Content Ecosystem Archive

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Digital Rapids Introduces New Way To Streamline B2B Video Distribution

By
charlie
Posted in: Content Ecosystem, Processing & Protection

Mike Nann, director, marketing & communications, Digital Rapids

Mike Nann, director, marketing & communications, Digital Rapids

May 22, 2009 – Video streaming and transcoding systems supplier Digital Rapids is carving a new niche for itself with introduction of technologies designed to overcome inefficiencies attending distribution and handling of video files across geographically dispersed production and storage centers.

Studios, programming networks and production houses have benefited greatly by moving away from hard copy shipping to use of IP networks to speed transfer and amalgamation of content and advertising elements. But they have had to endure a number of barriers to greater efficiency that stem from the fact that IP- and Web-based mechanisms were not designed for today's digital video business operations. 

"You have to deal with the inefficiencies of having to deliver the same file to different end points on a point-to-point basis, the hassles of dropped packets and the time wasted with FTP transfers," notes Mike Nann, director of marketing and communications at Digital Rapids. "We've come up with a way to make the whole B2B distribution process much more efficient."

The Digital Rapids solution involves two components – the C2 data delivery software system, which facilitates better distribution over networks from points of origin, and the MediaMesh RX appliance, which eliminates the barriers to efficiency that are imposed by variations in coding, formatting, metadata and other requirements at the end points. The combination of C2 and MediaMesh RX enables ad spots, promos, paid programming, syndicated shows, long-form and digital cinema content to be distributed to affiliates and distribution partners efficiently, automatically and at substantial cost savings, Nann says.

"Things were much simpler under the old model, when studios sent content by tape to broadcast networks and the broadcasters only had to get programming out to affiliates, and everything was in SD," Nann says. "Now you have to ship content in HD, and your affiliates include everybody from iTunes to Web and mobile partners."

Where advertising is concerned, FTP file transfers have largely replaced tape shipments, but these are a hassle owing to the lengthy download times. "Ad agencies tell broadcasters to download the ads from their FTP sites, but many broadcasters hate that," he notes. "Even if you have a 45 megabit line, 5 megabits [per second] is the maximum speed for an FTP transfer with typical public network latency and packet loss."

The Digital Rapids C2 software employs a proprietary transport protocol that allows content to be transferred simultaneously to multiple end points on a mesh rather than point-to-point basis over all types of IP connections, including public and private fiber, DSL and satellite links and hybrid combinations of these and other platforms. By putting the raw data, which can be any type of video or non-video file, into the C2 transport protocol, the Digital Rapids platform not only supports distribution of the single file to multiple points across multiple types of networks; it does so at maximum speed and reliability, Nann notes.

"The key is to get as close to wire speed as possible, minimizing the effects of latency and dropped packets over public infrastructure," he says. "On a 45 mbps line we might achieve 40 mbps of throughput for the payload while assuring the professional quality performance you'd get over a dedicated private line." 

But for point-to-multipoint distribution of professional-quality video files to be a practical option, in most instances there needs to be a platform at the end points that can translate the files to each recipient's format requirements.  "In an idea world all your affiliates would be using the same metadata, the same wrapper, the same encoding," Nann says. "But in the real world people require different metadata, different compression modes, different media formats. The MediaMesh RX allows the master file sent from the origination point to be conformed to the individual requirements at the edge."

These transcoding and re-packaging capabilities allow received media to be repurposed and conformed to local requirements. In addition, the platform has other important features, including verified receipt, visual quality control verification, inventory management, transfer to broadcast servers, print-to-tape and play-to-air, all of which are tightly integrated in an intuitive graphical interface.

Nann notes that MediaMesh RX works seamlessly alongside Digital Rapids' ingest, encoding and transcoding solutions to form complete workflows from ingest through delivery. Such workflows can also be built in combination with third-party systems through open standards workflow features such as watch folders and Web Services APIs for custom development, he adds.

Along with breaking new ground in the media distribution space, Digital Rapids has significantly enhanced its legacy product portfolio with various improvements, including a new version of its Stream encoding software that allows producers to tightly integrate the processing into the production workflow. "With our earlier 2.5 upgrade, we extended our distribution format flexibility to connect broadcast-oriented workflows to new distribution opportunities," says Brian Stevenson, director of product management at Digital Rapids. "Stream 3.0 extends that versatility to a whole new level."

