Multimedia SUCKS!

[katster]

Alright, I'll ask this question generally, since somebody might be of help.

I'm trying to design a possible library application for film clips, for high school students working on a video yearbook. And I'd like the metadata stored on each clip to be well thought out, if not exhaustive, and that's why I need this data. So if you were working on a project, and wanted data about a video clip or still shot, what would you want to know about the clips?

Here's what I have so far:
ClipTitle, CameraType, Filename, Still/Video, Audio, PlaceTaken, DateTaken, TimeTaken, Duration, Hierarchy (for Hierarchy viewing mode), TypeofShot, Wide/Close, Cameraperson, Resolution, WhosInShot, FileType, Codec, BitRate, Size, Quality, FPS, UseInProject, DescriptionofClip, CompressedVideo.

If you can think of any others, let me know. I won't ink my drawings until tomorrow morning, and adding things to the database shouldn't be a big deal. Thanks.

Comments

[femakita.livejournal.com]

This seems like adequate metadata, bordering on exhaustive.

I can't think of any other metadata anyone would want to preserve offhand.

[smcwhort.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is a silly idea, but ... why not make it so that the users can muck about with what data is stored for each clip? Then you don't have to figure much of anything out. Just leave a facility for setting up fields.

You'd probably want to set up something of that sort anyway, wouldn't you? A "one-size-fits-all" metadata approach wouldn't fit much well, I'm thinking.

[spitgirl.livejournal.com]

Maybe a key word field. I know that you have a brief description, but if you're working with a lot of data, it might be a faster lookup through a key word field as opposed to a complete description field.

How about...

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I agree with femakita, you've rather well covered the "normal" fields, but I think smcwhort is also right.

No matter how comprehensive your predefined meta-data, someone will always want "just one more field" that you don't have. So what I suggest you do is create in advance say about 5 pairs of variable length text fields, calling them CustomName1-5 & CustomValue1-5, and this way anyone can add up to five unique fields to every single clip record! It would be more meaningful of course, if the fields were shared by a bunch of clips, but this is not required.
You would also need an interface to search these custom fields, in which the user would enter the custom name and you'd return the values of records that had a custom field by that name.

Good Luck!
Geeks rule!

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

You know, my company makes a product that does this... Not for film, but it can store images and could be adjusted to capture all of that.

You probably want to add some kind of unique identifier (it's possible that a clip could have the same name as another clip), and perhaps something that tracks changes. I mean, if someone edits it and puts it back, you'd want to know that, right?

You probably want at least two states for a clip to be in; in-work and released are the most common. Releasing something can trigger other events, like making the file read-only.

I don't want to burden you with all the hoo-ha in our product, which is meant for managing really complicated CAD assemblies, in all possible product configurations, as these change over time. But yeah, you have (or will have) captured What it is, Who made it, How did they make it, Where does it fit, Is it ready yet, and a few more...