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Portfolio Server 9.5
Digital Asset
Management System
Product Analysis
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary
What is Media Asset Management?
The Case for DAM
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1
1
managing assets through the OS’s file system
2
What is Portfolio Server 9.5?
3
Platforms
4
Time & Money saving features
4
Security & Intellectual Property Protection features
7
The Semantic Organisation
7
Asset processing
10
Asset Conversion
11
Integrating assets in creative applications with Portfolio Express
12
Finding assets in a networked environment
13
Portfolio Server 9.5 Output
14
Conclusion
15
Extensis requests that anyone using their trademarks disclaim that they are the property of Extensis.
As a result we would like to add the following disclaimer: “Extensis, Portfolio, Portfolio Server, Portfolio
Express, NetMediaMAX, NetPublish are trademarks of Celartem Inc., dba Extensis. MediaRich is a
registered trademark of Automated Media Processing Solutions, Inc., dba Equilibrium.”
Executive Summary
We could start this report on Digital Asset Management (DAM) by repeating the traditional
message: DAM is needed to efficiently find content files such as images, documents, sound
bits and video clips that lie scattered around users’ local workstations and on network disk
drives more efficiently.
We could say there exists no file system that can rapidly find a content file — a digital asset
in DAM jargon — across networks.
All of this holds true, even today when some operating systems like Mac OS X have features
like Spotlight that allow users to find files faster than before. But even Mac OS X is by nature
not optimised for managing digital assets. File systems are simply too rigid for efficiently
organising files in categories, enriching them with tags, keywords, metadata values, etc.
A good DAM system on the other hand is fully optimised for managing assets. Portfolio
Server 9.5 is such a DAM system and it is not only optimised for managing and finding
assets across networks. It also delivers functionality that allows users to automatically act
upon specific file types without needing specialised editing software — image editors, for
example.
By its nature as a DAM system and thanks to its unique features and the way these are
implemented, Portfolio can be used to effectively protect Intellectual Property, to easily
manage assets in commercial, scientific, educational and other environments, and in markets
such as real estate, non-profit, medical, etc.
Portfolio Server 9.5 also supports rich semantic information — aka metadata. Portfolio’s
metadata support includes features that allow organisations to set up a metadata system
that makes the most sense to them, and that — when used correctly — can dramatically
increase a user’s interaction with organisational knowledge, images, etc.
In fact, we found that when a Portfolio Server 9.5 catalogue system has been carefully
planned, an organisation can save a lot of money, e.g. by organising workflows more
efficiently and/or by showing hidden connections between assets and ‘treatments’ —
treatments being anything from purchased clipping paths, to masks, etc.
How we found Portfolio Server 9.5 to actually save money is described in the report.
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What is Media Asset Management?
Digital asset management (DAM) consists of management tasks and decisions surrounding
the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of digital assets.
Digital photographs, animations, videos and music are examples of media assets that can be
managed with a DAM system.
MAM is often used as a sub-category of DAM, mainly for audio and video content. A more
recent concept is “Enterprise Content Management” (ECM), which often describes solutions
that address similar features in a wider range of industries and applications, and which often
include workflow functionality.
The Case for DAM
• DAM can save huge amounts of money, especially in environments with multiple,
geographically distant departments or subsidiaries, making available digital assets
across dispersed networks.
• DAM can actually make money too, by protecting against the infringement of
intellectual property rights.
• DAM offers a centralised repository which can greatly contribute to preserving an
organisation’s institutional knowledge.
• DAM gives users access to off-line and archived assets whenever needed. Off-line
assets can reside on CDs, DVDs, MO discs, tapes as well as multiple external hard
drives, shared drives, folders, etc.
• DAM enables users to find digital assets in a timely manner, and regardless of where
the asset is stored.
• DAM makes it possible to give users access to digital assets at any time, across time
zones, and indifferent of other users’ availability and agenda.
• DAM enables the creation and enforcement of a digital asset policy so that
everything owned (in every sense) by the organisation stays within the organisation,
ready to be used by anyone who needs it.
• DAM can create a meta-repository; i.e. a database that answers the question which
files are available in the organisation and who has authority to access them.
• DAM allows to enforce Digital Rights Management (DRM) and an information access
policy (e.g. allowing specific edits of images only to designers) by implementing
permissions.
