Media asset management: Managing complex data as a re-engineering exercise

Building a media asset management application involves the storing, searching, and retrieving of complex data. How this data is managed can be viewed from two perspectives - in terms of the internal representation required to allow for high-speed sear ching and transferring of these items between systems, but also from the end-user perspective. This paper will focus on the perspective that media asset management is a re-engineering exercise whose fundamental goal is to eliminate the file system and its underlying classification model. The paper will discuss the following topics: Folder/director classification schemes File system security Cross platform file transfers Traditional searching techniques and constraints The data characteristics of a media asset management solution An architectural mapping of elements required to manage complex data, including source, proxy and metadata A media asset management approach to classification including business semantics content based search algorithms The feasibility of a database replacing the file system.