From BAM, CDN, MRM to MAM and Digital Asset Management, there are many terms and acronyms across the Asset Management landscape. Our simple glossary helps you to break it down into knowledgeable snippets.
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3GP
3GP is a video codec designed for delivery of media to mobile devices (e.g. telephones or PDAs) in particular those that are 3G enabled. 3GP is a heavily optimised variant of the MPEG-4 video format and 3gp files are usually small and well suited for mobile internet delivery.
Asset Management
The term 'Asset Management' when taken in isolation can be confused with Digital Asset Management. In general, it relates to the management of either physical objects, locations or items of value. Digital Asset Management and derivative terms like Brand Asset Management usually specifically relate to digital files.
Audio Video Interleave (AVI)
Audio Video Interleave (AVI) is a popular multimedia format typically used for delivery of video content.
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Brand Asset Management (BAM)
Brand Asset Management systems are a specialised type of Digital Asset Management (DAM) system dedicated specifically to managing the marketing and brand assets of an organisation and to help marketers gain improved control over their corporate brand.
Broadcast Asset Management
Broadcast Asset Management is another specialist area of Digital Asset Management and enables organisations who own (or have rights to) time-based media assets (e.g. audio or video).
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Cataloguing
Cataloguing means the high-level process of adding metadata to assets in a Digital Asset Management system.
Cloud Computing
Cloud is often used as a euphemism for the Internet, Cloud Computing means services offered by using servers across the Internet.
Codec
Codec stands for coder/decoder and refers to the encoding of media like audio or video into digital format and subsequent decoding upon playback. Codecs are methods of achieving this process (they are often called 'algorithms').
Container Format
Container format is usually applied to multimedia digital assets and means that the file type is not a compression technology (or codec) but is used to hold media that has been encoded by other technologies.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Content Delivery Networks or CDNs are dedicated networks with high levels of capacity specifically designed for the distribution of bandwidth heavy content. As well as a very high capacity network, a CDN provides multiple geographically Points of Presence (PoPs) and replicates content across the network so that latency (access time) can be reduced as much as possible. CDNs can be used for Digital Asset Management to reduce the time required to download media. Often a DAM system itself will generally run at an acceptable speed even if the user is located a considerable distance away from the application server, however, media they may want to download could take an unacceptably long time. A CDN enables the content only to be distributed without the expense and complexity of a fully distributed application hosted on multiple servers.
Controlled Vocabulary
Controlled vocabularies are used in indexes, subject headings, thesauri and taxonomies. Rather than presenting a free form natural language vocabulary where any term can be supplied, controlled vocabularies offer pre-selected terms for users to choose from. Designing a Controlled Vocabulary for use with Brand Asset Libraries explains more about the subject.
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Database Server
A database is typically used in a DAM system to hold metadata about assets. (The correct term is RDBMS (Relational Database Management System)).
Data Migration
Data Migration is the transfer of data from an existing system to a replacement system.
DBMS
An abbreviation for Database Management System.
Derivative Files
Derivative files describes assets that are created from the original. In Digital Asset Management, these can refer to previews that enable users to see what an asset looks like before they download it.
Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Digital Asset Management (DAM) is a collective term applied to the process of storing, cataloguing, searching and delivering digital files. These may take the form of video, audio, images, print marketing collateral, office documents or fonts. Digital Asset Management systems centralise assets and establish a systematic approach to ingesting assets so they can be located more easily and used appropriately.
Digital Content Management (DCM)
Digital Content Management (DCM) is synonymous with Digital Asset Management. Although technically it specifically relates to media content as opposed to general data assets.
Digital Negative (DNG)
DNG or Digital Negative files were invented by Adobe as a Container Format for holding RAW files along with other information.
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Digital Rights Management (DRM) refers to technology and practices used to protect digital intellectual property from being used in a way that breaches the terms of it's licence.
Digitisation
Digitisation is the conversion of analogue or physical assets into digital equivalents. The need to digitise assets is gradually diminishing as more media is recorded directly in digital formats.
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is a reference to a metadata standard and the organisation that first established it. Dublin Core Metadata is common in public sector Digital Asset Management Systems as well as other archives and repositories of information.
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Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a wide ranging term that is sometimes incorrectly used instead of Digital Asset Management (DAM). ECM systems tend to be large-scale repositories of many types of content held across a whole organisation.
