Introduction Interplay Media Asset Manager, a highly scalable and extensible Enterprise Media Asset Management (MAM) platform, turns mere content into true assets, makes access to audiovisual content quick and easy, automates workflows and enables content owners to reuse, repurpose and resell their content more efficiently. Interplay employs a full services-oriented architecture (SOA), facilitating easy scalability, zero downtime maintenance and easiness of integration and collaboration with third party systems and applications. Interplay provides comprehensive ingest control, transcoding control, annotation, retrieval, browsing and EDL creation functionality specifically designed for audiovisual content. The core retrieval and browsing functionalities are available for both Windows and Mac client platforms. Interplay is highly configurable and can easily be adapted to different customers needs with regards to data model, graphical user interfaces, workflows, user profiles, and business rules to be applied in the processing of content. Interplay also manages the content lifecycle from ingest to archiving and reuse, integrating encoding systems, transcoding engines, editing tools, archive management software and other third party systems. Interplay MAM is an enabling technology that provides users an integrated set of production tools and other information systems. A network of partnerships and integration initiatives has been established with leading technology suppliers such as AmberFin, EVS, Front Porch Digital, Grab Networks, IPV, Isilon, Marquis, MediaGenix, Omneon, Panasonic, Pebble Beach, Quantel, Quantum, Rhozet, SGL, Sony, StorageTek, Tektronix, Telestream and Xendata. Today Interplay MAM is used by more than 3,000 users every day at many of the world s largest broadcasters, including APS Astra Platform Services, BR Bavarian Television, Plazamedia, ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (all Germany), Swiss Radio DRS (Switzerland), YLE (Finland), Technicolor Network Services (United Kingdom), RTP (Portugal), Technicolor Netherlands (Netherlands), VMMa (Belgium), TVN (Poland), NBC Olympics (United States), RTM (Malaysia), ESPN Brasil (Brazil), Caracol TV (Columbia). Key Benefits Interplay delivers on the promise of Enterprise MAM by providing content anytime, anywhere, in any format. Benefits include: Cost savings by introducing one central MAM solution for storing and managing media files. Time savings by devoting less of your time for searching existing media material and providing the tools to easily share content and work results between users. Revenue generation by reusing and repurposing your valuable assets created in previous projects and enabling distribution through multiple media platforms. Consistency by rapid sharing of time-critical content across local and global business units. Increased speed to market by having the necessary asset ready at hand when developing new media projects. Protection of previous investment by integrating seamlessly into your existing environment and providing a comprehensive set of connectivity features to leading-edge broadcast equipment. Process transparency by constantly tracking the status of content-related workflows. Workflow and Applications While is designed to support a wide variety of specific workflows, these are typically variations of the core workflow outlined below. This core workflow spans the entire content lifecycle from ingest or import to archiving and re-use, and each individual workflow step is supported by Interplay services and applications. Variations of this core workflow apply for different MAM applications, including news production, sports archiving, corporate brand management, collaborative film production and rich media distribution. For more information visit www.avid.com/interplay
Ingest At ingest, the user selects a video source, previews the video and initiates the recording. The source can either be a live signal or a playback device. When a live signal is being recorded, the Scheduler provides control of the video server. When a playback device is used, Interplay s ingest tools provide deck control and a batch-ingest feature. Because the system includes a self-generated unique identifier for each item ingested or imported, naming the resulting media object may be designated as optional. While a video is being recorded, video analysis operations such as cut detection and keyframe extraction can take place in the background. Import Interplay provides import tools for importing pre-existing media files video clips, audio clips, images, graphics files and documents and/or metadata sets. During import, the type of media contained in the file is recognized automatically, and data elements are populated automatically with metadata extracted from the media file and/or XML file. Subsequent processing of the media file e.g. video analysis or multiple format conversion processes can be defined by the user. For importing large quantities of pre-existing media files or metadata sets, the Import workflow also supports batch-import. Logging While ingest is still in progress, the Interplay Logging Client can be used for real-time annotation of incoming video, setting mark in/out or cue points and entering descriptive data. The mark in/out and cue points can be used to associate the descriptive data with certain time segments within the video stream.\ The Logging Client provides a unique play-while-record feature :which the user can use to preview the recorded video stream and check its quality during the ingest process. Playback can then be paused for adding metadata without affecting the rate of ingestion. When unpaused, playback resumes from the point at which it was paused, ready for the user to continue the quality control process. Interplay s play-while-record feature greatly enhances production efficiency.
Enterprise Media Asset Management Platform Cataloging The Interplay Cataloger is used to add and edit metadata as well as edit keyframe sets. Using a web browser, metadata elements associated with the media object as a whole can be viewed and edited. Using the Cataloger, timecode-based metadata can be viewed and edited in separate layers (strata). For each stratum, the segments bracketed by mark in/out points can be modified, split and merged. If the user has appropriate rights, he/she may also add strata. The cataloging tool also allows the user to add, replace and delete keyframes as needed.
Retrieval With the browser-based Media Asset Manager Desktop, the user can search and retrieve specified media objects or portions thereof. Six search modes are available: full-text search, attribute search, strata search, combined search and two-user configurable custom searches. The full-text search searches across the body of text documents and the header information in media files. Using the attribute search, any combination of attributes associated with the media file can be located. The strata search allows the user to search for any documented segment of a media file, e.g. a scene in a video. In all search modes, Boolean operators and wildcards are supported, as well as legal lists (authorized vocabulary) and masterdata (e.g. a persistent list of names or locations). Search terms can be typed in or selected from a controlled vocabulary (legal list or thesaurus). The search results are displayed in a configurable hit list, from which items can be selected for detailed viewing and playback. For previewing media objects, four detail views and a playback function are available and optimized for each task: object metadata view, segment list view, keyframe view, storyboard view and media file playback.
Clip Assembly Interplay Cut allows users to collect, assemble and distribute video and audio content. Journalists, producers, archivists and editors select interesting video or audio clips, create a roughcut and add comments to the scenes and share the result with others in a collaborative workflow or send it directly to delivery. The application is designed with a focus on providing the best user experience, making your workflow faster. Benefits include: Intuitive look and feel based on a simple three-step-process. Delivery to various distribution platforms, significantly accelerated by the new Send-to function. Self-explanatory UI helping to realize time and money savings by reducing the amount of necessary training and significantly limiting the amount of time-consuming craft editing steps. Interplay Cut is designed to make the production workflow faster with a focus on intuitive user experience. Export Interplay s export functionality supports the export of essence and metadata associated with selected media objects to user-defined destinations. For metadata export, an XML-based AXF metadata exchange format is used. For EDL export, a variety of different EDL formats is supported, included the Avid ALE and EDL formats and CMX.
Platforms Interplay Windows applications require Windows XP or Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or 8 and.net framework. Interplay web applications are available for Windows XP or Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 or higher and.net framework, and for Apple Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard and Safari 4. Interplay server components require Intel-based servers with Windows Server 2005 or 2008 and.net framework. For more information visit www.avid.com/interplay Corporate Headquarters Asian Headquarters European Headquarters 800 949 AVID (2843) + 65 6476 7666 + 44 1753 655999 2010 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Promotions and discounts are subject to availability and change without notice. Product features, specifications, system requirements and availability are subject to change without notice. All prices are USMSRP for the U.S. and Canada only and are subject to change without notice. Avid, the Avid logo, and Interplay are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. The Interplay name is used with the permission of the Interplay Entertainment Corp, which bears no responsibility for Avid products. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. EMAMPDS0410