Discovering the metadata meaning

Metadata is data that describes other data. Ok, it sounds a bit tricky so let’s step back to find the real meaning of metadata. Metadata is just information about any other element. For example, when you take a picture with your phone, the time, location and resolution information that appears on the gallery when you see it is metadata. Therefore, we are talking about information and data about your picture.  

So, the solution is very simple. Metadata is the complementary information related to any other element.  

Metadata’s meaning is straightforward once you understand it, but we decided to visit other definitions to bring some more light to the concept. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) explains metadata as “structured data that includes data associated with information about a system or object for the purpose of providing a description.” Although all definitions are similar at one or more points, it seems clear that metadata is an important component to help us locate, classify, and understand the objects-whether physical or non-physical-that they are attached to. 

It is natural that in the information era, we have concluded that it is essential to have data that allows us to identify, locate and recover any object. However, the pioneers in content preservation were old librarians. They understood the metadata meaning before anyone else. 

Already in Ancient Egypt (280 BC), the Great Library of Alexandria offered all its scrolls with a small label attached to each one. They contained the title, subject, and author of the work, allowing readers to locate their search more easily and librarians to organize the catalog without wasting hours of work in the process. These labels would later become bibliographic records, and their digital version would be mentioned for the first time by two MIT engineers in a report entitled ADMINS, where they mention ‘the need to maintain a record (metadata) of the data records’. 

If we take a step forward into the 21st Century, we will see how any digital element we use in our daily activity contains metadata. Of course, video is not an exception. In this audiovisual content era, this format is essential for different businesses like the educational or the corporate sector. Therefore, metadata on media assets is more critical than ever to avoid chaos in the archives. Thanks to them, we can order and preserve our media assets efficiently. 

Ok, we already know the meaning of metadata, but why is metadata important? What role does metadata play in a MAM System? For software like VSNExplorer MAM, the metadata of media assets is the key to order and catalog our archive. With this information, the system searches and locates quickly and efficiently the file we are looking for when we search in our archive. 

The more metadata on our media, the more information VSNExplorer MAM will have to correctly catalog it. If we go back for a moment to the origins of metadata, a MAM System is like a librarian. It creates the index tags, completes the information, catalogs and manages the archive to find the media. All this with the metadata as the core of the solution. 

The meaning of metadata is now clear and so is why metadata is important. However, we didn’t talk about how to extract this gold from a video file. We must have the maximum amount of information about our files for its catalog. Metadata like title, description, the video date, the characters that appear or text transcription are the key. 

Logically, the more efficient way to extract metadata is automation via cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence. A good example is RTVE’s project for content catalog of its Archive using VSNExplorer MAM. Thanks to the integration of this system with AI search engines, our MAM system extracts all this information for validation on a single interface. 

However, metadata extraction is just the first step. For a MAM System it’s essential to manage this information and customize the data treatment for each user. In this article, we explained how the metadata rules editor of VSNExplorer enables that feature. Using a simple programming language, our clients can create and manage thousands of data operations thanks to this tool. 

Now that we control metadata and why it’s important, don’t lose the chance to squeeze out all its potential with VSNExplorer MAM. Do not hesitate to contact us and book your demo with our professionals to discover how we can help you with your media asset management.