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)
Encapsulated PostScript or EPS is a derivative of the PostScript standard and is a digital image format. EPS files are self-contained (or encapsulated) PostScript documents.
EXIF - Exchangeable Image File Format
EXIF is a metadata standard used to store information about digital images created by the Japan Electronic Industries Development Association (JEIDA, later renamed JEITA - Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association) in 1998. EXIF data is usually stored inside a JPEG or TIFF file (in the same fashion as IPTC and XMP). In particular, EXIF is used by manufacturers to record technical information about the digital camera used to shoot an image.
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Flash
Flash is an application used to create ShockWave Flash (SWF) files and associated media such as Flash Video (FLV). Although the files are often referred to as 'movies' they are frequently applications, interactive features, animations or games.
Flash Video (FLV)
Flash Video or FLV is a compressed video format developed specifically to allow video to be played back over the internet via the Flash player.
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Guide File
Guide files are a type of Controlled Vocabulary where an existing file will be used to locate others. A common example is a report or brochure containing images. Users may know that a specific image was used in a document, but be unable to locate it using other search strategies. Using the document as a guide file, they can obtain a list of assets and search within this to isolate the one they require.
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Hosting
Hosting refers to the process of storing and making accessible digital files or services on a remote server. In most discussions about Digital Asset Management, hosting implies that the system will be managed externally by the vendor and/or an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Hosting can be either shared between several customers or dedicated where the whole server is set aside.
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ID3
ID3 is a metadata tagging standard typically used to embed metadata in MP3 audio or MP4 video. Most end-users come into contact with ID3 when using software such as Apple's iTunes to catalogue their collections of music files.
InDesign
Adobe InDesign was first released in 2002 and is a page layout and graphic design tool and is aimed at the professional designer market.
Ingestion
Ingestion is an umbrella term that covers the process of supplying media to a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system (often called uploading) and cataloguing it by adding descriptive information or, metadata to enable it to be located by users when searching for digital assets.
Interoperability
Interoperability means the ability of systems or processes to work together and is the conceptual basis of systems integration. Achieving interoperability involves two or more systems agreeing a common protocol to exchange information.
IPTC
IPTC stands for International Press Telecommunications Council and is a consortium of news agencies and suppliers to the press industry. In 1979, the IPTC developed a metadata standard that defines a common set of fields used to describe images such as caption, copyright owner and keywords. Adobe developed a specification known as "IPTC headers" for embedding IPTC fields directly into image files. The benefit of this approach is that information about the asset is theoretically never lost and follows the image even if it is copied.
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JPEG
JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, however, it more commonly refers to a compression standard that is used to reduce the disk space consumed by digital images. The compression method is referred to as 'lossy' because some of the original data from the image is lost as part of the process.
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Keywording
Keywording is a colloquial term applied to a specific asset cataloguing activity where words, phrases or terminology (or 'keywords') are attributed to assets as metadata. Keywording is particularly relevant for photographs and images as these types of assets lack any integral descriptive information to help users identify whether they are suitable for their needs.
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Lightbox
In the context of DAM systems, the term 'Lightbox' usually refers to an area where users can keep lists of assets they may wish to download or use later. The term is similar to 'Shopping Cart' or 'Basket' which has been applied to many ordering based web sites or applications, note that most Digital Asset Management systems tend to include a shopping cart also to allow users to specify assets they would like to use for a project.
Lossy
'Lossy' codecs are those that compress the source media by removing (or losing) some of the information to achieve the result, MPEG is an example of a lossy codec.
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Marketing Asset Management
Another term for Media Asset Management (MAM) and/or Digital Asset Management (DAM).
Marketing Operations Management (MOM)
Marketing Operations Management (MOM) is the theory behind Marketing Resource Management (MRM) systems and is a method of applying classic Operations Management techniques to the marketing realm. MOM seeks to generate efficiencies and improved ROI across the whole range of marketing activities, including planning, forecasting, budgeting and collateral management.
Marketing Resource Management (MRM)
Marketing Resource Management (MRM) is a systematic method of managing marketing resources such as digital assets, collateral, schedules, forecasts and budgets. The concept applies operations management techniques used in production/manufacturing environments such as Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to the marketing function. MRM systems are closely related to Digital Asset Management or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications and tend to concentrate on providing digital tools to help marketing departments produce or deliver marketing collateral.
