The demand for efficient Media Asset Management (MAM) solutions is at an all-time high. As companies strive to enhance their production pipelines, they are increasingly turning to MAM augmentation to meet the challenges of managing diverse content libraries.
Leveraging the robust capabilities of cloud platforms such as AWS, companies can seamlessly integrate additional features into their existing MAM systems, empowering them to streamline workflows and reduce costs. Below are three recent projects undertaken by TrackIt that illustrate how MAM augmentation with AWS services is reshaping the media industry.
KCET
PMGSC (Public Media Group of Southern California), particularly KCET productions, sought a migration of their media assets from on-premise storage to AWS, aiming for improved production pipelines. The company decided to incorporate Sony’s Ci Media Cloud management service for its numerous capabilities, including easy searching and viewing of media files, approval and review features, and file-sharing capabilities. However, the possibility of high ingest and archive costs caused the organization to look for a simple, flexible, and more cost-effective solution.
Solution
TrackIt implemented a storage workflow that seamlessly moved KCET’s media assets to AWS and Sony’s C Media Cloudi. This solution involved configuring local storage to upload to an Amazon S3 bucket, where AWS Lambda functions were triggered to gather metadata and determine the type of proxy needed. Depending on the bitrate, proxies were generated while high-resolution masters were archived in S3 Deep Glacier, ensuring both efficient asset management and cost optimization.
Sinclair
Sinclair Broadcast Group, a prominent player in the media industry, faced similar challenges to PMGSC in managing its diverse media assets. The organization faced difficulties in efficiently ingesting media content into their Ci Media Cloud due to the complex nature of media assets, which are comprised of multiple files in different formats. This resulted in frequent ingest failures and content remaining unavailable in the MaM system, hindering operational efficiency and workflow productivity.
Solution
TrackIt addressed this challenge by implementing a BXF Parsing Workflow on AWS, leveraging AWS Lambda, Amazon S3, and other services. This automated workflow parsed BXF files, extracted metadata, consolidated media objects, and updated the Ci Media Cloud workspace seamlessly. By incorporating event-driven triggers and a Dead-Letter Queue (DLQ) for handling failures, the solution ensured smooth ingest processes and minimized manual intervention, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of media content ingestion for Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Video Game Developer
A prominent American video game developer and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. The organization encountered challenges with the rendering of sub-clips from media content ingested into its Iconik Media Asset Management (MaM) system.
In Iconik, the process of creating a subclip involves defining a segment of an existing video asset by setting in and out points. However, the company wanted to have subclips as distinct physical entities rather than mere metadata entries pointing to segments of the original video.
Solution
To address the customer’s requirements, TrackIt developed a streamlined workflow that seamlessly integrates Iconik with AWS Elemental MediaConvert, AWS Step Functions, and Amazon DynamoDB. The solution facilitates automated video clip rendering through a custom Iconik action supported by Amazon API Gateway, ensuring both efficiency and reliability.
The workflow was designed to allow for seamless initiation of video processing tasks and incorporates robust error management with all processes logged through Amazon CloudWatch for quick and efficient troubleshooting.
Additionally, the solution was designed to support manual cancellation of ongoing processes, providing the flexibility to halt operations if necessary, while also including automatic cleanup processes to ensure efficient resource management.
By optimizing these operations, the workflow significantly enhanced productivity and system reliability, simplifying the video subclip rendering process while upholding standards of quality and operational oversight.
Summary
MAM augmentation offers organizations a powerful avenue to optimize their media workflows by integrating advanced cloud-based tools and services. By enhancing existing systems with customized solutions, companies can improve asset management, reduce operational costs, and streamline complex processes, as demonstrated in these projects. These examples underscore the transformative potential of MAM augmentation, providing the scalability and flexibility required to meet the evolving demands of the media industry.
About TrackIt
TrackIt is an international AWS cloud consulting, systems integration, and software development firm headquartered in Marina del Rey, CA.
We have built our reputation on helping media companies architect and implement cost-effective, reliable, and scalable Media & Entertainment workflows in the cloud. These include streaming and on-demand video solutions, media asset management, and archiving, incorporating the latest AI technology to build bespoke media solutions tailored to customer requirements.
Cloud-native software development is at the foundation of what we do. We specialize in Application Modernization, Containerization, Infrastructure as Code and event-driven serverless architectures by leveraging the latest AWS services. Along with our Managed Services offerings which provide 24/7 cloud infrastructure maintenance and support, we are able to provide complete solutions for the media industry.