iSyndica

Introduction

Agencies usually require a Title, Description and Keywords for your images, and then additional categorization.  Unfortunately, categorization is not read from embedded image metadata, and while title, description and keywords are, there is no well-defined standard between software packages to record this information, nor is there a standard on the agency side as to which metadata field is read.

The short story is that we have taken the guesswork out of the equation so you never need to worry about seeing your images uploaded on a given channel, without the title/keyword information.  Simply use whatever software you currently use in your workflow to document your images and forget about having to set the title, description or keywords in multiple places - we're doing it for you!

Technical Details

Aperture, Photoshop, Paintshop or Windows (metadata changes through the file properties dialog) all record Title, Description and Keywords into different areas of your JPEG files.  For instance, Aperture uses the IPTC fields, while Photoshop uses XMP and Windows goes for IDF0.  Talk about jargon and messy one at that, right?!

In order to avoid the unhappy surprise that images appear without any information (or almost worse with different information!) once read by each channel site (they also read different fields!), we automatically synchronize the metadata fields as you upload your image.  This way, no mater your workflow, you can be assured your metadata is maintained and will travel as expected!

Because there are more or less widespread accepted standards on how this information should be recorded by software packages, we follow a precedence rule in case conflicting values are provided within your image.  For instance, if one of the Title field says "This is my first image" and the other states "This is my second image", clearly, one of those fields is wrong and we have to decide which field will be kept.

The following provides the technical details of which fields are read, in order or precedence:

Title

1. IPTC:ObjectName
2. XMP-dc:Title
3. IPTC:Headline
4. IFD0:XPTitle

Description

1. IPTC:Caption-Abstract
2. XMP-dc:Description
3. XMP-exif:UserComment
4. IDF0:XPSubject

Keywords

1. IPTC:Keywords
2. XMP-dc:Subject
3. IDF0:XPKeywords

So, for instance, if IPTC:ObjectName states "My first image" while XMP-dc:Title states "My second image", your image will be corrected so that all four metadata fields indicate "My first image" in your iSyndica catalog, and as they travel to the various agencies.

Update on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at 4:13AM by Seb

Video Metadata Support

Automatic Import

When you upload Video files (QuickTime Movie files only) to your iSyndica Catalog, our system automatically reads metadata available in the movie, such as CODEC information or other technical details that are visible on your Information Catalog.

More importantly, we extract the key information that you might have set with a tool such as QuickTime Pro or other metadata editors for QuickTime files:

• DisplayName
• Description
• Keywords

Automatic Export

Now, this is the really cool part: if you set or modify the information in your iSyndica Catalog, we automatically tag your movie as we syndicate it to your target agencies!  No need to re-upload a corrected movie file for those last minute changes, and if you don't have a tool to manage your metadata on your computer, then your iSyndica Catalog just gave you one central place to do just this, with convenient spell-checking and keyword de-duplication available at your fingertip.

And at last, this means that, just as with more traditional Photo/Vector syndication, your Title, Keywords and Description get loaded automatically at the agency and there is no more typing or copy/pasting to do on 5 or 10 different market places!  Talk about a time saver!

Technical Details

For agencies that do not yet import QuickTime movie metadata, we recommend usage of tools such as Exif Tools that provide low CPU-profile metadata export for QuickTime movie files (no modifications however - one of our star engineers came up with that invention!).

The data attributes you will want to read are:

• Title
  • QuickTime:Displayname
  • QuickTime:UserData_nam (alternatively)
• Description
  • QuickTime:Description
  • QuickTime:UserData_des (alternatively)
• Keywords
  • QuickTime:Keywords
  • QuickTime:UserData_key (alternatively)

Supporting those tags allows you to receive video content and pre-document it on the fly, limiting the required input from contributors; obviously they love that feature!  Several agencies now support this standard or some other mechanism allowing for automated metadata transfer: Catooh®, PixelFlow®, Pond5®, RevoStock®, and StockFuel® making the footage submission process with them a breeze!