Very often, shared access to an image or a media database located on other computers, on a local network, is necessary.
Some stand-alone digital photo and media management software (including PicaJet) allows for sharing of image databases, along with multiple user access from a local network. Media files must be imported with network paths like, “\\mediaserver\photos\…” allowing the images to be retrieved from any PC, on a local network. But this method has significant limitations:
- You can’t see the changes made by other users in the same media database till you restart the media database software, or you refresh the opened catalog.
- You can’t deny specific access, for instance, to those users wishing to view the photos from your “Underwater Session 2010” project; nor can you stop guests from downloading your hi-res photos.*
- There is no guarantee that your current media cataloging tool will not crash and damage your files due to simultaneous attempts to change the same information by – multiple users.
- Users are unable to check the document, lock it, make changes, and then return it to the database so other customers might see updates and edits.
- No other user will be allowed to edit a document at the same time as another user
- You can’t track authorship and changes to your documents.
Daminion is a multi-user digital asset management system without the above-mentioned limitations**.
Users can:
- Provide controlled access to the media library
- Assign permissions for a particular group of users by function: catalog, asset or tag.
- Easily administrate user roles and permissions
- Provide version control capabilities granting seamless teamwork and collaboration of media content
* Users may configure access rights on the Windows NTFS level, but it is extremely laborious, inconvenient and limited.
** The alpha version will be for stand-alone usage only.
