LightRocket Media Manager has been designed as a robust, dynamic and easily scalable system. Its technical infrastructure has been developed with major archives in mind and allows for an unlimited number of users; making it the ideal Digital Asset Management tool for organisations both large and small. Easy to use and entirely browser based, the system can be accessed via the Internet or through an intranet.

LightRocket Media Manager’s Operating Environment

LightRocket Media Manager has been developed in a Microsoft Windows based server environment (WAMP), but the technologies used are equally at home in a Unix environment. The system has been written in PHP (Kohana Framework) and JavaScript and can be installed on most modern servers. It will run equally well on Apache or Microsoft IIS web servers.

Database Structure and Compatibility

LightRocket Media Manager’s database has been designed and implemented using the popular, and open-source, MySQL (Version 5.1). Metadata is stored in a relational database allowing users to edit file metadata in our system while retaining the possibility of reverting to a file’s original embedded metadata which remains untouched.

Software requirements include PHP5, ImageMagick 6.5.3 or above and Exiftool 7.7.6 or above. We also recommend FFMpeg 0.5 or above for thumbnail/preview support on video files and preview support on audio files and Ghostscript 8.6.4 or above for thumbnail and preview support for PDF files.

Easy Integration with Existing Networks

LightRocket Media Manager can be integrated with an existing LDAP server so your existing user base can use a single username/password set to access their accounts.

File Formats

The LightRocket Media Manager system supports a wide array of file formats for images, video, PDF and audio. If we don’t currently support a format you need, new formats can easily be added. Currently image file formats supported include jpg, tif, gif, psd, png, bmp. Video formats include 3GP (3GP, 3GPP), ASF, AVI, DIVX (DIVX, DIV), DV, FLV, M4V, MOV (MOV, QT), MP4, MPEG (MPEG, MPG, MPE), OGV.

Browser Support and End User Machines*

The LightRocket Media Manager system has been developed as a browser-based application making the system extremely easy to use on almost any machine with a modern internet browser. It also avoids the necessity to install software on the end user’s machine.

LightRocket Media Manager has been tested and is known to work on the following browsers:

• Firefox 3.5 and versions thereafter
• Safari 4 and versions thereafter
• Google Chrome 3 and versions thereafter
• Internet Explorer 7
• Internet Explorer 8

Whatever the browser you are using, we would recommend upgrading to the latest version.

We also require that the browser has:

• Cookies enabled (required)
• Javascript enabled (required)
• Adobe Flash Plugin installed (optional – allows for use of a more advanced file upload feature, and playback of audio and video previews)

The minimum suggested screen resolution at which to view the site is 1024x768, below this resolution the usability of the site will suffer

*Note on Internet Explorer 6: Although viewed as a legacy system, support for Internet Explorer 6 is available. The user will need to install the “Chrome Frame” extension from Google. This extension allows the technology for drawing web pages in Google Chrome to be used within Internet Explorer 6 (Chrome Frame).