’s free MSDE.
Non of it is rocket science but trying to persuade Adobe to see the light would be by far the biggest challenge.
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BBCTechnology which is now owned by Siemens had developed a system to do this. It was built on top of a relational Database. Most of the stuff was off the shelf IT equipment. Obviously, the programming combined editing tools with the archiving needs.
A German company called Cinegy supported their efforts. In fact Cinegy has offered the system to the public, and it is being used in the one of the houses of the US Congress.
Cinegy by itself couldn’t provide the complete solution, and the Siemens folks are going after the big boys and won’t be trying to market it to smaller companies or individuals.
Others are starting to come into this space. Microsoft is trying to bridge multiple industries with the “Connected Services Framework” for the broadcast and film industries. This was introduced at NAB 2005. Everything becomes a Web service.
Microsoft describes it an an
integrated, server-based software solution, enables broadcast companies and film studios to streamline the creation, management and delivery of digital content.The first group of software hardware folks that are interested in exploring this business opportunity with Microsoft are:
Avid Technology Inc.,
North Plains Systems Corp., Asset Management and Relational DB
OmniBus Systems,
Panasonic
Telestream Inc.
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