We're at the cusp of setting up a DAM system and wondering what you use. After searching the forum a bit it seems that Expressions Media 2 seems good, but may suffer from a 2GB max catalogue size (is that still true?). It will be exclusively for the PC environment.
Please weigh in, we will be creating many TB's of video, audio, and stills of various types.
Thanks Paul. I've installed it at work, built my catalogs and I'll give it a try tomorrow.
I'm currently reading the review(s) and product page for Idimager and it appears that it may be even more powerful than EM2, without the 2GB limitation, and run on SQL servers. My code monkeys would have a blast with something like that. For an enterprise level it looks like the ticket, the UI is lousy though.
I'm not as familiar with entry level products so I can't comment on many of those but I have deployed several large systems over the years.
Depending on your needs a really good option is Canto Cumulus. You can store any type of document and also perform asset cross referencing which provides usage details on when and where an asset was used in a document. The web component runs inside a Tomcat container and is very easy to customize. Runs on pretty much any platform and there is also an open source solution that you can use by itself or in conjunction called OpenEdit.
On a basic level:
I want other users to be able to enter metadata into the photos I take.
I want the metadata to be embedded back into the files
I want to be able to sort and rank
I want users to be able to search the photos (based on the metadata we enter)
I want it to look nice (Idimager does not look nice for instance, EM2 & lightroom do)
It has to play video, audio and RAW files within itself
There's a massive ammount of other things that we will need it for, but no way for me to document it (sorry, both for NDA purposes and lack of knowledge of what they need).
I just found out that it also has to be compatible with Sharepoint, so that's really bringing down my options (Cumulus was looking good up to that point). Looking like equilibrium is it so far.
Biggest problem is I still want to use Lightroom, but I need this other DAM app to allow others (and Sharepoint) to be able to handle the files.
A warning. Do NOT, at least not yet, attempt to use LR if anyone suggests it. I tried it last year and the damage it caused by fracturing my database was horrendous. It took weeks of full time effort to recover. I uninstalled the application and haven't touched it since.
LR 2.0 is out, but I don't trust them to provide a professional level DAM application. Do NOT be a guinea pig for Adobe. I was, and it wasn't fun....
Let me know how SharePoint with MediaRich works for you, my foray into this solution was not that great. I suggest you examine the vaulting, sharing and archive functionality and make certain this workflow is what you want. Let me also mention the virtual file system and see if this is how you want to store and access your files.
The DAM book is useful for individual photographers but really does not cover IMO the unique requirements for a workgroup or enterprise solution. There is some good advice on metadata and tagging which should always be a consideration prior to ingesting the images. One thing which I would not suggest is converting all your images to DNG format which creates a lot of unnecessary work at this point. Perhaps there will be a ground swell of support at some point for this format but currently its not a practical option.
...fracturing a database is alarming.
Would a backup database eliminate this concern?
A backup is always a smart option for amateurs but a business requirement for pros. On the Windows side I use DeltaCopy (rsync on Mac and other unix systems) to copy my LR folders to another drive. This is fairly quick since it does a byte level compare and you don't end up having to copy an entire folder if you don't have to. You can also do full backups to another directory and should your most recent one fail you can go back to the previous backup folder. A really handy device for individuals is this http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/297
I just take a drive out and pack it into a carry case and take it off site.