Version 3.0 features new or enhanced support for compression and container formats including Avid DNxHD(r), MXF, LXF, GXF, DVCPro, Dolby(r) Digital (AC-3), Dolby(r) Digital Plus and more, Stevenson says. The expanded format support enables Digital Rapids' ingest and encoding systems to integrate seamlessly with a broader array of broadcast servers, acquisition devices and editing systems. This includes the ability to deliver enhanced performance and quality with the existing DRC Studio AVC Encoder and AVC for Adobe(r) Flash(r) option modules.

"Our expanded formats and extended closed caption support move us from the edges of broadcast and production workflows into the core of their operations," Stevenson says. "At the same time, our new open plug-in architecture for video and audio processing allows users unlimited flexibility in refining the source content as they prepare it for distribution or archive."

Digital Rapids has also optimized a live streaming version of its Broadcast Manager platform to accommodate the operating requirements of live productions. The new version 1.4 of Broadcast Manager features enhanced enterprise integration capabilities including Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) monitoring support, enabling Broadcast Manager error conditions to be monitored alongside other SNMP-compatible devices by any SNMP-compliant network management system. Additional new features include extended user authorization and access control, and enhanced port management for firewall and proxy traversal.

"We found that as we brought broadcasters into live streaming, they wanted to tie these capabilities into the existing facility-wide operations system," Nann says. "So we're tying the new technology back to the old-school environment, but the front end doesn't change."
 

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Weak Online Video Ad Market Portends More Retrenchments in Web Publishing

By
charlie
Posted in: Content Ecosystem, Development & Market Strategies

Screenshot from Generate's series, Pink

Screenshot from Generate's series, Pink

May 18, 2009 – The shakeout in the online video production business has only just begun.The first Web studio to fall was Mania TV in February. Then 60 Frames came tumbling down in early May. That another digital studio will die soon is pretty much a certainty – speculation is rife in the media business about who’ll be the next to go.

As more companies crumble and others consolidate, the silver lining is those that make it will likely be stronger. But the next several months will be strewn with digital wreckage as the reality of ad spending in Web video sets in.

There doesn’t seem to be enough money to go around on the Web. Media firm Magna forecasts the U.S. market for online video will grow by 32 percent this year, rising from $531 million in 2008 to $699 million in 2009. While $699 million sounds like a lot, it’s not enough to support the current ecosystem of producers and distributors.

Digital studios like Deca, Agility, Next New Networks, Electric Farm Entertainment, Revision3 and others are fiercely competing with independent Web creators, YouTube, Hulu, broadcast and cable networks, and online video ad networks for a piece of the action. But there’s not much for them to share.

“Digital studios are obviously challenged,” says Adam Kasper, senior vice president and director of digital media at Media Contacts, the global interactive media network unit of Havas Media. “They sell high-priced creative services without long-term contractual relationships with marketers. Even making a sale does not guarantee them anything beyond that sale itself. Digital studios will need to develop long-term partnerships with marketers to really prosper. And to do that, they need marketers who see the long-term value in branded entertainment, which is a challenge in the current economic climate. Marketers are moving more towards ROI-per-CPX models, which are difficult for brand image-focused media to work within.”

Advertisers have also shown they prefer to back longer form professional content, said Maria Cirino, a venture capitalist with 406 Ventures in Boston.

“Digital studios will have a tough time breaking in unless they can find a fundamental difference between online and offline viewing,” she says. “I don’t believe this is materializing.

“First,” she continues, “only a few of the largest premium content sites have attracted any mass of advertising dollars, because it is still bought on reach/frequency, and digital studios don’t have the content library, marketing budget or audience necessary. Second, the fundamental thesis that online viewing is different than TV viewing has not played out. Projections are showing strong performance online of long-form professionally produced video as well as short-form and UGC. However, the long form is much more familiar and more easily monetizable than the other two, so it is attracting the majority of the ad dollars and seems to be the more sustainable model.”

In most cases, video is too expensive to produce given the risky payoffs, Cirino says. That’s why the digital studios are both banking on diversification and are making less risky upfront bets.

As an example, it can be wise to let brands take the lead in producing Web series, says Alan Schulman, executive creative director for The Digital Innovations Group.
“For content-centric digital studios to stay alive, they should expand their base of business from pure narrative storytelling to weaving other types of narratives like brand-centric edutainment into their offerings,” Schulman says.

His company creates branded entertainment, original series and games. “The narrower you define it, the more you’re likely to become beholden to a format that can’t sustain a staff of writers and developers,” he says.

