Digital Storage Manager 1.0 provides tagging, searching and archiving of files used in a Mac-based creative workflow.MetaCommunications Inc., a developer of workflow solutions for the graphic arts industry, has launched a new management system that is designed to reduce the time that creative professionals spend managing and searching their digital assets.
Digital Storage Manager 1.0 is "the first Intranet search and archive management system for creative workgroups," according to a press release from Iowa City-based MetaCommunications.
"Graphic arts organizations are under tremendous pressure to increase efficiency and profitability," said Robert Long, executive vice president of MetaCommunications. "Digital Storage Manager significantly reduces the time, labor and costs required to manage the ever-growing cache of production files. Our innovative, cost-efficient intranet search and archive management system puts a 'high beam' on Spotlight for Mac OS X Tiger, enabling creative professionals to take the ability to find, tag and archive beyond the desktop to an entire workgroup's network."
Digital Storage Manager is a client/server application with a database file system that provides a centralized view of production files as well as real-time indexing of file uses, customizable metadata tags, file search and retrieval, and one-step archiving and backup.
Digital Storage Manager offers integrated plug-ins for QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, and Mac OS X Finder, allowing users to edit metadata within familiar native applications without disrupting workflow, according to the company. Digital Storage Manager also integrates with backup/archival solutions including Brightstor ARCServe, Dantz Retrospect, Powerfile R200, Roxio Toast and Mac OS X Disk Utility.
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Digital Storage Manager has several key components. With the Digital Resource Explorer, production servers are automatically indexed, creating a mirror of pointers to files. Users can use customizable file tickets to add metadata to files or folders.
The Production Jobs view enables users to define jobs and assign metadata that is automatically propagated to each file belonging to a job. Jobs can be archived immediately or at a later time.
With the Digital Resource Search, users can search across online and offline storage to find files based on standard or custom metadata or content.
Digital Storage Manager is licensed by the amount of storage under management, with pricing starting at $995 for 10GB of managed storage, with additional increments for 250GB, 1TB, 2.5TB, 5TB and unlimited. Clients can be used on Mac OS 10.3 or higher. The server component is Windows-based.
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