• DAM makes it easier to adhere to standards and procedures.
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• DAM can bring the paperless office one step closer, e.g. by converting all office
documents to PDF and archiving the originals.
• DAM can support the creative workflow, complete with collaboration, approval
cycles and versioning.
• DAM can make a cross-channel publishing workflow more efficient by delivering fast
access to file format conversion of a high quality.
• DAM streamlines file management.
managing assets through the OS’s file system
A file system is good at creating, moving, copying, and deleting files, and even modern
Operating Systems’ file systems are optimised for managing files, creating and managing
metadata, searching, etc. Mac OS X is better at finding files than anything that came before
it, but it does not guide users when they look for a file, nor does it offer a structured
manner in which to add metadata and migrate this metadata to another system if needed.
Operating Systems are also bad at managing files across networked storage devices, and
when a device is off-line, an OS will not be able to retrieve anything from a file until the offline file is mounted.
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DAM systems can do all that and more. The management features a DAM system delivers,
makes it possible to save time and costs. For example, DAM systems may “know” about
a link between an image file and a clipping path created for this file. By presenting that
knowledge to the user, duplicate costs can be avoided. DAM systems may also offer basic
editing capabilities, multiple ways to search, browser-based file retrieval across network
borders, etc.
DAM systems may ultimately support the selling of digital assets within a company
(between departments; catalogue and brochure, for example) or to the larger public (over
the Internet, integrated with an e-commerce front-end).
What is Portfolio Server 9.5?
Portfolio Server 9.5 is Extensis’ latest version of its venerable Digital Asset Management
system. Extensis delivers several DAM solutions with each a different level of functionality.
The most extensive edition is the Enterprise edition which comes with a license for 10
clients included, and has built-in support for SQL (Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP3 or
2008 SP2, MySQL 5.1, Oracle Database 10gR2, 11g). This edition is especially suitable for
businesses that need to access catalogues across a worldwide network. It supports large
collections of images (100,000+ files), has better support for increased load and data
integrity in demanding environments, and offer more database control and SQL integration
capabilities.
The second most extensive solution is suitable for medium-sized companies. It is the
Professional edition, which comes with a license for 3 clients, and supports Portfolio’s own
built-in database engine. The Professional version can be upgraded to the Enterprise
version.
Finally, Extensis offers a product called Portfolio Studio which comes with a 3 client license.
This version is targeted at a departmental/small team level where a small implementation
of Portfolio makes more sense than the heavy Pro or Enterprise editions that come at a far
higher price and which are aimed at higher user numbers and more complex environments.
The Studio edition cannot be upgraded to Portfolio Server Professional or Enterprise.
For its automatic and semi-automatic image conversion and editing capabilities, Portfolio
Server 9.5 has a media engine. The one included with all editions of Portfolio Server 9.5 is
powered by the Equilibrium MediaRich server — a powerful image processing engine that
provides extensive file format support and fast media conversion and delivery. Thanks to
MediaRich, Portfolio Server 9.5 can handle almost every file format that exists — including
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Camera Raw, Adobe DNG, Adobe SWF, Office documents, PDF, audio, and video.
Extensis Portfolio NetMediaMAX is an add-on, which extends the capabilities and functions
of Portfolio Server to support a wider variety of file conversions using the Portfolio Web
Client and also grants the ability to host file processing on a separate server using an
external Portfolio Media Engine, powered by MediaRich. The combination of Portfolio
Server 9.5 and NetMediaMAX allows for advanced control and customisation of file
conversions and output. Users can take advantage of this functionality by developing
custom scripts that model complex or time consuming media processing tasks in their
workflow, such as stamping images for the web with a watermark image.
Platforms
Portfolio Server 9.5 runs on Mac OS X 10.5.8 and higher, and on Windows Server 2003 SP2
and higher. The client runs on Mac OS X 10.4.1.1 or higher, and on Windows XP SP3, Windows
Vista SP2 and Windows 7.
Time & Money saving features
The Portfolio Server 9.5 administration interface is browser-based, clean and uncluttered.
It allows administrators to quickly set up catalogues, users, licenses, and permissions.
Administrators can also manage media engines from this one, unified interface.
