Mediaflex Media Portal
Enabling simple and effective collaboration with media suppliers.
A simple solution providing organisations with a central media portal to receive media from suppliers and third parties directly into Mediaflex content management system.
The Challenge
Many of TMD’s clients face the challenge of acquiring content from multiple sources. This may be content commissioned or acquired from large production houses such as the BBC Studios Production or HBO, as well as from smaller organisations or boutique studios with only two or three people, all in dispersed locations across the globe. The challenge for these clients is to efficiently get the content into their Mediaflex solution, whether that be deployed on-premise, hosted in the cloud or as a hybrid of the two, so that it can go through the various workflows and processes such as QC, creative services, enrichment, repurposing and many more to enable it to be published to VOD, OTT and other non-linear platforms as well as for traditional linear distribution and of course the ubiquitous social media platforms.
The Solution
TMD’s Media Portal has been developed to provide a standardised method of receiving content. It is designed to make it simpler for media organisations to manage the process of receiving content, along with making it easier and more efficient for studios and third-party collaborators to deliver content to them. Media Portal provides an intuitive solution to transfer media content, with no technical knowledge required. This is preferable to many other methods of transferring content, where there may be limitations on file sizes and formats as well as security challenges.
With Mediaflex Media Portal, all that is required is for suppliers to access the web address of the organisation’s portal, which could be on the public internet. The look and feel of Media Portal is configurable with the organisation’s branding – logo, image, fonts, colours, buttons, etc.
The supplier’s users are given the relevant credentials to login securely with two factor authentication. Once logged in the intuitive nature of the UI enables the users to swiftly navigate the functionality provided. Additional contextual user guides can also be made available if required.
Once logged in the user is immediately presented with what media content they need to transfer to the Mediaflex platform. The first screen the user sees is a hierarchical list of media content grouped by Series, Season, Episode and Versions, all ordered by deadline date. The display of the columns for Title, Delivery Deadline, Status, etc. are configurable to enable best use of the screen real estate and user preference. The visibility and order of this list view can also be locked by the system administrator to prevent changing the layout of any of the information on the UI.
The Benefits
The benefits for media organisations are huge.
- They can be sure that the supplier knows what they need to deliver.
- They can see in real-time what is being delivered.
- Required metadata is input by the supplier in the formats specified by the media organisation.
- Only file formats specified by the media organisation can be uploaded.
- Full log history is available.
- Any number of suppliers can send any number of media files simultaneously.
- Any number of authorised users at each supplier can send any number of media files simultaneously.
- Required media content is ordered by deadline, ensuring deadlines are met.
- No need to give suppliers access to the organisation’s Mediaflex platform – just Media Portal.
Media Portal can be skinned with your organisation’s logo, colours, fonts, images and buttons, with both light and dark modes.
Video Upload
The supplier’s user selects the video content to upload and clicks Add+. An upload window opens. If a third-party upload client is being utilised, e.g., IBM Aspera Connect, and it is not currently installed then a prompt will appear for it to be installed. Once uploaded the video content then goes through an initial set of pre-configured ingest technical QC processes. If the video is rejected at this point the user task reappears back in the list view in Media Portal. The video content will need to be amended and then re-uploaded through the same process as before. Content files can be uploaded in the background whilst uploading other content. Once the video content file upload has completed, a ‘Send’ indicator will appear on the list screen, making it easy to see which files have been successfully uploaded, passed the initial technical checks and are ready to send onto the next stages of the content supply chain processes. Any number of users can upload at the same time from different user accounts located across multiple locations around the world.
Video upload screen
Image Upload
The image upload window allows multiple images to be uploaded at a time along with the entry of the appropriate metadata for each image. Additional images can be uploaded after a first batch is sent. Images that are uploaded but not yet ‘Sent’ can be removed from the Media Portal interface. Once an image is ‘Sent’, a media item record is created, and a workflow is raised in Mediaflex. At this point content can no longer be removed through Media Portal, as that content is then part of the Mediaflex domain.
Image metadata fields are configurable. There is the ability to tag people in images, including names and roles. Names of people are stored in Mediaflex, enabling Media Portal to provide a dropdown list of people, or companies, to tag, or new information added. Metadata can include Creator, Company, Description, Publishing and Usage Restrictions, Creation Date, as well as any additional required fields. An embedded image metadata panel (Exif or IPTC metadata formats) is visible, and the contents of any embedded metadata field can be transferred copied to the configurable Mediaflex metadata fields, any of which can be made mandatory.
Image upload screen
Logs and History
Media Portal includes comprehensive logging of events including capturing the details of all files uploaded, sent and deleted. The delivery history enables the functionality to search for items using metadata in a number of fields, including Name, Submitted Date and Deadline Date.
Support and Administration
Media Portal is intuitive and provides contact and support information and support availability based on the location of the user.
Media Portal provides the ability to link to any document via a URL, such as user guides, branding guidelines, audio guide, video guide, image guide, or any other document, accessed by customisable button icons.
Individual users have access to a user account information panel that provides the details and expiry date of their account. The panel also provides a list of the names of other authorised users from the same organisation. System Administrators can see and update the details and expiry dates of all user accounts as well as being able to remove accounts and personal data of users who leave the organisation in accordance with GDPR rules. System Administrators add new users to the system, with mandatory acceptance of configurable Terms and Conditions on registration.
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