Products
Product Overview
Media Amigo is a cloud exchange platform designed for the interchange of content among users or systems located in different sites. The locations interchanging media can be part of a physically-distributed single system belonging to one corporation or they can be independent systems owned by different companies. The exchange of media can take place anywhere where there is an internet connection.
A common challenge faced by broadcasters and media organisations that have successfully digitalised their archives is how to distribute content to the outside world. Media companies want to open new revenue sources by sharing content with other companies, and to achieve this, they need a platform providing the means to capitalise their archive content and to obtain media from others.
Media Amigo works as a portal where a system or a user can ‘publish’ the media to be shared. Other systems or operators then ‘subscribe’ to specific expected content or relevant media groups. Once files become available they are automatically delivered to subscribers in their own working format regardless of the native format of the originating media. Users can also search for media already made available in Media Amigo and request copies of it. Again, when the files are received they arrive automatically in the native format of the recipient.
Media Amigo uses Tedial’s MPM powerful media tools to carry out on-the-fly any file processing that may be required for the recipient, including codecs, wrappers, aspect ratio, etc. This guarantees that media is always compatible to every single subscriber. Media Amigo also provides a set of common metadata to facilitate searching for media and selecting media groups. Media Amigo makes life easier for everybody because subscribers are able to maintain their individual systems untouched without worrying how the other receiving parties work and what their requirements are. Moreover, the originating and receiving systems can be non-Tedial MAM and HSM systems supplied by other vendors. Media Amigo will ensure interoperability transparently without operator input.
The operation is simple. Each site has a Client that is used as an exchange platform for media and metadata in generic XML or other standards such as NewsML for news. There is a selection of configurable ‘In’ and ‘Out’ watch-folders where operators simply drop files they are sharing or selling, or retrieve the ones they are purchasing or borrowing. Subscription services can be setup for future scheduled media releases, so that files are delivered to the right receiving users as soon as the media is made available in the system by the originating party. Media Amigo naturally offers sophisticated user rights management tools to control media access. Specific media groups can be blocked to certain users. Operators only see the media they have the access right to.
Media Amigo offers more than an intelligent media sharing portal. It also provides the means for delivering files between source and destination by optimising the resources of the specific connections available. It has been designed to work with standard internet connections and to deal with the corresponding high-latency and QoS issues. Media Amigo uses UDP-based Data Transfer Protocol (UDT) instead of the classic TCP-based like FTP. UDT is widely acknowledged as the best solution for high-performance transfers of large volumetric datasets typical of video files. Using UDT, Media Amigo ensures excellent performance by dynamically taking advantage of the maximum bandwidth available during the duration of the transfer. Media Amigo also guarantees the integrity of the file transfers by using UDT’s periodic acknowledgements (ACK) to confirm packet delivery and negative ACKs (loss reports) to flag packet loss. Therefore, Media Amigo makes media sharing possible among organisations that cannot afford or justify the expenditure of satellite links and/or private fibre links.
Media Amigo can be used for other applications. The Media Amigo technology is used by Tedial solutions to handle transfers between a MAM system and its Disaster Recovery site. Tedial’s Ficus BPM system uses it to integrate steps in a workflow that are carried out away from site. E.g. a workflow may include: A) send proxy files to an outsourced subtitling house; B) monitor when the subtitles are created there; C) automatically deliver the files back to the main system once they become available and D) continue with the workflow’s subsequent steps performed on site. Similarly, a workflow may involve sending files to and from freelance editors working from home, etc. These examples illustrate how Media Amigo technology seamlessly integrates outside parties into workflows in a transparent way.