As we prepare for the end of the year, we’re all likely looking to start anew. For us at Ci, this means anticipating upgrading our software and tools and clearing out our digital storage space to make room for new assets.
With the number of smart devices at our disposal and an endless stream of entertainment to choose from, it’s safe to say that more content is being produced than ever. Take, for example, the Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library that houses more than 26 years of web history. Thanks to their Wayback Machine and Archive-It program, they now have 8.4 million videos and 4.4 million images stored in their archive and counting, among other medium types.
If you’re producing for a broadcast studio, media and entertainment services, or live event production, you could easily create petabytes of content per year. At this rate, content would become too unruly to wrangle without media asset management software or archiving capabilities. Media asset management is key to short-term success, from pinpointing the one file you need in an organized library, to long-term success, from making deadlines to exceeding audiences’ expectations.
Modern media archive and asset management is the bread and butter of Ci Media Cloud. In the past, without archiving functions, teams relied on tape libraries, which entailed costly upgrades. And with access limitations as obstacles, this hindered fulfillment. And without using a cloud video storage vendor, there’s always the potential for assets to be damaged by x-rays or in transit. Meanwhile, decentralized media management comes at a high cost, and strict licensing models prevent stakeholder access.
Here’s everything you need to know about modern media archive, what makes it effective, the best practices for maintenance, and more.
What is Modern Media Archive?
4K and 8K files can be a blessing and a curse. While we have the best video and image quality we’ve ever had, files can also eat up quite a bit of real estate at this resolution. If you have an asset you’re not ready to delete but want to keep in reach, it’s less than ideal to have it sit in cloud video storage at active storage costs. Thanks to archiving, you can say goodbye to backing up files on hard drives or offline repositories and being unable to search, view, or access.
Archiving is just one of the many benefits of using Ci Media Cloud. This function enables users to push content stored in AWS S3 to Glacier or Deep Glacier, saving you both storage space and costs, a win-win. Plus, users can tweak access controls and review activity tracking, a major pro if you work with many teammates.
Love your plan but not the storage space? Ci Media Cloud users can purchase archive or active storage add-on blocks monthly. And when you’re sure you’re ready, you can trash archive files to create further storage space.
Benefits of Efficient Asset Management
As important as time spent behind the camera on-set is your time spent at your desk, within the cloud. 54% of surveyed U.S. office professionals reported losing time on work hunting for needed files in disorganized online systems, according to a report from Wakefield Research. Depending on your line of work, this time loss can be high-stakes.
Ci is relied on by many production customers to get content back to their facility as fast as possible to meet deadlines and viewers’ high expectations. By having an organized library and efficient cloud asset management system, users can keep tabs on what content they have and where they’re located for whenever they need them—so you can spend more time on what matters, creating, and less on monotonous tasks like digging for content.
Some of the key benefits of an efficient cloud asset management system are:
- Fewer content silos
- More security and simplicity
- Streamlined workflows
- No more missed deadlines with saved time and costs
With Ci, users have a single, centralized database across multiple organizations to minimize transferring content from system to system. Users can also manage media independently without cross-visibility.
Strategies for Effective Media Archive
If you’re part of a smaller team, finding a file can be as easy as tapping on a teammate in the next cubicle. However, when your content is sent to third parties or used outside of your immediate team (or organization), across time zones, this is when consistent metadata tagging comes in. It’s no longer enough to simply name a file or folder. In Ci, metadata is standardized to improve file discovery, while you have the freedom to catalog and tag your content.
Whether you’re hunting down older b-roll to repurpose or searching for a past interview to find that exact quote, you don’t want to be looking for a needle in a haystack, especially when your organization has decades of content in the library or you have a deadline looming over your head. Metadata tagging takes organizing a step further by creating visibility and workflow automation. Depending on your needs, you can add information like:
- File type
- Contributor names
- Creator names
- Location
- Source
- Title
Plus, more!
Already a Company Network or Enterprise Network customer of Ci? Good news, your plan comes with custom metadata features. By taking advantage of this, you’ll be able to fill in fields for:
- Level of priority
- Content information
- Asset information
- Ownership information
Media File Retrieval and Accessibility
Like an archived email, archived files and folders are still within reach when needed. At Ci, they remain accessible, preview-ready, and easily restored within a few clicks—a huge plus compared to older systems that require a ticketing system and up to 48 hours to return a restored file back into a restless user’s hands.
On top of this, all the proxies remain active, so you can continue to send MediaBoxes and use search, preview, and collaborating tools. Aside from saving storage costs, archiving also organizes your Workspace, keeping your workflow nice and tidy. Taking the extra effort to implement an archive policy also instills better workflow habits, like giving appropriate file names so you can easily find content a week or a year(s) from now.
Best Practices for Media Archive Maintenance
As important as implementing an efficient archive system is routinely conducting maintenance. What’s working now in the process might not work six months from now, especially when project requirements or goalposts change overnight or the number of collaborators ebbs and flows. And when you have a work environment that tends to come with a lot of cooks in the kitchen, it’s all the more vital that the right people are viewing the right content at the right time.
Ci has found that setting up a storage management policy to archive content after seven days of upload can save you over 80% of your storage costs, though you may tweak this policy based on your custom needs. A storage management policy also means less manual work on your end, so you won’t have to set reminders of when to delete or archive content and risk forgetting. Meanwhile, an organization that uploads 30 TB of content monthly could save almost $35,000 annually by setting up an archive policy.
Each of Ci’s customers has their unique ways of organizing content long-term. Thanks to Ci being built on top of the Amazon Web Services platform, users have access to all of Amazon’s deep storage and glacier storage. Users can create custom policies that push content into deep storage and then glacier storage based on the months or years they set.
For example, some of Ci’s customers have 60 to 70 years’ worth of historical archive content. To keep content in check, some organizations have set policies where the content is placed in storage after a year from the creation date. Then, one and a half years later, it’s moved into deep storage.
Meanwhile, when a production studio is creating a trailer or promo for a film release, this process might entail a large amount of content uploaded, shared, and downloaded to get to final cut. A team might decide to have files with no activity auto-trashed after six months and finally deleted after another six months of remaining in the trash. By making the effort early on to set up these policies, your future you will thank you for preventing the need to go back and remove redundant content.
Future Trends in Media Archive
The terms “AI” and “ChatGPT” have become more than just buzzwords in headlines in recent years, but a force that’s taking a more permanent spot among our everyday tech. The after-effects have been transformative, with many tools and DAM platforms wanting a piece of the pie and weaving AI into their offerings as integrations or add-ons.
Ci Media Cloud features built-in AI with the help of Amazon Rekognition, resulting in automated metadata enrichment. As for what this means? For one, the AI function can recognize the content of files, from objects, dialogue, to people. If you need to search one day for all images and videos containing a specific person, this technology automates that process.
Broadcast networks benefit from knowing where segments start or end thanks to data-informed timecodes, allowing them to better decide the length of a preliminary screener. Meanwhile, content platforms can receive more accurate shot detection. The ultimate benefits of automated metadata are less manual effort, minimized errors in metadata standards, and more efficiency when working with large volumes of content.
Looking ahead
The only thing that’s certain is uncertainty—and that our content libraries will continue to grow. As crucial as producing competitive content that delights your audience are some of the less glamorous aspects, like running a tight ship behind the scenes and ensuring your files are named, well-organized, and searchable. After all, your best content has no use if no one can find it.
In our advancing content landscape, the ideal time to sign up for media asset management software and implement a media archive strategy was yesterday, but the next best time is today. Ready to try Ci Media Cloud or upgrade your plan? Click here for more info.