Setting up Portfolio Server 9.5 Enterprise on a MySQL database takes about two hours,
including the setup of the database itself and the creation of a dozen users. Using the
Portoflio built-in database, the setup process takes only a couple of minutes.
The ingestion of assets through the Watch folder approach can be running in the
background, so as soon as a minimum of assets are available, users can start using the
system.
The Portfolio Server 9.5 client interface supports drag-and-drop of files and folders into the
client application. If a user has the permissions to do so, he or she can upload assets through
the web client as well. The indexing process takes as long as needed for the thumbnail to
be generated and the metadata (or contents of a PDF document) to be indexed. Portfolio
Server 9.5 will never index temporary files or cache files, so the abundance of these files in
anyone’s computer system will not bog down indexing performance.
However, there are several ways to speed up this process. One is by filtering (excluding
file types) what exactly Portfolio Server 9.5 will index. This allows users to dump all kinds of
files in a folder in the file system, yet be able to have Portfolio Server 9.5 manage a limited
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number of file types per catalogue. Doing so saves asset users time as they don’t need
to filter the assets on their side before they can start finding exactly what they need. An
example could be a designer who keeps his internal invoices together with his designs in
one folder in the file system, while Portfolio Server 9.5 would index only the design files so
others can access these.
Another time saver is the Gallery feature. This feature is sometimes called “collection” in
other DAM systems. It allows users to collect files they want to keep together — all images
that will be used in a book on architecture, for example — while the catalogue indexes all
Camera RAW images.
Smart Galleries are identical to Smart Folders on Mac OS X: users save a search query and
from then on the gallery automatically updates based on the query parameters. One very
effective way of using Smart Galleries is setting up a query for a parameter that one knows
will be lacking with unfinished assets, e.g. a model release form or an “approved” metadata
field. This creates a Smart Gallery that acts like a task list for an editor.
In the Web Client, users can also create ad hoc collections by selecting multiple assets and
Full Screen view with the Film Strip at the bottom
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then viewing them in “Full Screen” mode (see screenshot previous page), which allows them
to examine the files by zooming in. Navigating is done using a filmstrip.
Managing these images in the same structured way in a file system would be impossible
without duplicating at least some files, and it would not help to create Mac OS X Smart
Folders for this particular type of example because the search parameter to create the
folder depends on a file that may not yet exist.
One of the most obvious time and money saving features — and advantages above using a
file system — of Portfolio Server 9.5 is its ability to catalogue off-line assets. PDF documents,
images or plain documents can reside on local and mounted network shares. When they
do, a user can manage them with the file system up to a point. As we showed with the two
previous examples, it would cost more time and be far from efficient, but it could be done.
When network shares and archival media such as CDs, DVDs, MO-drives, jukeboxes, etc
are involved, a file system based management setup will fail with every unmount operation
of the network share or medium involved. Smart Folders will fail to find the files, simply
because they can no longer be seen by the OS.
With Portfolio Server 9.5 the fact whether a share point or medium is mounted or not
only becomes important for the indexing process, but not for knowing if a particular file
exists and where it can be found. Users can create search queries even when the media
is disconnected. This has two benefits: finding an asset does not have to be postponed
until someone mounts (all of) the media on which the file (could) reside, and assets can
be archived to off-line media quicker. This in turn may allow for a system that is more
responsive (less storage media to load by the OS) and for files that are more secure as
archival media may have better longevity characteristics than continuously used disk drives.
Master keyword lists further shave time off the indexing process, because users can add
pre-defined keyword sets to assets they add to the DAM. Metadata fields can be pre-filled
as well.
Portfolio Server 9.5 also allows for synchronisation with watch folders to speed up the
indexing process and make the ingestion process as painless and fast as possible.
By adding metadata Portfolio Server 9.5 can associate image treatments together with
the asset the treatment has been purchased for. This prevents duplicate purchases of the
same treatment (e.g. a clipping path), resulting in considerable cost savings. Especially in
organisations with geographically separated users, this is of considerable importance as
reusing existing treatments increases their ROI considerably.
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Security & Intellectual Property Protection features
Permissions are managed on a per-catalogue and user-role basis. Each user can have
different levels, depending on which role he plays and which catalogue he is using. This
allows for a granular approach to security, as an administrator (highest role level) of an
image catalogue can only be a reader (lowest level) of a PDF catalogue.
