Many organizations I’ve worked with have recently expressed interest in doing more with video content in their DAM. Workflows that initially focused on managing still images and documents are now involving more and more video. The entire landscape of digital media is changing and even traditional print designers are being asked to create interactive, rich media, and tablet-specific content. Digital publishing, mobile apps and the web are now part of the broad advertising and marketing landscape which has both enabled the use of and increased the demand for video content. It’s become a no brainier that DAM should be used to hold those assets.
In this article I’ll provide a primer on video asset management. I won’t address advanced aspects of a video production workflow in DAM, but will introduce you to key terms and guidance on managing video content in a DAM.
Video Terms
It’s helpful to be familiar with the following terms since they’ll probably appear as metadata in your dam, and knowing what they mean will help you understand the video best practices in the next section.
Resolution
Commonly used video resolutions (width x height)
Just like image formats, the size of a video on screen is determined by it’s resolution – it’s width and height measured in pixels. You may have heard the terms “720p” and “1080p” for HD televisions, which correspond to 1280x720 pixel and 1920x1080 pixel resolutions. (The p actually stands for progressive, not pixels, but you can read more about progressive vs. interlaced video here.)
Frame Rate
Frames per second (FPS), or frame rate, is the number of images (frames) displayed each second as the video is playing. Television is typically 30 frames per second. This means 1 second of uncompressed HD video would require approximately 30 images, each one 1920 pixels tall and 1080 pixels wide, to be displayed in one second!
Codec
High resolution videos with high frame rates can mean really big files. Fortunately a type of software called a codec is used to shrink file sizes of video files by filtering and compressing video and audio. “Codec” is a portmanteau of “compressor” and “decompressor”, because codecs can be used to compress a video file when saving it to make it smaller and decompress (or decode) a video file when playing it back. The codec used to save a video is also required to play back a video, which will cause problems if you don’t have the right codec installed. Your DAM should support or include codecs to play the video files you have, and support or include the codecs you need when converting files.
Container Format
Similar to image formats, video formats have standard “container” formats that usually correspond to a file extension. Some common video container formats are AVI, MOV and FLV (just like JPG, GIF,and PNG are common image container formats). However, container formats do not always use the same codec – just because you can play one AVI file doesn’t mean you will be able to play every AVI file you come across (unless you have the correct codecs).
Best Practices
If you’re new to digital asset management, or are already familiar with DAM but want to do more with video, here are some best practices for getting started with video in DAM.
Standardize on an Accessible Format
If the video files in your collection are from a variety of sources or have gradually been added over the years, it’s likely they use a variety of container formats and codecs. Ensuring that users are able to access the videos in a standard format can help avoid problems when the correct codec isn’t installed or when a media player or device doesn’t support a certain container format (for example, the iPad and iPhone cannot play the Adobe Flash video). Your DAM system can help by ensuring that video is available in a format that works for a variety of computers and devices.
Use Proxy Clips
Configuring video preview clips in a digital asset management system for instant playback on a variety of devices.
One way to standardize on an accessible format is to generate proxy clips for every video added to the DAM. Proxy clips (also known as preview clips) allow quick previewing of video and are automatically generated when video files are cataloged. Proxy clips use a container format and codec that is compatible with media players and the web, meaning video can be played on a variety of devices besides traditional desktop computers. In addition, proxy clips are streamed when users need to play a video file which means they don’t need to wait for an entire video to download or convert before they start playing it.
Understand Cataloging and Processing Time
The cataloging process is typically longer for video files compared to picture files. Video takes longer because there is more data (30 pictures per second instead of a single picture). The amount of processing power in your DAM (CPU, memory, hard drive speed) will determine how quickly you can catalog and convert files. You’ll want to make sure that your DAM server exceeds, not just meets, the system requirements. A new related trend is a media engine cluster which utilizes multiple computer (instead of one) to decrease cataloging and processing time.
Understand Storage Needs
Video files also take up more storage space compared to images. While images may be in the range of a couple megabytes videos can range from tens, to hundreds or thousands of megabytes (gigabytes). Ideally you will want to catalog the largest resolution and highest quality video available, instead of saving and cataloging lower quality clips, so you have the flexibility of converting to whatever quality you need on demand. Also keep in mind that if you’re automatically creating preview clips during the cataloging process that this will require more storage space, depending on the size and quality of the preview clips.
Understand Bandwidth Needs
As we’ve already established – video files can get really big! You’ll want to make sure you have enough bandwidth for uploading and downloading video. The best way to judge this is to try it out with your existing DAM or an evaluation of a DAM you’re considering. Simply upload some video files and download some video files. If your cataloging process involves moving files between two locations, you’ll want to include those locations in the test.
Embed Video Metadata
Metadata is the lifeblood of DAM since it affects how people find and use files – including video. Ideally you should use your DAM to embed (write) metadata like keywords and descriptions into your video files so that it is accessible in other applications (like Adobe Premiere for example). Vice versa, your DAM should read metadata written to video files in other applications so that it’s available for searching and other purposes in your DAM.