Web programming, like any content, will either be financed via subscription or ads, says Jordan Levin, CEO of Generate, a multimedia production shop. Advertisers who are willing to invest in Web content generally want to be involved early on so the project can be a true marketing extension rather than just a pre-roll or post-roll buy, he says. Generate creates Web series, but the company also has publishing concerns, talent management and produces for TV and film. That strategy allows for multiple revenue streams

It also helps to own the product and the means of distribution, as Break Media does. The company purchased digital studio HBO Labs earlier this year, but its core business is the distribution network it owns with 60 million unique visitors worldwide, led by Break.com.

“We license content, but we also have distribution, so we can control our own destiny,” says Break Media CEO Keith Richman. “We can monetize, find an audience and create stuff. In an ROI-driven economy, advertisers are focused on getting their ads seen and a media plan that guarantees exposure.”

The pure-play digital studios that remain are adjusting their production costs. Some already have.

Take My Damn Channel. The company has never employed more than half a dozen staffers and hasn’t raised much venture money. As a result, the company is very selective about the shows it produces, investing in inexpensive properties with celebrities attached such as David Wain, Sarah Silverman and Isla Fisher. The company, now profitable, was one of the first digital studios to hit the black.

“We avoided obvious mistakes by not raising too much, not spending too much, and not pocketing too much until proving out the business model,” says CEO Rob Barnett. “We first started with only $500,000 to sign the best possible talent to build a brand dedicated to showcasing some of the highest quality original comedy and music. Premium content, effective branding and marketing grew significant audiences and attracted major advertisers to back it.”

Next New Networks aims to insulate itself from the risks of a hit-driven business by operating like a cable network. “We build brands that are relevant to passionate, underserved communities,” says CEO Lance Podell. “In our world [Next New Networks'] ‘Indy Mogul’ is a network, and if one of the shows under Indy Mogul doesn’t attract viewers, then the other shows will and new shows will be developed under the network brand. We now have more than 25 million consistent views of our programming every month.”

The Denver-based digital network Jookt covers high school sports and has shifted its financing approach to lower production costs. Last fall the network relied primarily on professional photographers and spent about $70,000 each month to create 20 stories. Now Jookt is churning out about 100 pieces a month for about $20,000 by relying on high school and college students and less expensive crews, says Jeff Bennis, the company’s CEO.

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Vudu-Entone Deal Provides SPs Access to Online VOD

By
charlie
Posted in: Content Ecosystem, Distribution Strategies

Edward Lichty, EVP, Vudu

Edward Lichty, EVP, Vudu

May 15, 2009 – In what could be the harbinger of things to come in the evolving over-the-top arena, Web content distributor Vudu has signed a deal with home gateway supplier Entone that will facilitate delivery of video-on-demand service to IPTV providers' customers.

Until now Vudu has relied on selling its $299 BX100 set-top as the means by which its VOD customer can access what is widely regarded as one of the highest quality Web-to-TV services in the market. As previously reported (December, p. 23) Vudu has been looking for ways to affiliate with service providers to expand its relatively small consumer base. The Entone deal is the first publicly announced result of that effort, though it does not entail a direct tie-in with any specific service providers.

Instead, according to Steve McKay, CEO of Entone, the new partnership allows IPTV providers who use the Entone Hydra gateway to strike independent revenue-sharing deals with Vudu to provide subscribers access to content without having to purchase the BX100. "Instead of investing in a new VOD infrastructure, our IPTV customers will be able to provide a superior VOD service using the gateway they already have in place," McKay said.

Once the new option becomes available this summer, existing Hydra customers will be able to support the Vudu service by downloading the proprietary Vudu player and distribution software. Subscribers will be able to access the Vudu VOD menu from their IPTV electronic guides by clicking on the Vudu icon with their remotes.

Vudu claims to have the largest library of HD movies in the market, with about 1,500 titles. The warehouse includes over 5,000 HD options overall, including TV programs, along with over 15,000 options in SD format. Vudu uses a combination of techniques, including advanced compression processes applied to MPEG-4 AVC, progressive download and its own peer-to-peer distribution technology, to deliver TV-quality HD signals over the Internet to TV sets and even boasts a very-high quality HDX version of some films that surpass typical network-delivered HD from cable and telcos.