Portfolio Server 9.5 can be used to protect intellectual property (IP) rights. The best way
to do so is by carefully planning and exploiting the permissions system so that an optimal
combination of role level and catalogue access can be obtained. For example, catalogues
need to be planned in advance to accommodate for IP protection, so that a collection of
sensitive assets cannot be “contaminated” by adding assets which can be freely distributed
within the organisation.
When catalogues and user role assignments are planned with these requirements in mind,
Portfolio Server 9.5 is a powerful brand and IP management tool, but can also be effectively
used to preserve an organisation’s knowledge and to keep that knowledge within the
organisation.
The Semantic Organisation
When we mention the term “semantic” in a technology context, we first think of the
“Semantic Web”, a term coined by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) director Tim
Berners-Lee. Semantic Web is a group of methods and technologies to allow machines to
understand the meaning — the semantics — of information on the World Wide Web.
According to the original vision, the availability of machine-readable metadata would
enable automated agents and other software to access the Web more intelligently. The
agents would be able to perform tasks automatically and locate related information on
behalf of the user.
Semantics have existed for a long time in the DAM world, and they revolve around the use
of three types of semantic information:
• Categories
• Keywords
• Metadata fields
Portfolio Server 9.5 supports all three of these. With categories, administrators can create
an organised, nested folder structure for users to put files into. This structure does not
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necessarily exist on a file system level, but can be limited entirely to the Portfolio Server 9.5
environment.
An Example of Category Benefits
A designer works on layout projects and several projects use the same images over and
over again. If the designer were to organise the images using the file system only, he/
she would have two possibilities to stay organised:
• Move the images from one project folder to another — this would only work
when there are no projects he/she is working on simultaneously
• Copy the images from one project folder to another — this creates duplicates of
the same image; when one of these images is edited, others can become “out-ofsync”.
Using Portfolio Server 9.5, the designer’s administrator can create project folders
(categories) for him/her, which will hold the layout design assets, the text content
files, and the images used per project. The designer can copy the images that are
used for multiple projects to each project category without having to worry about
synchronisation, or the management of these images.
With keywords, Portfolio Server 9.5 users can make the assets semantically richer. Keywords
can be thought of as the equivalent of “tags” on the World Wide Web, where bloggers can
create “tag clouds” so visitors can quickly see which keywords attract the most stories or
comments.
The most important semantic enrichment any DAM solution should offer is the collection of
data fields commonly known as “metadata”. In general terms, metadata is used to describe
the definition, structure and administration of data files with all contents in context.
The OS X file system offers its users search technology called “Spotlight”. Spotlight sees
all the metadata inside supported files — including the kind of content, the author, edit
history, format, size, and many more details. However, Spotlight does not allow users to
write back metadata. It only reads a (limited number of) metadata.
Portfolio Server 9.5 both parses and writes metadata to assets. The application can do this
for several metadata models, including XMP, Dublin Core and EXIF (read-only as this model
is camera related and therefore sancrosanct), to name only a few. Even more important is
that Portfolio Server 9.5 allows users to create “Custom Fields”. With custom fields, users
can map their own metadata onto CS4 or CS5 custom file info panels and have these panels
synchronise with Portfolio Server 9.5. Adding custom fields instead of trying to pack all
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description and semantic data into the standard metadata fields — or worse yet: into a long
list of keywords — makes finding assets exponentially easier and more effective.
Example of metadata write-back & the possibilities this opens up
All Adobe Creative Suite 4 and Creative Suite 5 programs support a metadata model
developed by Adobe, called XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform). To the user, XMP
presents itself as a tabbed dialogue window with a number of panels into which
information can be typed, such as copyright, address, instructions, etc.
XMP can be scripted, i.e. a developer can create new panels with new metadata fields
for his own purpose. For example, by itself XMP does not contain approval, status or
routing fields, but such fields can be scripted into the XMP system. Once such a field
set or panel has been added to the XMP system, the information entered in the fields
becomes part of the XMP data that travels with the original file. In the example, the
Custom Info Panel “Extensis” created by a catalogue administrator to accommodate for the
workflow metadata fields in Portfolio Server 9.5.
developer has added the workflow metadata fields Portfolio Server 9.5 supports in a
XMP panel.
