The first step towards understanding Media Asset Management is differentiating between Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Media Asset Management (MAM). Although people often use the two aforementioned acronyms interchangeably, their applications are distinct. Digital Asset Management is a text archive that focuses on finding, securing, leveraging, and controlling communication content in an institution. A Digital Asset Management system is responsible for enforcing an organization’s limitations on metadata, managing digital rights, and optimizing business processes, particularly the communication between departments and individuals, such as graphics and illustration projects and marketing communication. A branch of Digital Asset Management is the Product Information Manager (PIM). A PIM assists the marketing unit by displaying the correct information to the proper course in a management-approved and timely manner. A product Information Manager system usually handles data model formatting and data import, as well as an interface to a client-facing gateway. The gateways serve various objectives, such as media exchange between partners, customer support, and distributor management and communications.

Digital Asset Management systems manage audio and video assets as a component of their archives. However, their workflows and instruments are essentially intended for handling external and internal written communication or preparing media. In contrast, Media Asset Management is often integrated with Digital Asset Management systems to expand their features to handle media-precise tasks such as several audio versions, technical translations such as high definition, ultra-high-definition, and standard definition media, distribution versions, edited content translations, and subtitles. Media Asset Management Systems utilize in-house playback instruments with expanded data models for multiple industry-precise data sources, more sophisticated audio and video features, and workflows focusing on entertainment and media business tasks. Media Asset Management systems often have ordered storage manager instruments for controlling huge quantities of storage in layers since the media is usually in massive catalogs, and by design are also video-specific and complicated in their focus.

It is crucial to understand that not all Media Asset Management systems are created equal. Although the language used in marketing campaigns for product promotion is often similar, media professionals and broadcasters can spare themselves a substantial amount of dollars and time by learning more about the different kinds of Media Asset Management systems and workflow instruments in the market, and where a specific product offers the most suitable results.

Some Media Asset Management systems are designed for linear channels playout and used for expanding or enhancing a master command self-regulating system. These committed Media Asset Management systems reinforce a linear course and efficiently automate multiple repetitive station chores such as locating items on a dub record, then preparing it for broadcast. MAMs are designed as workhorses with reliable combinations with the local traffic and automation system. Some of the disadvantages of this system are inadequate business evaluation options, flexibility, and restrictions on their upgrade requests.

Product Asset Managers (PAM), are a branch of MAMs and are archive systems that are responsible for managing workflows and preparing production schedules to create media versions, track the relationships of versions, and offer manual or automated quality control centered on a specific editing platform to meet this fundamental requirement. Management of editing programs, all child as well as parent versions is indispensable to product maintenance software. PAM systems usually have restricted expansion capabilities and are optimized for a specific editing toolset, but they are extremely efficient at what they do.