According to Edward Lichty, executive vice president for strategy and corporate development at Vudu, the progressive download HD content, most of which is offered on a rental basis, though some if available to own, shows up on the screen within two seconds of ordering content, assuming the user has broadband access at four megabits per second or higher. The HDX content, in the 1080p format, does not use progressive download and is only available for purchase at this point with a download time of "several hours," according to Lichty.
   
"IPTV is becoming an option for consumers, and we want consumers to get access to Vudu through the devices they already have in their home," Lichty says. "Entone's integration with Vudu is a great consumer experience."

McKay notes that, along with offering Vudu VOD as a complement to IPTV, Entone later this year will provide telcos that don't offer IPTV the option to include the service with other over-the-top offerings, which will be supported by Entone's new SelecTV service. As reported in April (p. 12), the initial iteration of SelecTV, delivered via the Entone Janus gateway, will allow these telcos to add on-demand video content as a TV offering to customers who rely on old analog cable or over-the-air reception for broadcast service.

Both the Hydra and Janus gateways are designed to support distribution of service to multiple TVs in the home without the use of additional set-tops, and both accommodate whole-home DVR as a modular option. The costlier Hydra can be shared by up to six television sets in the home and supports distribution of up to three simultaneous video streams in either HD or SD mode. The Janus supports simultaneous decoding and distribution of one HD and one SD stream.

McKay, noting the Vudu deal is not exclusive to either party, describes the development as "groundbreaking in terms of offering a new model for operators," and adds, "It won't be the last of its kind." In fact, he says, Entone is in negotiations with other over-the-top suppliers and anticipates more announcements will be made in the months ahead.

The new model allows over-the-top suppliers and service providers to move away from the antagonistic stances that have put SPs in a defensive position and made it difficult for the Web entities to build market bases. "It's a win, win, win development," McKay says.

"It's a win for operators because they gain access to the largest collection of online VOD content in the market without having to build a VOD infrastructure," he continues. "It's a win for Vudu because they can expand the reach of their video library by not being tethered to one device. And it's a win for consumers, who can now get this type of converged Web and IPTV service without having to spend hundreds of dollars on different devices."

Entone's customer base presently serves over 200,000 households, McKay says. Vudu presently serves "less than 100,000" customers, according to Lichty.

 

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Key Hollywood and Service Provider Industry Consortia Advance Formal Digital Media Standards Collaboration

By
charlie
Posted in: Content Ecosystem, Distribution Strategies

KC Blake, director of business development, Entertainment Technology

KC Blake, director of business development, Entertainment Technology

May 4, 2009 – The TM Forum and the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California in Hollywood have created a collaborative partnership, further formalizing efforts to facilitate standards and common business practices across the broadband content value chain.

The overarching goal of the new liaison, say the two industry consortia, is to "rapidly eliminate the barriers to new distribution revenues for content and communication services providers."

Over the next three months, the two organizations plan to develop a roadmap and specify deliverables, milestones and actions "required to enable seamless and profitable digital media services." Initial joint projects will address content metadata and identification schemes to advance interoperability across digital distribution value chains.

"We look forward to working with TM Forum in the effort to streamline the delivery of content across platforms," says KC Blake, director of business development Entertainment Technology Center (ETC@USC). "We feel that this collaboration is a valuable step in ensuring that consumers have access to their content anytime and anywhere."

Specific areas of collaboration will include standards gaps; digital video distribution value chains model issues; and solution trends in the current content metadata landscape, particularly in identification and descriptive areas and the monetization and profitability implications to both content owners and service providers.

"Initial work will focus on the interactions between content owners and communications providers in order to radically simplify the creation, distribution and monetization of digital media services," says Jim Warner, vice chairman and head of content media and advertising at the TM Forum. "Aligning the major players from these two key industries not only sends a powerful message; it will eliminate much of the friction in today's distribution chain, driving down operating costs while improving time to market."

The ETC @ USC (www.etcenter.org), founded in 1993 with the help of George Lucas, brings together senior executives from the entertainment, consumer electronics and technology industries to collaborate on issues related to the creation, distribution and consumption of entertainment content. Current ETC members include Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, Lucasfilm, TATA Consultancy Services, Thomson, Dolby, LG Electronics, Singapore IDA and Volkswagen of America.

The TM Forum (www.tmforum.org) is an industry group focused on business effectiveness for the communications and media sectors with a long history of providing information technology roadmaps, best practice guidebooks, software standards and system interfaces to telecom operators. Members include some 700 service providers and suppliers ranging from Alcatel-Lucent, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Nokia Siemens to BT Group plc, KDDI R&D Labs, Time Warner Cable, Sprint and Verizon Communications.

