Marg MediaBeacon

There is little to say here. Everything we once had been excited about does not work as expected. There is nothing in the software that can not be found elsewhere.

Software: While working with MediaBeacon, I took on a new job of troubleshooting. I wrote up endless reports of features that were not functioning correctly. Countless hours were spend troubleshooting and recording bugs and errors that never got corrected (even after installing 4 different upgrades.

Video: The video functionality is NOT ready to be released. If you are considering MediaBeacon for use of videos, you better brush up on your FFMPEG or be ready to purchase an additional transcoding software (Telestream Vantage that will cost you at least $20k.

Customer Service: Our company made the mistake of purchasing MediaBeacon through a re-seller Zenplex. As a re-seller, Zenplex was not knowledgeable enough on the product, their customer service was horrible as they could not communicate clearly or in a timely matter. Every bug found had to be sent through Zenplex before it would get to MediaBeacon engineers. However, first it was my job as the client to prove it was broken and teach Zenplex before it would get passed on. A game of telephone that wasted too many hours. At contract renewal, we tried to drop Zenplex and become a customer of MediaBeacon. However, we were considered too small and MediaBeacon did not want us as a client and told us to stay with their re-seller we were cleary unhappy with.

Run away.

We will not be renewing our contract and will be uninstalling the software. The software failed us, but more so the staff at MediaBeacon failed.

The searchability is very in-depth and interprets content and metadata in multiple, customizable ways to allow several options users' different search preferences. With the proper set-up and dedication before launch, you can really take control of your metadata to serve your specific users' needs.

The deployment timeline went well beyond initial expectations. Communication from individuals at MediaBeacon was not consistent. They started off strong, responsive and helpful, but as the deployment dragged on they were less available and receptive. We struggled to get complete answers from the proper individuals and were left waiting too many times. Although we ultimately received the necessary information to proceed, it often felt like a task to get what we expected or agreed to.

Make sure to ask every question you can think of. Leave no questions or concerns unanswered! There were many minor details never uncovered during the discovery phase that causes delays in deployment months later.

The MediaBeacon interface offers lots of widgets to search, display, save and share content. Setting up the interface to interpret your company's content and metadata was an extremely difficult process., but if done properly, MediaBeacon can offer users multiple options to search and retrieve their content. For customers with a wide variety of users with different preferences, MediaBeacon allowed multiple workspaces for different user groups.

I enjoy its clean and sleek design. It is easy on the eyes. My job ask us to grab footage fast from MediaBeacon so its clean design makes it easy to enter in info. I also really enjoy the it saves my log in user name making it easier to click right into looking in. I also enjoy that it is customized towards Showtime being called Redspace. I also like that you can separate the items from image, video and print. Making it easier to make a smaller list to look through.

It is hard to click through all of the items we have under our profile. It's hard to find specific things. I find that I have to scroll through tons of things that don't pertain to the job or even show that I am looking for. I wish if I was looking for a specific shot or photo from a show that I could have an easier time narrowing down the exact source.

I think I would tell them that its a good concept but I struggle with finding exactly what I need in a timely manner.

Looking up older photos and spots. We can be tasked to locate old behind the scenes footage or a spot from a specific season. We also have job numbers that we can look up and we have a better chance of locating those because media beacon locates it based on what it was labeled as.

Media Beacon allows for easy upload up large numbers of assets. You can have thousands of assets totaling gigabytes in size. The platform is also customizable for your business look and feel as well as process.

The API's for loading assets programatically are not fully baked and do not have great documentation

Media Beacon is very good if you do not need to programatically add assets

Media Beacon allowed us to consolidate to one asset management system. Before we had 4 and this was a major cost savings as well as time savings

allows us to organize our assets much more efficiently. where I wasn't able to find other videos, media beacon has allowed me to search for more ambiguous assets with its search function. it allows us to search by show, which is huge, and when we can't find file names from other asset management platforms, media beacon usually helps us find it. the best part is that it allows us to search beyond just series, but across all our assets, like documentaries, movies, sports, spots, and more.

it's not super aesthetically pleasing, but it does the job. sometimes the loading gets a little funky, it'll choke up a little, but I guess that makes sense considering it's loading up so many videos images, and preview.

keep your assets organized from the start! if you're managing thousands of videos, this will do the trick

asset organization and project management. it helps us take loads off of our servers while also keeping the assets organized and easy to find. where I wasn't able to find other videos, media beacon has allowed me to search for more ambiguous assets with its search function. it allows us to search by show, which is huge, and when we can't find file names from other asset management platforms, media beacon usually helps us find it. the thumb nail preview section helps us find assets quickly and makes things much easier to identify