The XMP script developer has created the script in compliance with the workflow
fields in Portfolio Server 9.5, so the XMP data entered by users in a CS4 or CS5 file is
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automatically entered in the appropriate Portfolio Server 9.5 metadata fields of the
asset.
More to the point, an editor or workflow manager can now change the metadata using
only Portfolio Server 9.5 and have the information written back to the file’s metadata.
The CS4 or CS5 user will see the workflow change in the XMP panel. This allows
Portfolio Server 9.5 to be used as a simple Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
system, or even more to the point: it allows Portfolio Server 9.5 to be integrated into an
existing ECM via the metadata system.
Most document types, including Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and Adobe Photoshop
images, already contain rich metadata. Contrary to any operating system, Portfolio Server
9.5 can read information from all of these types of metadata.
Asset processing
Assets in Portfolio Server 9.5 are processed automatically and/or manually. Automatic
processing runs through the AutoSync Folder functionality. Watch folders can be local
workstation folders, but also network shares — everything that can be mounted on the
server’s system desktop. However, we found Portfolio Server 9.5 can also process via FTP
through a FTP client that can mount a FTP directory as a network share. The two major
FTP clients on the Mac OS X operating system —Panic Software’s Transmit and Nolobe’s
Interarchy 10 — can mount FTP directories as virtual disks. Portfolio Server 9.5 treats these
disks as any other mounted media. Installing Portfolio Server directly onto the FTP server
is an alternative to this method. This is used in situations where users FTP-upload files to an
in-house server, and the FTP folder is shared using Windows/Mac file sharing so Portfolio
Server can automatically catalogue the FTP uploads.
Manual asset processing is triggered by dropping asset folders or files onto the Portfolio
Server 9.5 client, or by uploading assets into the Portfolio Server 9.5 Web Client — as well as
through the import menu option. Manual ingestion allows users to drop assets into category
folders the Portfolio Server 9.5 catalogue administrator has prepared.
Automatic ingestion uses the file system’s folder hierarchy to synchronise assets with the
Portfolio Server 9.5 catalogue in only the topmost folder or all subfolders included. Users
can opt to synchronise based on a constant monitoring of the watched folders or when they
force the catalogue to be synchronised with the watched folder.
During manual or automatic processing, Portfolio Server 9.5 will:
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• Parse XMP, IPTC, IPTC4XMP, EXIF, GPS-EXIF, Dublin Core, Microsoft Office, and
QuickTime metadata automatically
• Catalogue the assets into the appropriate catalogue and list these assets in the Last
Cataloged list
• Index the metadata and —if the user enables this feature — the full content of text
documents, including plain text, PDF, and Microsoft Office documents.
Asset Conversion
One of the most powerful features of Portfolio Server 9.5 is its ability to incorporate one or
more industry-leading media engines with which very fast, high-quality media conversions
can be obtained. We tested this feature using the Portfolio Server 9.5 Web Client with 100
Camera RAW files (of 35MB each) which we converted to JPEG at 80% quality and down
scaled to 50%.
Batch converting these 100 files using Adobe Photoshop CS4 took a couple of hours. We
Batch converting assets in the Portfolio Server 9.5 Web Client. The same conversion capabilities are
available in a NetPublish site.
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expected to see a time savings of 20% maximum, but found the whole process to take
only 8 minutes, including the download of the zipped result. The quality of the JPEGs was
identical to those processed with Photoshop CS4.
Using the Web Client, it is possible to convert assets in batch. Using a NetPublish site,
conversion is possible asset by asset. NetPublish is an optional add-on for Portfolio Server
9.5 that automatically publishes digital media to self-service web portals. When combined
with NetMediaMAX features, NetPublish sites are extremely versatile. Even without
NetMediaMAX, catalogue administrators can opt to only publish approved files, for
example to provide employees or business partners with instant access to the correct files.
NetPublish is allows for dynamic sharing of brochures, catalogues, product images, technical
support manuals, etc., with off-site teams. Especially when based on Smart Galleries,
NetPublish sites can be dynamically and automatically updated.
Automatic asset conversion beyond the built in conversion to TIFF and JPEG is possible
too, depending on the optional NetMediaMAX module being installed. NetMediaMAX is
a scalable, distributed system that allows for many conversion options without the need to
have a copy of Photoshop or another image editor installed on every user’s desktop. For
example, Photoshop PSD or Camera RAW files can be converted to PNG or DNG, with or
without flattening, keeping layers intact (when relevant), etc.
