Media Collaboration Solution Integrates with MicroSoft SharePointMedia Collaboration Solution Integrates with MicroSoft SharePoint

Telestream, provider of universal media access solutions for the media and entertainment industry, today announced the availability of a new media collaboration solution that combines products and technologies from Telestream and Microsoft. Telestream MAP media access products now integrate with Microsoft SharePoint collaboration products to provide an efficient means for content owners and creators to easily access, share and collaborate on media files with colleagues and clients across local or wide area networks. The business solution targets video production companies, ad agencies, corporate communications, marketing and training departments, and other organizations that work on team-oriented digital media projects on a regular basis.

"The need for a high degree of collaboration between members of media production workgroups has become paramount to get the finished product. Though broadcasters and advertisers realize efficiencies by centralizing the preparation of content to one facility, other production work, such as graphic art, may be done at another facility. By employing digital delivery and collaboration services, they can easily work and access the same assets from different locations and, in so doing, also cut down the time-to-market significantly," said Mukul Krishna, Frost & Sullivan Senior Analyst and Program Leader, Digital Media Practice. "Telestream has already proven itself in the video encoding space, and, building on Microsoft's SharePoint for Telestream's MAP media application platform, it makes the DAM space that much more exciting. This puts Telestream in a position to provide some high-end video logging capabilities based on a web services architecture at very competitive prices."

Telestream MAP products provide media library services for Microsoft SharePoint products. SharePoint enables enterprises to develop intelligent portals that seamlessly connect teams and knowledge. These portals allow workgroups to share information across business processes, so that they can work more efficiently. Until now, SharePoint users were limited to collaboration, aggregation and organization of files stored in document libraries. MAP integrates with SharePoint to provide access to large, complex video and audio files. Task-oriented MAP services enable users to capture, index, search, and view media and metadata, as well as to reformat, share, and archive media from the desktop. Users can trim and save annotated media segments and email them to colleagues. This scalable, client/server solution provides a rich toolset for review-and-approvals, digital dailies and creative collaboration.

"Building on top of SharePoint products and technologies enables diverse, distributed workgroups to access, share and collaborate on digital media files and projects with the same ease and efficiency as Office documents and projects," said Dan Castles, president/CEO of Telestream. "The end user gets the benefits of working with a rich, well-proven, collaborative SharePoint toolset, supported by the advanced media access capabilities in MAP."

For applications simply requiring media access and viewing, Telestream MAP products combine with Microsoft Windows(R) XP Media Center Edition to provide easy remote-control access to high-quality media for viewing on a computer screen or a TV monitor. Applications include executive review-and-approvals, corporate remote training and retail kiosks.

Telestream's MAP media collaboration solution is powered by a number of Microsoft technologies. MAP is built on the Microsoft .NET framework to provide users with a solution that is easy to implement and easy to integrate with third-party applications. It utilizes the Windows Media 9 Series format to provide broadcast-video quality and bit-rate efficient transport. Users can leverage other Microsoft technologies, such as speech-to-text, using the Microsoft Speech Technologies. The joint media collaboration solution provides an attractive stand-alone media organizer and collaboration tool, or it can easily be integrated into an asset management solution to meet the needs of more complex workflows.