ADAM Systems Takes Center Stage at Ascent Media’s Digital Media Management
Facility
ADAM Systems E-Series Solution Expedites Digital Media Processing, Post-Production,
Archiving and Distribution Tasks
San Jose, California, March 12, 2003
The ADAM Systems Group of Advanced Software Resources, Inc., a Silicon Valley based solutions
provider, announced today that its ADAM E-Series digital entertainment asset management solution
is installed and fully operational at Ascent Media Group’s (NASDAQ: AMGIA) Digital
Media Management (DMM) Center in Burbank, California. Ascent Media’s DMM Center is
the first major Hollywood facility to offer the entertainment industry a fully functional
end-to-end service center for digital encoding, processing, archiving, retrieval and distribution
of all forms of media for the advertising, film and television industries.
With the activation of the ADAM Systems E-Series at the DMM Center, post-production powerhouse
Ascent Media has launched an enterprise-level digital asset management system offering an
array of individual value-added services that span the content life cycle from ingest to
distribution, with the added benefit of a secure long term archive repository. Here, production
and post-production work can be performed on commercials, promos, artwork and marketing materials,
as well as full-length television and theatrical features. Multiple digital video formats
can be processed for the management of digital dailies, internet streaming media, broadcast
programming, VOD distribution, high bit-rate MPEG-2 programs, and finally the repurposing
and production quality recording to VTR, DVD, CD, or DLT.
“With the ADAM Systems E-Series in place, Ascent Media officially opens the door
to a new and exciting technological age for the Hollywood community,” said Chip Aycock,
Vice President of Digital Media Applications of Ascent Media. “We can now offer our
clients a multitude of services that significantly reduce the logistical complexities associated
with production and distribution. The bottom-line benefits to our client base are reduced
time-to-market, increased post-production efficiencies and simplified yet secure asset storage
and retrieval. The ADAM Systems Group has also provided a wide range of professional services
to Ascent Media, including the design and development of a cost effective configuration tailored
to our requirements. Their ADAM Systems E-Series delivers a robust, highly available, scalable
and secure digital asset management solution.”
The E-Series system at Ascent Media’s DMM Center takes advantage of several key ADAM
Systems features, offering modules for the streamlined processing of master elements (e.g.,
picture, language, credits, stills, music, and logos) as well as repurposing with associated
elements (e.g., closed caption files, Edit Decision Lists, scripts, scoring cue-sheets, production
notes, and quality control reports). Tools installed for online rough cut editing, client
workorder processing, project assembly and tracking, and narrowband or broadband delivery
of media packages will increase the productivity of both Ascent Media and its clients. The
ADAM Systems E-Series will enable superior service offerings to the film and television communities
that include expedited and enhanced content creation, re-purposing and distribution of media
products.
“Ascent Media chose the ADAM Systems E-Series for its enterprise-level digital asset
management infrastructure after exhaustive technology evaluations across the industry,”
added Aycock. “In choosing the ADAM Systems Group, we gained the added advantage of
a single source to architect, deliver and maintain an integrated hardware/software solution,
customized to meet our operational needs. As a result, work currently performed across many
groups can now be optimized through our DMM Center, with features enabling project aggregation
and asset tracking for applications as diverse as DVD production or marketing press kit creation.”
ADAM modules streamline content packaging and repurposing with integrated metadata management,
audio/video high definition processing and transcoding, remote ingest and distribution. Using
ADAM, operators can schedule elements for audio layback, closed caption insertion, aspect
ratio conversion (4:3, 16:9, anamorphic, letterbox, etc.), standards conversion (NTSC, PAL),
foreign language subtitling, sensor cut editing, and compression specific transcoding. Clients
interact with the system easily using a browser-based portal which provides for query, retrieval,
and ordering of video based on technical or artistic metadata, online viewing of proxies
created by the system, review of detailed scene-based storyboards generated during the ingest
of video elements, and assembly of audio or video sequences.
