The gig you’ve just landed will be using 30 media servers, and you need to upload custom content into all of them. Some of the questions that are probably popping into your mind right now are: How long will that take? Will I have the opportunity to load the content before the load-in date? If not, will I have enough time to get everything organized on site at the gig? If any of these sound like questions you’ve asked yourself on a show using digital lighting fixtures and/or media servers, then you will appreciate this article.
One aspect of digital lighting that is now gaining a lot of attention is the process of uploading, organizing and managing your digital video content when you’re working with media servers. If you’ve ever needed to load custom content into more than just a couple of media servers for a show, then you already know that it can pretty much stop you in your tracks, preventing you from being able to do anything else until all of your servers are online. To add to that obstacle, configuring your servers typically requires physically being in front of them while you change DMX addresses of fixtures or layers, add DMX numbers to your files or simply rename your files for better organization. But with the popularity of the digital media server, the need for a content management system has rapidly come to the forefront. This type of software, sometimes referred to as a Content Management Application (or CMA), whether it’s embedded into the media server application or running on a separate computer, allows you to upload and organize your content into a user-created content folder in the application.
A content management application has some real advantages for the digital lighting programmer. For instance, the capability to rapidly and remotely update and manage content anytime means less time spent away from the creative programming process. Features such as increasing the ease of upgrading the media server application software, uploading and cross-loading content between servers by simply using drag-and-drop functionality, and the ability to remotely assign DMX values to a server’s content files once they have been loaded without having to physically be at the server make the content management application very flexible too. Using a CMA can result in dramatic increases in efficiency by minimizing the need to interrupt the media server application while it is running in order to access the content folder on the media server’s hard drive.
All of these features are also attractive to the lighting designer as well. What LD can’t relate to the need for speed and ease of use in a media server application? There are obvious benefits to things like easily being able to see all of the content in a folder, much like the ability to see a list or even a thumbnail image of each gobo on a pattern wheel in an automated lighting fixture. When you’re using a content management application, a thumbnail is created for each piece of content, and it is displayed along with the DMX number and name of the file. This makes the content easily recognizable and accessible. And that greatly reduces the need to keep paper copies of thumbnails of each file on hand, as well as streamlining the searching and sorting processes while programming.
How do they work?
Content management applications allow digital-to-digital file transfers, automating the process of reformatting and uploading content to a broadcast server, and providing seamless network-based delivery. Using this type of application requires an established networking connection via Ethernet between the computer running the CMA and the media servers and/or digital lighting fixtures. Once the network connection is secured and the CMA is launched, it can seek out all media servers on the network and automatically display all available preloaded content.
You can see the advantages of this, especially in an installation project where the servers are in some distant location around the site (like a locked closet!), and you need to load in a new piece of content for a new section of the show. The need for a flexible, user-friendly content management application is just one more step in the evolution of the integration of video into lighting. Using a CMA with your media server greatly simplifies the process of adding content into servers remotely. And since many media servers have the capacity to hold approximately 65,000 usable pieces of still images and/or video clips, loading new media into your servers can be a time-consuming process, especially if all you are armed with is a single external content HD. With a content management application, new content can easily be uploaded, organized, copied between and deleted from your servers remotely and on several servers simultaneously. Less time will be spent on the logistics, and more time can be focused on the fun part of creating!
Here are some examples of current video content management applications:
Content Management Application from High End Systems: the new standalone application currently for use with High End Systems DL.2 and Axon servers is available at http://www.highend.com/support/digital_ lighting/dl2.asp.
Embedded content management applications are also included in Catalyst (High End Systems), Maxedia (Martin), Hippotizer (Green Hippo), Mbox Extreme (PRG) and BrashLive (BrashLive Inc).
Information on Fresco, a robust application that controls many video devices, is available at http://www.spearmorgan.com/fresco.html.
