ClearStory Systems’ Radiant EMS® Selected by Ascent Media Group Helps Customers Better Leverage Video Content Across Multi Media Channels

Westborough, MA (March 24, 2008) – ClearStory Systems, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise digital asset management (DAM) solutions, reports that Ascent Media Group, a company providing solutions for the creation, management, and storage of media assets, has been successfully providing unique digital media management services utilizing the ClearStory Enterprise Media Server (EMS). The integration of EMS supports Ascent Media’s offering of cutting edge video management services that result in a faster time to market, quicker response time, and a lower cost of doing business.

The explosion of multi-media channels — such as wireless phones, video-on-demand, and high-definition television — has added significant complexity to the task of controlling and delivering media assets used for commercials and other marketing communications. Organizations and agencies must constantly repurpose content in different media formats; localize and internationalize commercial spots; and manage increasingly complex media placement issues, such as tracking when and where different commercials have run.

As a leading provider of specialized media services for content owners and other groups that produce, own, and distribute media content, Ascent Media touches many films, episodes and television commercials produced in the United States. The sheer volume of video content combined with the evolving digital media landscape gave Ascent Media the opportunity to provide additional services to their customers. With the digital media landscape becoming increasingly complex, agencies and corporate clients were looking for comprehensive solutions for the management of their video assets. Ascent Media was looking to meet the growing demand. ClearStory’s EMS platform was able to provide additional functionality to Ascent Media’s existing DAM services by enabling the company to manage the access to all of its media assets including audio and video. In addition, EMS provided the asset-level security to easily administer and manage privilege inheritance and access control. The platform’s extensible metadata modeling capabilities and unlimited schema for classification and categorization provided Ascent Media the flexibility to develop services that readily align with the business processes of advertising agencies and media organizations.

Ascent Media evaluated several technology solutions that could have been customized to create a scalable, in-house digital video library and media services system. With its pure J2EE architecture, highly modular platform, and robust set of developer APIs, ClearStory’s Enterprise Media Server (EMS) was the logical choice for this initiative. Ascent Media was able to build the solution in less than six months.

“For a brand to be successful today, it must reach consumers from a variety of different channels and mediums. The need to repackage and deliver content in multiple formats across multiple channels creates an enormous content management challenge for organizations,” comments Craig German, Vice President of Program Management. “This solution supports the complete lifecycle management for our customer’s video assets. We are extremely pleased with how easy it is to work with EMS to achieve our objectives. ClearStory’s expertise and support has made them an invaluable partner in supporting this initiative.”

Supported by EMS, Ascent Media’s enterprise asset management platform offers complete lifecycle management for digital video assets. EMS provides Ascent Media and its customers with extremely flexible metadata modeling capabilities and access control profile management that allows content owners to have secure, on-demand access to their content and greater control over where and how their content is used.

Comments Mike Lam, President of ClearStory Systems: “Ascent Media is well-known for providing unprecedented levels of service for their customers through the adoption of leading edge technology. This modern media services platform really provides an important competitive edge in post-production, video delivery, and on-demand video services.”

About ClearStory Systems, Inc.
ClearStory Systems, Inc. is the leader in high-performance, content management solutions for digital media communications. ClearStory software manages the enterprise digital media supply chain, from creation and collaboration, to lifecycle management and delivery, to give companies a competitive advantage, marketing agility, cost avoidance, and maximum efficiency. Backed by premier customer support and service, ClearStory’s award-winning products are easy to use and readily align with our customers’ business objectives for both a rapid return-on-investment and low total cost of ownership. Visit us at www.clearstorysystems.com.