Media Library

CUSTOMER:

An Internet media production company.

Business Challenge

The production company of several community web sites has a staff of reporters, photographers, and operators who prepare plenty of content to be published on the web and other media sources. Thousands of files were previously stored in the folders of a simple file system, and were searchable only by file name, which made it very difficult and time-consuming to find the right media for publication. The company needed a capable and convenient storage to save, retrieve, and exchange media files. The custom Java software also needed to replace a proprietary product used solely for the purpose of video content management and it needed to become an integral solution for all types of media files.

Solution

Axmor's Java EE developers created a custom Media Library that helped the production company to manage a large volume of media content. The program allows for a systematic approach to digital audio, video, and image assets, providing storage, metadata search, and advanced retrieval capabilities for all media data. The creators can now easily upload the content into storage, and the editors can search wisely for appropriate media and then send a task to the technical team, who prepare the selected content for publication.

Axmor's Java developers designed the backend of the Media Library using the latest Oracle Products to assure reliability and availability of the software. The front-end is web-based and can be accessed securely via the Internet. The cross-browser support extends application availability to a large audience of customer's operators and reporters within and outside the office. There is no need to maintain separate workplaces for each user and the infrastructure costs are decreased.

Axmor's programmers used the latest technology innovations such as Spring Framework for Java to develop an up-to-date ergonomic interface and achieve high performance:

The developed custom Java software allows for saving and browsing of various formats of photo, audio, and video files, and the software provides a standardized interface for managing any type of data. The user can easily upload the file and measure its status with a progress indicator. The uploaded file can be identified with appropriate tags. After the file is saved, the user can immediately view it within the application without the need of installing and opening a separate player or image viewer.

The Search component is the most important component of the developed application. The application provides a convenient control panel to define extensive search options and easy retrieval of the required media file. Axmor's software engineers used the innovative Spring Web Flow  technology to develop a full-featured search workflow without much effort. It saves a lot of working time for the end users and always provides them with excellent search results.

The search is powered by the Oracle interMedia feature (recently renamed to Oracle Multimedia) in order to allow more relevant search results and to give informative presentation of these results on screen. In addition to traditional search options available for files, the relevant information can also be seamlessly extracted from the metadata present within the file. The searchable metadata includes: 1) format details (such as how many pixels and scan lines there are in an image), and 2) user-provided tags (such as a photographer's name and the location where the image was taken, or verbal comments and descriptions of the file). The search results are accompanied with thumbnail images for further user convenience. For video files, the first frame of the video is used as a thumbnail.

The developed custom Media Library provides a full-featured workflow for the production company to upload the media files and to make them ready for publication. The creative team can upload different file types to the Library according to their role in the organization. Then the producer can browse the media, view the items from within the application, and when the file is selected, create a job request for the technical team to prepare the file for publication. In response to the request, the technical team uploads the processed files, (for instance, a resized image or an encoded movie) using the batch upload option, back to the Media Library, and the file to be publicized is associated with the original master file.

The customer relies on the technical decision of Axmor's Java EE experts to use a particular technology or approach. The developed Media Library has great potential to serve customer's asset management needs for many years, as it is absolutely up-to-date and is constantly enriched by advanced features as a result of modern technologies and products. Further development of the solution assumes that the application will support the entire workflow of preparing media files for publication without the need of transferring huge amounts of data to end user workstations.

The project was developed as a part of dedicated Java team engagement by the production company. The tasks and priorities were managed by the customer. Axmor's Java EE development team helped the customer to implement the Media Library, while also completing different-sized on-demand custom Java work for web community websites. The production company values our flexibility and the ability of our Java programmers to switch between different projects very quickly, avoiding a steep learning curve.

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BRIEF:

Outsource development of a web-based repository for uploading, saving, and retrieval of digital audio, video, and image files.

BENEFITS:

• Full-featured media asset management workflow.;
• Support of various media formats;
• Cutting-edge interface and functionality;
• Extensive search capabilities;
• Convenience of use.

TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES:

• Java Platform, Enterprise Editiony
• Spring Web Flow
• Oracle Application Server 10g
• Oracle Database 10g with Oracle interMedia