About the ADAM Systems E-Series
ADAM Systems technologies have been providing leading-edge high performance solutions for
processing, managing and preserving high value digital assets for nearly two decades. The
ADAM Systems E-Series such as the one installed at Ascent Media’s facility represents
the latest generation of ADAM Systems integrated hardware/software solutions. The software
enables high-speed essence exploitation, metadata extraction and management, audio and video
transcoding, high definition manipulation and aspect ratio conversion, multi-format multiplexing
and language track conversion, asset sequencing and registration, analysis, conformance and
correction, storyboarding, proxy and browse generation. The hardware includes a three-tiered
hierarchical storage management system, consisting of integrated online, nearline and offline
storage, streaming servers and ingest servers. The system provides a browser-based user interface
for querying, ordering, system management, and individual production work bins. The HTML
based interface screens, accessible remotely through any IP based network or the internet,
are customizable to accommodate each customer or group. The ADAM Systems E-Series also offers
security on multiple levels and provides smart data preservation to ensure absolute data
integrity of the clients’ assets. The system is designed to be enterprise scalable
and can handle terabyte-sized files and petabytes of storage, and is flexible to meet the
growing digital needs and changing formats of the entertainment industry. The system can
reside in networked environments and may be part of a larger production or operations scheme
for creation, archiving and distribution of digital media products.
At the heart of this pioneering system is a modular framework that ties together high-speed
video and audio management and repurposing engines, many exclusive to the innovative ADAM
Systems engineering team. These processing engines interact with each other, parallelizing
each and every operation to ensure that every high-powered computing element is utilized
to its fullest capability and that critical data flow is optimized at all times. Through
this unique combination of intelligent interactive processing, predictive scheduling and
universal dynamic resource allocation, each ADAM System enables the highest quality treatment
of video and audio elements while delivering maximum flexibility with incredible speed.
Melding cutting-edge hardware and software components with an exclusive set of advanced
processing algorithms and its proprietary system architecture methodology, the ADAM Systems
Group has migrated the most complex of real-time tasks to a fully automated environment.
The new ADAM Systems E-Series is an intelligent online platform for the ultra-fast conversion
of film and video formats, processing of special effects, mixing of sound and vision, generation
of DVDs, assembly of broadcast features, and preparation of high definition cinema exhibitions,
all while ensuring the permanent preservation of millions of motion picture and television
properties.
About ADAM Systems Group
The ADAM Systems Group of Advanced Software Resources, Inc., a privately held corporation,
develops robust digital asset management technology for the entertainment, geospatial and
medical markets. The highly-experienced Group provides comprehensive technical engineering
services and customized hardware/software solutions for secure processing, management, preservation
and distribution of complex high resolution, high value digital imagery, video, and audio
assets and related files. Based in California’s Silicon Valley, the ADAM Systems Group
represents nearly two decades’ experience in the development, integration and deployment
of advanced digital media processing and management technologies The Group has successfully
transferred technologies developed under strict government standards and in challenging 24/7/365
environments to the most demanding commercial applications.
For information about ADAM Systems, please go to www.adamsystems.com
or call 408-526-0500, x226.
About Ascent Media Group
Ascent Media Group (NASDAQ: AMGIA) is a provider of services to the media entertainment industry,
offering clients effective solutions for the creation, management and distribution of content.
A subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation (NYSE: L, LMC.B), Ascent Media Group is headquartered
in Santa Monica, CA and employs more than 3,700 employees worldwide.
For additional information, please visit www.ascentmedia.com
or contact: Barry Stagg at Ascent Media, (310) 434-7025.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe-Harbor
provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “intends,”
“believes” and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical
fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means
of identifying such statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks
and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products and
technologies, successful integration of acquisitions, the ability to secure additional sources
of financing, the ability to reduce operating expenses, and other factors described in Ascent
Media Group's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results that
Ascent Media Group achieves may differ materially from any forward-looking statement due
to such risks and uncertainties. Ascent Media Group undertakes no obligation to revise or
update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may
arise after the date of this release.
For additional Information:
Curtis Chan
CHAN & ASSOCIATES, INC
cj_chan@chanandassoc.com
Phone: (714) 447-6016, x100
Fax: (714) 578-0284
ADAM Systems Group
info@adamsystems.com
Phone: (408) 526-0500, x226
Fax: (408) 526-0900
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