MediaFiler is a sophisticated database program for the video, film, sound, media, advertising, television, cable, communications, and entertainment industries – in fact, any business that has important tapes and disks to keep track of, needs MediaFiler.

MediaFiler allows you to keep tabs on all kinds of media assets (i.e., XDCAM, XDCAM HD, HDCAM, P2, Betacam, DVD, DVCAM, CD, DAT, DLT, HDD, Zip, Mini-DV, DVCPRO, Jaz, VHS, Hi-8, and all others) through a powerful, yet simple to use interface. Now, finding any videotape, disk, or group of items is fast and easy, with just a few clicks of the mouse.

MediaFiler installs in just a couple of minutes and can be learned quickly because it uses familiar Windows commands and menus.

It is a stand-alone program that does not require any other software to run, but your data files are fully compatible with many other software products so you can use programs like Microsoft Access, Excel and Word to create an infinite number of customized functions to meet any special needs you may have! MediaFiler is designed to be deceptively simple for most users, but robust enough to meet the demands of power-users.

For example, how long would it take you right now, to print a list of every tape and disk in your archives belonging to a particular client? With MediaFiler, it could be done in less than 15 seconds! No kidding, and that's just one of the hundreds of things that MediaFiler can do with practically no effort at all.

Everytime a tape or disk is used it should be added to your MediaFiler database. In fact, many users even log blank tapes and disks into MediaFiler as soon as they come in the door, so they have complete control over their entire inventory.

Unlike ordinary databases which force you to spend hours and hours customizing them to do what you need them to do, MediaFiler is built specifically for the needs of our industry — by people in our industry.

MediaFiler was designed to be extremely flexible and it offers many different ways to accomplish most tasks. For example, along the top row of buttons, you are given three choices for ways to view, edit, and display your data. All three of these on-screen forms give you access to the exact same information, but each form offers a very different way of displaying and working with your data.

Eventually your copy of MediaFiler will contain hundreds or even thousands of records, and that is when the power of MediaFiler will really become evident. With other tracking methods, it can be a challenge to locate the exact records you want to see or use. Fortunately MediaFiler provides several ways for you to quickly find any information you need.

When you are entering a lot of records that are nearly identical (such as raw footage tapes) you can copy and paste entire records to create identical records faster. After copying and pasting, you can then edit the individual records to make additional changes.

To further speed up data entry, some fields such as "Client" and "Media Type" allow you to select from a list of values that you have already used before in MediaFiler. That way, you’ll never have to type the same data over and over again. If the value you want to use is not already on the list of choices, MediaFiler will prompt you to add it to the list. Why? Because this forces you to be consistent in how you name things. For example, it’s much harder to search for all the tapes that belong to a particular client if you sometimes typed the client name as “Timberline Log Homes”, sometimes as “TLH”, and sometimes as “Timberline”. MediaFiler eliminates this problem by making you choose field values from lists of choices.

You are not limited to the default choices that have been built into MediaFiler. For example, if you know that you’ll never have a Hi-8 tape, you can easily delete that option from the list of choices so you’ll never have to see it again.

The Datasheet form resembles a spreadsheet and often provides the easiest and fastest way to look at vast amounts of information in MediaFiler, particularly when you want to see several records at once. Depending on the size and resolution of your computer screen, you can see and edit up to 40 records on the screen at once!

You can sort records in any order you want, search for a particular record, edit records, show only records that match criteria you specify, duplicate records, delete records, rearrange the order of the columns, hide columns from view, and much more.

The ability to mark records is a feature that you’ll soon learn to appreciate. Why would you want to mark certain records? Well, there are many reasons. For example, suppose you’re working on a project and you need to pull several stock footage tapes out of storage to use during editing. You could use MediaFiler to find those tapes, put a checkmark on them, and then print out a “Marked Records” report to take with you to dig out the tapes. Or, suppose a client wants a complete listing of all their tapes. In one just one step, you could easily tell MediaFiler to mark every tape that belonged to that client, and then print the list. Records can be marked and unmarked one at a time or in groups.

With 18 fields of data for every record, the possibilities are endless. But don't be overwhelmed, because all the data is optional and can be entered, changed, updated, or deleted at anytime from any MediaFiler window! Just use the fields you want, and leave the rest of them blank.

Finding a specific record, or a group of records, with MediaFiler takes just a few seconds. MediaFiler can search through the entire database or just a single field. If you don't know the exact value you want to find, you can even use wildcard characters to help find what you're looking for. Most of MediaFiler's powerful tools are easily available by just clicking with the right-mouse button:

• Sort Ascending / Sort Descending
  You can quickly change the order that your records are listed. For example, you can choose to re-sort your records alphabetically by the name of the client, the title, the director’s name, the date they were created, tape number, or whatever other criteria you select.
  
• Filter By Selection
  To focus on certain records, you can apply a filter to specify which records are displayed. With a filter you limit the records you want to view, so that MediaFiler displays only those records that match the description. All the other records still exist, they are just hidden from view. For example, you could filter the files to display only records for "Betacam-SP" tapes belonging to a client called "Discovery Channel".
  
• Replace
  The Replace command has all of the features of the Find command, plus the additional ability to replace data. This can be especially helpful if you accidentally misspell a client name throughout the database, or when you want to update the Status field of a whole group of records.

Do you already have an old list of tapes and disks? You can convert it to a standard Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file, and then MediaFiler will import it with the click of a single button. You don't have Excel? That’s okay, most modern spreadsheet and database programs (including those for Mac) will let you save your file as an industry-standard Excel file (.xls).

There are several ways of exporting your MediaFiler data into other programs:

• Simply copy and paste selected records into a word processor.
• Use MediaFiler's Export command to create an Excel file with all of your records in it.
• Use the "merge" functions of another software program, such as Access, Word, or Excel to tap into the MediaFiler records.

There are three kinds of labels you can print with MediaFiler: Face labels, spine labels, and small ID labels. Although designed for VHS, these labels fit nicely on just about any tape or disk and can be purchased at any office supply store. MediaFiler allows you to specify the range of labels to print, and even let's you skip missing labels if you've partially used a sheet of labels before.

There are two kinds of reports you can print, with two different style options for each of them. A Normal report contains just the data for each record shown in the small white box, while a Detailed report prints information from twice as many fields. Both reports look similar, but naturally, a detailed report will use more paper.

Keeping information about your important media assets up-to-date will save you countless hours of wasted time, stress, and embarrassment. But that’s not all. How many times have you wanted to re-use some stock footage in your archives, but you couldn't remember what tape it was on, or what job it was part of? Or, suppose you come across a cut of music that isn't right for the job you're working on right now, but you want to be able to find it again later for a different project. MediaFiler can help with all those tasks.