Media Asset Management (MAM)
Media Asset Management (MAM) is generally considered as simply an alternative term for Digital Asset Management, although some would argue that a MAM system only supports media file rather than any type of digital file. In some cases, this term can refer to editorial or metadata activities associated with assets and DAM systems, for example, cataloguing, keywording or transcription of video footage or audio clips, although usually it will be called Media Asset Management Services.
Metadata
Metadata is often referred to as 'data about data'. In a Digital Asset Management context it refers to descriptive information applied to assets to support a tasks, activities and searching.
MOV (QuickTime)
MOV is the file format extension for QuickTime movies.
MPEG
MPEG stands for Moving Picture Experts Group and is a working group that develops standards for encoding digital video and audio.
MXF
MXF stands for Material eXchange Format and is a container format for time based media such as video and audio.
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NAS (Network Attached Storage) Server
Network Attached Storage (NAS) servers are dedicated to the storage of digital files. The purpose of having a computer whose sole purpose is file storage is to reduce the load on a web, application or database server. Unlike an external hard disk, a NAS is usually an actual computer with an operating system installed on it. Because NAS servers are specialised towards just providing storage alone, extra capacity can usually be added to them easily.
Normalization
The phrase 'Normalization' is generally used when designing databases to hold asset metadata. This description is highly simplified but in essence it means to index or rationalise common groups of terms down to a series of numbers so that they can be searched more quickly. Normalized data is typically found in drop-down menus or sets of checkboxes.
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Ontology
Ontology has a philosophical definition as well as an IT oriented meaning which is more suitable in the context of Digital Asset Management. An ontology show the relationships, properties and functions between concepts. Unlike a taxonomy, an ontology enables a wider range of relationships between attributes or terms than a simple hierarchy can represent.
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PDF
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. PDF files are created by Adobe Acrobat and are widely supported standard for distributing print quality documents electronically.
PostScript
PostScript is page description language that once achieved a high level of market penetration in the professional printing and graphic design market during the 1980s and 1990s. PostScript is gradually being usurped in favour of PDF.
Product Information Management (PIM)
Product Information Management (PIM) is the process, techniques and technology of gaining control over a company's product marketing information. The objective of PIM solutions is to remove inefficiency in the marketing supply chain by delivering information to sales channels more quickly and with fewer mistakes.
Proxy Files
This term refers to any files that are created from the original for reference purposes. They are used to represent assets - in general as a low resolution, truncated or otherwise constrained edition.
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Quark Xpress
Quark Xpress is a page layout and design application. It is commonly used by professional designers for a variety of print publishing activities (e.g. brochures, magazines, letterheads, leaflets, flyers etc.) and provides a high level of typographical control over designs.
QuickTime
QuickTime is widely adopted standard for delivery of multimedia content and was developed by Apple in the early 1990s, originally for the Macintosh but Windows support was added in a later release.
QXD
QXD standard for Quark Xpress Document and is the standard file format for Quark Xpress documents.
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RAW
RAW files are used by professional grade digital cameras to store images without processing them into a more common image format such as JPEG or TIFF. The characteristics of the RAW format that each camera writes tends to change depending on which component vendor a manufacturer has used for their device, this makes dealing with them using Digital Asset Management Tools quite complex.
RDBMS
An abbreviation for Relational Database Management System.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
RSS is an XML based Metadata standard that makes it simple for websites to syndicate data from other web based resources. RSS sources are typically referred to as 'feeds' and include a short snippet about the article and a link back to it.
Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)
Real Time Streaming Protocol is an internet protocol for Media Streaming. It was developed by the The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to provide a basic set of commands for controlling dynamic media such as play, pause, record etc…
RGB
RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue and is the standard colour model used for screen based media.
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SAN (Storage Area Network)
A SAN (Storage Area Network) is used to aggregate the storage capability available on different devices (e.g. servers) so they appear as a single disk. The key benefits of this approach are efficiency and availability. By combining storage, SANs can prevent uneven distribution of capacity and also offer greater reliability by replicating data across the network.
SWF (ShockWave Flash)
ShockWave Flash or SWF is the type of file created by the Flash application.
