Metus MAM

So. You’ve got your collection of multimedia files, which looked pretty manageable with your custom folder scheme when you first started, grew less fun to manage as it got bigger and bigger and now threatening to drown you under. You dread each day when new content arrives to add to your troubles. You cannot find what you are looking for, at a reasonable time. You need to secure your assets, but you need to make them accessible for your employees and customers too. Despite all your precautions, that irreplaceable footage you needed somehow got deleted, and you don’t even know who did it. Your content arrives in A,B and C formats, and you have to deliver in X,Y,Z formats, each with its own data form. Things look grim, you are starting to get buried under your content. You need an assistant.

Metus MAM helps you do the following:

Metus MAM is not a tool for a specific market or application that forces you to work in a particular way. No matter which market you coming from, no matter what application you have, if it involves managing and processing a lot of multimedia files, Metus MAM is your ideal assistant.

MAS is the server side component that is the glue that holds the system together. It manages the storages that are defined in the system. It sits between the clients, the database, and the other server side components and regulates the media and data traffic. It manages media traffic, in accordance with the security levels of the assets and access rights of the users. It handles the archiving process (of moving and distributing the imported files between defined storage/s) and delivers the file path to the client, with the necessary access level enabled. This file access mechanism prevents MAS from becoming a bottleneck in the system. MAS also handles the media life cycle of assets according to pre-set rules, and shuffles the archived files between the various online and nearline storages. And, it can function as a backup for other servers.

Metus Archive Server is a software that runs on 64bit versions of Microsoft Windows 2003 or 2008 Server. Multiple storages or any type (NAS, SAN, DAS) be defined on a single MAS. Multiple MAS servers can be installed in a project for load balancing during archiving, and/or for redundancy purposes. 

In addition to the Desktop Client, Metus MAM can also be accessed and used by web client that can run inside all popular web browsers and from all operating systems. This lightweight client, while lacking all features of the desktop client, still allows users to import video files, enter metadata, browse the archive and play the proxy files.

Metus Web Server is the web server that hosts the web client and communicates with the MAS to stream and deliver the requested assets. It runs on Windows2003 or 2008 Server.

Metus MAM has plugins for Grass Valley EDIUS™ and SONY Vegas™. These are opened from within the NLE interface and allow the user to search and browse the MAM project as if he/she were using the Desktop clients. Found assets can be played inside the plugin, and dragged and dropped into the timeline. By default, what goes to the timeline are the proxy versions of the files, so that they can be played from a networked storage without glitch. After users finish their editing on the NLE, a control on the plugin switches the files on the timeline with their high-res versions. Then, after the render is performed, the rendered file is imported back into the MAM. 

Metus MAM can scale from the single server and workstation to multiple sites on a WAN, that span over dozens of servers and hundreds of clients. For small installations, some or all of the server side components can be installed and work together on a single server. For larger installations the components each have their own servers, and the largest ones can have multiple server components of each type running and communicating together, for load balancing and/or redundancy. Multiple storage systems can be connected in each MAM installation, on one server or on different servers. The users see it as one space.  Multiple servers on different sites can communicate and synchronize with each other, over internet or WAN. There’s simply no architectural limit to the size of the system. 

Metus MAM is NOT simply an archive system. It’s also a multimedia processing solution. The built in video processing engine Metus Process Server (MPS) that comes inside the MAM, is faster, and has more features than many a dedicated file transcoding product.  For large systems it is deployable in a load balancing farm topology. Here are some of the tasks it can be used for, to give an idea about the wide range of applications:

• • Automatically creating proxy versions of assets a large number of users can view videos simultaneously without overloading the network.
• • Transcode between the file formats supported. Transcoding can be done during import, export, or any time in between, or based on a given schedule. Users can even, if they want, attach multiple transcoded versions of the file to the original assets, for instant on demand delivery in any format.
• • Cut, trim, paste and join video files for basic video editing.
• • Embed extra audio channels, surround sound.
• • Package to TS and adaptive bitrate formats for internet.

Files created and transcoded from Metus MAM are frame accurate, so that users can do things like seamlessly switch from proxy to hi-res during playback, or use the proxy files in editing software and switching on the timeline with hi-res versions later, without damaging the edit.

Metus MAM is fast. Users can start working with assets as soon as import starts. Videos can be played , trimmed, cut, even before they finish copying into the storage. You can even edit videos that are still being captured by Metus Ingest. Metadata can be input during capture and edited later. Or metadata does not have to be input manually at all;  MAM will assign metadata automatically using custom templates you created, or via any xml based metadata form that accompanies the files. Or a mix of all methods can be used at the same time. The client user interface is entirely virtual. All objects, including bins, assets and even thumbnails are read from database so browsing bins that contain hundreds of assets is very fast. All searches done on MAM are done on a custom optimized database, so that archives made of thousands of assets can be searched in seconds. Metus MAM even allows users to work on nearline/offine media, as if they were online, by always keeping the proxy versions on HDD based storage. Users can play, mark, trim assets using proxy, only when they need the high res file does MAM actually retrieves it from tape.

The whole point of having a content management system is a) cataloguing your assets with enough information so that b) you can find them immediately whenever you need them. Metus MAM allows for unlimited metadata in many types to be created by system administrators, right out of the box.  Users can add easy categories, marker and region definitions to sections of the assets to be used during searches. Assets can be organized in virtual bins. Virtual assets from the same file can be created with different metadata. Searches can be performed Google style as free text search, or users can build custom searches using any kind of metadata that exists in the system. Frequently performed searches can be saved as search bins, to be executed at a single click. Users can even optionally perform image search, to search for a picture frame inside all pictures and videos in the archive. It’s all about keeping your archive usable at your fingertips.

By default, it is not possible to access the files archived in Metus MAM, by any other way other than the Desktop Client, such as through Windows environment. Metus MAM has its own built-in security system, separate from Windows security. There are separate , and individually assignable permissions for adding, playing, editing, downloading and deleting assets. Contrary Windows environment, users with read permission, may or may not have the right to copy/retrieve. Or, users with the permission to add/write, may not have right to delete. These permissions can be assigned on the whole archive project, or on individual bins, or on individual assets, or even on individual metadata fields. User with no permissions may still have the right to Request, which upon granting gives one-time use right. Parts of assets can be censured for video or audio only, non-destructively hiding sensitive information from regular users.