Summary
Even if you aren’t already managing video today, chances are you soon will. Video is becoming more common with modern devices and applications that are increasingly capable of creating video content. In addition, more business activities such as marketing, training and social media are relying more on video content. The above tips should provide you with a good primer on video related terms and some considerations for handling video in your DAM.
If you’re new to video in DAM, what other questions do you have? If you’re experienced with video in DAM, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Thanks to Charles and his mom for pointing out some typos and issues that needed fixing in this article!
Thanks for this and other helpful articles. I use Aperture and Final Cut Pro for still and video editing/organizing and keep original masters & clips in a folder structure. But I’m considering using a DAM product like ‘Portfolio Standalone.’
(1) I use a desktop in my home office and a laptop for traveling. Will ‘Portfolio’ run on both or would I need 2 licenses?
(2) Your article implies that ‘Portfolio’ will write metadata to the stills and video clips so it can be seen within Aperture and FCP. Is this correct?
(3) When you’ve finished editing stills and creating videos with the original clips, do you re-catalog them in ‘Portfolio’ and place the finished product into separately named folders? In the same folders with the original unedited stills/video clips? Or just use the search features in Aperture/FCP to find content across the various projects within each editor?
Hope these questions aren’t too elementary, but I’m real new to all this. Thanks in advance.
Hi Ron, thanks for reading and posting!
You would need two licenses of Portfolio to run on two machines (a desktop and a laptop). While Portfolio Server can write metadata to both stills and video clips, Portfolio Standalone only writes metadata to stills but not video (more info here: http://www.extensis.com/downloads/documents/portfolio-standalone-file-formats/).
You can use the AutoSync watch folder feature of Portfolio Standalone (or Portfolio Server) to automatically catalog new and changed stills and clips. How your “work in progress” and finalized assets are organized into folders depends on your workflow and folder hierarchy, although all the options you mentioned will work (it’s your preference/workflow). For ideas on folder organization, I recommend checking out these articles:
http://www.damlearningcenter.com/category/topics/folder-structure-topics/
Where would be a resource to come up with a price for managing video assets for a client. Keeping them available and safe? They have no production capabilities but they want to have all of their assets available for projects? I am spending time and money to add storage, improve redundancy etc.
Hi Jeff, thanks for commenting. I hate giving this answer, but “it depends”!
You could go with something simple and inexpensive like a Mac Mini Server with Portfolio Server Studio Edition for under $2600 all the way up to enterprise solutions that cost millions once it’s all said and done.
Can you tell me a little more about what the requirements are? Number of files and users? Types of video formats
Hi Edward,
Interesting page and a well written article. I would have loved to see some sort of sketch as well as a reference to the text. Sometimes it might be hard to follow if you are a newbie. I signed up for your RSS and will follow your posts in the future.
I am wondering how you view the differences between Cataloging and Archiving?
To me, archiving implies long term storage for future retrieval and/or use (future may mean a few minutes or several decades the item is archived).
Cataloging to me means taking an inventory of what currently exists.
Of course, there’s a lot of overlap between the two terms. You may catalog something as a part of the archival process and not touch it until years later.
That’s an interesting question, thanks for posting it. Now I’m curious, how do you view the differences?
I work at a very busy studio where we produce a 22 minute show daily. As you can imagine, we generate a LOT of media. We are moving to file based video (AVCHD) and are looking for a DAM for these files – perhaps something that also allows for archiving and quickly being able to search and recall footage. We are currently Using FCP6 on Macs, but we have a lot of windows PCs in the office that would be used for managing the DAM, as well as for searching etc. ANy suggestions?
I’ll suggest Extensis Portfolio Server to you for two reasons:
1: It supports fast searching and previewing of AVCHD on Macs and PCs
2: I work for Extensis
Number 2 is easy to believe, but for number 1 you might want to see for yourself by downloading a 30 day trial here: http://www.extensis.com/portfolio-server-10/free-trial/
Any news on updating Portfolio Standalone? I’ve just tried 8.5 version. Very stable software for large catalogs, compared with LR, Aperture or MediaPro. All of them just quit or freeze.
But I would love to have bigger thumbs for both photos and video, and skimming over video tumbnails, as LR does.
For the moment, it’s impossible to view generated previews of videoclips in Standalone version. And as mentioned here, you cannot embed metadata to video.
Server solution is too expensive for me, but also useless since I want to work with my notebook outside the studio.
You need to be connected to your server to add or look for your footage, don’t you?
Many thanks!
Hi Pablo. No news on Portfolio Standalone, but I have passed on your feedback to our development team. Although Portfolio Standalone doesn’t create preview clips of videos, it will playback supported video formats (see http://www.extensis.com/downloads/documents/portfolio-standalone-file-formats/ for a list of supported video formats).
Portfolio Server includes a Web Client for remote access, but you do need a “live” connection to the server to add or look up footage.