NetMediaMAX also enables administrators to create so-called MediaScripts via the
embedded media engine, which can go further than just converting assets from one format
to another. MediaScripts are fairly simple to create as they resemble JavaScript somewhat.
Running MediaScripts can be restricted based on the permission system. Examples of
MediaScripts include scripts to upload to FTP, apply Photoshop
filters, render type into an image, layer manipulation, etc.
Integrating assets in creative
applications with Portfolio Express
The Portfolio Express panel supports
drag-and-drop in all applications where
assets can be dropped, including MS
Word, Apple Pages, Adobe InDesign,
QuarkXPress 8, etc.
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Except for the ability to create custom XMP panels in CS4
and CS5 applications and have the information in these bidirectionally edited, Portfolio Server 9.5 integrates with desktop
applications through the Portfolio Express panel, a simplified and
small form factor version of the Portfolio Server 9.5 desktop
client.
Portfolio Express allows designers to simply drag and drop
assets into open documents in any application that accepts
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dragged images, PDFs, etc. These include Apple’s Pages and Keynote, Microsoft Word and
PowerPoint, and all Adobe CS applications, as well as QuarkXpress 8.
Portfolio Express is simplified but does support opening different catalogues (one by one,
to keep it a panel), a QuickFind search feature, a hotkey to toggle the visibility of Portfolio
Express and the ability to switch to the full version of the desktop client.
Finding assets in a networked environment
Portfolio Server 9.5 supports two types of search: QuickFind and database search.
QuickFind works much the same way as when people search with Spotlight or the web with
Google. Portfolio Server 9.5 simply looks through all keywords, filenames, and descriptions
and if the search term appears in any of those database fields, it will return the associated
assets.
The Search feature in the Web client. At left the categories and AutoSync folders expanded for
browsing. Note the Smart Gallery button which allows to create a dynamically updated gallery.
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QuickFind is as accurate or inaccurate as Google or Spotlight — it does not offer any sort of
filtering, so if a user is looking for architecture photos only and types in the word “historical
buildings” he may get back a list that also contains paintings from Flemish masters.
Portfolio Server’s full search, however, allows users to add filters to the query, which will
result in shorter and more accurate (pinpointed) result lists. Filtering can be done by limiting
the query to a set of asset properties such as specific metadata fields, keywords, etc., and
these filters can be combined (with “and” or “or”) to form one narrowly defined query.
Portfolio Server 9.5 will only return a list of assets that match the query. Obviously, the list
will be much shorter than with QuickFind. Additionally, users have the ability to turn the
query into a Smart Gallery which is a collection of assets that gets updated with all new ones
added to the catalogue, based on the query’s parameters.
Portfolio Server 9.5 Output
Portfolio Server 9.5 can convert assets into different file formats as we have seen, but it can
also output assets and asset collections.
From the Portfolio Server 9.5 Web Client, users can view assets full screen, at different
magnifications. They can also flag items and batch process them for download.
The Print dialogue for printing galleries — contact sheets if you wish.
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The Portfolio Server 9.5 desktop client offers an additional printing capability of a Gallery,
which is very useful for photographers who can print contact sheets and even photo books
from within Portfolio Server 9.5.
Printing individual assets is possible too, and if the catalogue administrator has enabled
large previews, the printed version of the asset will be of the highest resolution supported
by this preview.
Conclusion
Portfolio Server 9.5 is a very strong contender in the crowded DAM market. In this market,
we feel it best serves the segment that deals with brand management, photo management
and all types of publishing.
Portfolio Server 9.5 is an established product but especially with version 9.5 it manifests itself
as a modern system that uses the most advanced technologies available. Extensis has made
the wise choice to partner with Equilibrium for its media engine. By doing so, it has turned
Portfolio Server 9.5 into an asset management powerhouse that allows users to automate
common repetitive tasks and enjoy high-quality results.
After having spent several months with Portfolio Server Enterprise 9.5 edition, including
the NetMediaMAX option, we can only speak for this system’s user-friendliness, scalability,
flexibility (both in terms of usability and markets where it feels at home), and power.
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