The identification system resolves an identifier to a metadata record that is associated with top-level titles, edits, DVDs, encodings, clips, and mashups.

EIDR was created to address these issues, as well as others encountered in video asset workflows, both in a business-to-business context and the intramural post-production activities of content producers.

To the contrary, a key feature is to allow an EIDR record to include references to that asset's ID under other systems.

This feature is particularly useful for film and television archives, making it easy for them to cross-reference their holdings with other sources for the work and metadata about it.

If an alternate ID is resolvable algorithmically, for example by placing it appropriately in a template URL, EIDR makes that link available.

A few of the more significant ones are listed here: EIDR identifiers have found their way into an increasing number of commercial applications.

Both systems are available publicly online, but the contents of the sandbox are not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or even to refer to assets that exist.

In either case, the workflow comprises a combination of automated (to perform well-defined but tedious tasks) and manual (where human judgment is called for) processes.

It is also iterative, as the initial matching process may identify a variety of gaps and errors that need to be dealt with.

The automated processes will check syntax, make sure that the basic metadata is supplied, and that any dependencies (e.g. series records created before constituent episodes) are honored.

In order to register a new asset a user must be associated with a party that has been granted the "Registrant" role by the EIDR operator.

In general, content ownership, metadata authority, and registration capability are separate and unrelated concepts.

Bucketing occurs as the result of comparing the score to two thresholds: Assets falling between the low and high threshold are deemed to have a high possibility of being a duplicate: the proposed record addition/modification will not proceed until manually reviewed by EIDR operations staff.

The principal functional blocks are as follows: An EIDR ID is a specialized example of a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which in turn is built on top of the Handle System developed by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI).

As opposed to URLs, DOI identifiers stay the same even if the objects move to another location, or become owned by another organization.

In the words of the DOI Handbook, metadata may include "names, identifiers, descriptions, types, classifications, locations, times, measurements, relationships and any other kind of information related to [an object]."

DOI is in turn implemented on top of the Handle System, a distributed, highly scalable, name resolution service.

This is a federated model where each local name space has complete control over the placement and operation of its service sites.