Endeca Digital Asset Management Solution Selected By Discovery Communications
Endeca Technologies, Inc., a search and information access software company, recently announced that Discovery Communications, the number one nonfiction media company in the world, has selected and deployed Endeca's new Digital Asset Navigator. Discovery is the first organization to implement the solution, which was publicly unveiled today at the Henry Stewart Fall LA 2008, Digital Asset Management conference. Press and event attendees can view a demo of Endeca's Digital Asset Navigator at the Endeca booth, #125.
The solution provides the state-of-the-art search and Guided Navigation capabilities in Discovery Communications' Digital Media Center (DMC) on top of an Artesia Digital Asset Management (DAM) application. The DMC is a web application that stores digital assets related to Discovery productions, enabling users to search, retrieve and collaborate using digital assets for creating productions and the repurposing of content. As a result, Discovery's production teams can extract new value from their digital content investments, speed production times and reduce production costs through the access and discovery of existing video, audio and image assets.
"Discovery's digital library is one of our most valuable assets, and the breadth and quality of the collection is one of the best in the media industry," said Darin Prill, SVP of Architecture and Development for Discovery Communications. "Endeca introduced a unique approach to unlock latent value in our content investments and a catalyst to boosting reuse."
The deployment of Endeca's Digital Asset Navigator solution introduces advanced search and discovery capabilities to address common shortcomings of today's standard Digital Asset Management applications – shortcomings that have a direct impact on content reuse goals and limit their ultimate value. These DAM applications typically rely on SQL-based database search capabilities that require exact match search queries, as well as a deep understanding of the content available and the organizational structure of the data. In contrast, Discovery's new Endeca-powered search and navigation solution introduces capabilities like spell suggestion and/or correction, synonyms for related concepts, and Guided Navigation® refinements (e.g. refine by program, geography, original air date, content theme/genre, time, etc.). These same capabilities give people the ability browse the entire library of digital assets for more exploratory types of searches.
For example, a producer putting together a new show on the underworld market for ivory products may want to complement onsite, in-person interviews with footage of elephants in the wild. The producer or an assistant starts their search by selecting "footage" (nearly 100,000 files), searches for "elephants" and gets back just over 330 results. New refinement options appear like topic, originating network, location, original format, HD/SD, TV Standard, Aspect Ratio and more. Knowing that the show will be broadcast in high definition, the producer clicks on HD and the list is reduced to 19 results. Since the show will be based in Africa, the producer then selects "Africa" from the "country" refinement option and is presented with a single, optimal high definition, b-roll result of a herd of elephants walking toward a camera in the Serengeti.
"Discovery Communications provides a great example of how better visibility into information can be used to create operational efficiencies and competitive advantage," said Steve Papa, CEO of Endeca. "This is especially critical in the media and publishing space, where the reuse of high value content is critical to creating new revenue streams, new products, and new opportunities for cost reduction."
About Endeca
Endeca's innovative information access software helps people explore, analyze, and understand complex information, guiding them to unexpected insights and better decisions. The Endeca® Information Access Platform, built around a new class of access-optimized database, powers applications that combine the ease of searching and browsing with the analytical power of business intelligence. More than 500 leading global organizations including ABN AMRO, Boeing, Cox Newspapers, the (US) Defense Intelligence Agency, Dell, Ford Motor Company, Hyatt, IBM, John Deere, the Library of Congress, Texas Instruments, and Walmart.com rely on Endeca to power business-critical applications that increase revenue, reduce costs, and streamline operations.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Endeca has operations in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. For more information: endeca.com or info@endeca.com.
SOURCE: Endeca Technologies, Inc.