14 DAY TRIAL // The Microsoft Interactive Media Manager is a solution designed to enable streamlined digital content management by bridging people, processes and rich content. The 2007 National Association of Broadcasters conference acted as a stage for the unveiling of Interactive Media Manager to the media an entertainment industry. Microsoft describes the product as a marriage between digital workflows and media application integration and a front-end solution. In essence, Interactive Media Manager is an extension of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
"As the digital era continues to alter the industry, we're seeing the walls between previously disparate functions beginning to crumble as the strengths of IT are increasingly relevant and needed in the creative side of the house," said Gabriele Di Piazza, managing director for Media & Entertainment in the Communications Sector at Microsoft. "Interactive Media Manager is a solution that spans those two formerly distinct worlds, automating the gaps that exist in the workflow process to create a fluid handoff between tasks and individuals."
Media Library, Media Viewer, Media Annotator, Media Import and Media Cart are all customizable web areas of Interactive Media Manager. The next-generation digital content management solution combines a wide range of Microsoft technologies Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, InfoPath XML forms and Silverlight. Although it is a sever-based product, Interactive Media Manager delivers support for IE, Firefox and Safari as well as Mac OS.
Here is the functionality of each specific area of Interactive Media Manager:
- Media Library serves as a front end in which media content items in the digital asset management system are displayed as thumbnails. - Media Viewer displays information such as annotations and time codes in Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers format and offers sophisticated, built-in playback controls. - Media Annotator allows groups of people to collaborate on media assets through video annotations, digital inking and discussions. - Media Import facilitates the upload of media files and automatically launches associated workflows, such as information-gathering processes. - Media Cart provides an individualized area for storing media assets that people want to edit themselves or push out to appropriate editors.