Sidecar Files
Sidecar files are used to hold XMP data about an image. This can include modifications to the file, IPTC data or other types of metadata. The benefit of using sidecar files is that the metadata does not need to be contained with the image and can be manipulated separately. The disadvantage is that this does also mean that the metadata contained within them can become lost or divorced from the original. Sidecar file data can also sometimes be stored in a database rather than files to reduce the risk of loss at the expense of some flexibility.
Stemming
Stemming refers to a technique for increasing the quantity of search results by reducing a supplied keyword search term to the base element of the word (i.e. it's stem) and then using that to try to identify other terms. For example, searching for activation in a Digital Asset Management system that supports stemming, might yield results for activate, actively, active, activeness etc…
Streaming
Streaming means the ability of media to be viewed at the same time as it is being downloaded. The key benefit of streamed assets is that the user does not need to wait until the entire file has been obtained before they can inspect it.
Surrogate Files
This term is now losing favour to Proxy files. Surrogate files are those derived from an original digital asset and are typically used in combination with metadata to help users locate media prior to downloading them. They usually provide a preview in the form of a thumbnail, smaller image, preview clip or other file that can be transferred quickly.
Systems Integration
Systems integration is the process of exchanging data between two or more IT systems to leverage further benefits out of the original applications. In the context of Digital Asset Management it may mean either receiving digital assets from another system (e.g. artwork from a workflow system) or providing raw data to automate an on-going business process such as providing asset ordering and pricing information to a finance system.
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Tagging
Tagging is a term given to the process of adding metadata generally and keywords in particular to digital assets.
Taxonomy
Taxonomy means a classification system that is usually hierarchical in nature (i.e. it has parent/child relationships between terms). Originally a scientific term used to classify living organisms, taxonomies are now used to describe any abstract tree-like metadata structure that is composed of categories, sub-categories and nodes. The relationship between terms is more rigid than an ontology where terms can be inter-connected using a range of polyhierarchical or non-hierarchical systems.
Thesaurus
A thesaurus is a set of synonyms or related terms for a given word or description, unlike a taxonomy, it may be polyhierarchical and involve complex relationships such as broader or narrower terms. Thesauri describe the standard terms for concepts in a controlled vocabulary.
Transcoding
Transcoding is the process of converting one video or audio format into another.
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Uploading
Uploading refers to the process of transferring a digital asset from a user's computer to a Digital Asset Management system. In most cases these days, it implies transferring the asset over either the internet or a corporate intranet.
Usage Approval
A specialised type of Digital Asset Management Workflow where a user must apply before they are given the rights to download or use an asset. Typically, it will involve the proposed usage being checked manually by a human being.
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Video Digital Asset Management (DAM)
Video Digital Asset Management or Video DAM is an attribute of Digital Asset Management systems that relates to the management of digital video assets. Video DAM systems are typically capable of more advanced operations on video, such as generating previews, live conversion of one format to another, streaming, video effects and extracting frames.
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Watermarking
Watermarking is often used to protect assets by applying a translucent logo or image over the top of a surrogate asset such as an image, video or document to prevent it being copied and re-used without authorisation.
Workflow
Workflow refers to the modelling of the steps required to achieve a task so it can be streamlined and managed more effectively. In the asset supply chains commonly used in Digital Asset Management systems, workflow is often used at the ingestion and usage approval stages. It may also be used to integrate with artwork tracking systems to automatically publish assets after they have been originated and approved.
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XML - eXtensible Markup Language
XML is an abbreviation of eXtensible Markup Language. XML is a standard for creating mark-up languages which describe the structure of data so that it can be exchanged between two different systems.
XMP - eXtensible Metadata Platform
XMP is an abbreviation of eXtensible Metadata Platform and is form of XML and is a metadata standard for describing assets such as images and documents. XMP is widely regarded as the successor to IPTC as it allows the range of metadata fields used to describe assets to be extended as required.
XBRL - eXtensible Business Reporting Language
XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language and is an XML based metadata standard for representation of business, accounting and financial data as well as semantic relationships between these entities.
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YUV
YUV is both a file format and a colour space used in PAL, NTSC and SECAM video standards.
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Z39.50
Z39.50 is a protocol for searching and retrieving information from remote repositories of content such as databases. The standard pre-dates web technology by a number of years, however, a number of initiatives such as SRU (Structured Retrieval via URL) have developed gateways to allow searches from intranets or websites to be interpreted by Z39.50 systems.
ZIP
ZIP is a popular file compression format used to reduce the storage space consumed by digital files.
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