December 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


A quality MAM solution is tailored to the specific needs of an installation in order to provide users with tools that are specific to the production workflow — yet ready to grow as needed” —Warren Arenstein, Primestream


TVBEurope 17 MAM Forum 2013 Is a MAM system an ‘off-the-shelf’ Brian Campanotti, Front Porch Digital


purchase or a tailor-made solution? Arenstein: It’s important that a MAM be built to evolve with the workflow demands in news, sports and entertainment. Each installation has needs that are very specific and, in the most part, unique. An off-the-shelf purchase will not serve the needs of these customers. A quality MAM solution is tailored to the specific needs of an installation in order to provide users with tools that are specific to the production workflow — yet ready to grow as needed. Casaccia: It is both. In general, the long-term support outlook for a fully productised off-the-shelf is far more secure than a bespoke project MAM. However, the off-the-shelf product must offer sufficient flexibility and configurability so that it can be matched to the individual customer’s needs. Cospen: MAM projects


Ed Casaccia, Grass Valley


are becoming less and less tailor-made. We often come across existing integrations. Our BPM workflow engine makes it possible to work with these existing integrations — configure workflows and gain agility. We are even taking this concept of off-the-shelf a step further by offering a packaged MAM solution which is very


similar to our solutions for News and Sports. Dwyer: At Avid we have come to the conclusion that the market wants both models. We offer an off-the-shelf solution called Avid Interplay MAM ‘foundation’, which covers everything required to get up and running. It includes the fully functional system, import and archive workflows, and third party systems. It also includes installation, training and one year of support. Additionally we offer a tailor- made approach for clients who have more complex requirements and want the flexibility of building specific integration, workflow or using a custom data model. Mehring: A MAM system should be an off-the-shelf purchase which allows users to modify metadata schemas and workflows without the need to contact the manufacturer. All the flexibility should be inherent in the product, as should various interface standards such as BXF, WSDL APIs and even simple drop folders to allow interoperability with many and various other business systems. Potuzak: Aveco offers an


off-the-shelf product that is customised to the customer’s


requirements. Any software that is custom built these days should raise big red flags for management — they usually end up being expensive disasters and very difficult to update and maintain. Aveco’s approach is to offer a flexible database product where metadata can be easily made specific to the customer’s workflow and a workflow engine that can be programmed to automate day-to-day activities without making it ‘custom’. Upgrades to the system are easy as the ‘custom’ aspect of the product is in config files and not the core software itself. Rosay: A MAM system


must integrate smoothly into a wide ecosystem and address different business processes — marketing, production, archives, post production — within the broadcast environment. While all of these areas share concepts in common, most of them must deal with specific processes and their own workflow. Therefore, a MAM system must be open, scalable, and flexible enough to interface with any third-party system and to accommodate a broad spectrum of activities. The best solution would be one that reduces implementation cost


and simplifies installation procedures with a system that can easily integrate, adapt, and fit in with the existing broadcast environment and business processes. The Netia MAM offers a system that is compatible with most existing broadcast models and that also provides simple tools for creating and personalising the interface according to users’ specific workflow requirements. Shaw: Historically, MAM


has a reputation for resulting in an expensive, long-running, custom project. Orad iFind, however, is modular and scales from small specific workflows to multi-site enterprise-level implementations. In particular, broadcast workflows can be handled using the standard iFind product with customer specific configuration. This puts the customer in control of the evolution of the system and reduces costs. Wright: There is now a


broad view amongst broadcasters, production companies and content owners that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all MAM. Off-the-shelf offerings which are positioned as ‘highly configurable’ are never quite configurable enough to suit all operational needs.


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