Much of the groundwork for the new more formal collaboration has been laid over the past two years through ad hoc meetings between TMF and various studios, content aggregators and ad agencies, along with cross-industry participation in events including TM Forum's Management World conferences in the U.S. and abroad. 

According to TMF's Warner, progress toward the partnership can be traced through four Management World "Content Encounter" events beginning in mid-2007. That first event helped spell out the basic processes of delivering and ingesting content, transforming the content into services and applying personalization and advertising.

"We wanted to glue all the bits together and get a feel for what you would need," he says. "It was successful, and we found that a common end-to-end interface and common processes are important, as is a descriptive metadata that describes the content or ad and what the rules and rights around it are. Then you can start to match content to user profiles and prospective ads."

The second Content Encounter demonstrations in May 2008 brought in innovators in monetization elements like revenue tracking, revenue assurance and billing, as well as vendors with quality of service (QoS) management solutions. It also brought in user generated content, while British Telecom brought in commercial content "to see what challenges they pose."

A third phase last November added elements of ad personalization as well as specific industry technical specifications, such as the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers' SCTE 130 ad insertion protocol and IPDR (Internet Protocol Data Record) specifications which lay a groundwork for creating records of user behavior.

"We also started playing with 'on-boarding,' which is similar to the application store concept," Warner says. "It's one thing for a service provider to have working relationships with partners at the enterprise level. It's another thing to take a page from the Apple App Store to open up to any provider of applications and allow them to access fundamental network capabilities – including access to things like the service provider's billing abilities or information like end customer location – and to the customer base of the service provider. That requires APIs [application programming interfaces] and development toolkits, so anyone can figure out how to get their product into the service provider. There are no standards yet in this area. We just began to play with that."

Fulfilling that open app-store-like "on-boarding" vision will require a two-sided view, he says. Upstream, the industries must devise standards, interfaces and common practices to define how the service provider connects with content owners, advertisers and media buyers and how it provides them with performance metrics and analytics of what happened to a movie, TV show, application and/or ad. Downstream, the industries must jointly develop practices through which content and ads may be personalized such that the personalization "doesn't annoy end customers or strike them as spam or a violation of privacy," Warner says. "The service provider sits in the middle as an honest broker, if you will, for the advertiser and user."

The fourth Management World event, May 4-8 in Nice, France, featuring Content Encounter demonstrations and meetings also features a newly developed "T8 World Summit," an invitation-only event for C-level executives from major players in the communications, media, advertising, banking and Web sectors to discuss how to generate new sources of revenue through innovative business models.

Much of the "two-sided business model" work that lies ahead involves providing business-to-business services to other service providers and leveraging investment in IT infrastructure by reselling services based on core competency. For example, TMF notes, Amazon has expanded beyond its original online retailing position to become an early market leader in cloud computing, Web services and opening their platform to third-party retailers. Amazon's CTO Dr. Werner Vogels was to brief the summit on progress Amazon is making in this area.

The common thread in all these efforts "is bringing together players in the value chain," Warner says. "You get language and terminology down. In the content world content management means something different from its meaning in the service provider world."

Further, he says, the cross-industry initiatives are providing forums to "confront notions like the advertisers' perception that service providers are a free utility, when in fact the service providers need their own shareholder approval to spend on infrastructure that can support new digital media services," he says. "The service providers can help the advertisers out, but if the service providers don't participate in the revenue stream, they can't afford to continue to build out infrastructure. Getting those kinds of business issues on the table in front of the whole value chain is allowing all sides to recognize, 'It's in my best interest if you get some money too.' This puzzle has so many pieces to it. We've identified a number of barriers and roadblocks and beginning notions of who can address them."

Parties on both sides are now persuaded that the content supply chain is "a challenge that can be partly solved with a cloud computing approach, but "you have to have management problems really nailed to do this in cloud environment," he says.

IPSphere (www.tmforum.org/IPsphere) – another key cross-industry consortium that merged with TM Forum last year – has separately spent the past two years developing technical and business model frameworks and interfaces at the inter-partner IT level and "is very far along," Warner says. "We'll use a content-based service in Nice to show IPSphere's latest work. It wouldn't surprise me if by end of year you see IPSphere become a direct part of Content Encounter."

With its highly complex technical challenges and potentially contentious business issues, "The dream of any content through any delivery medium to any device is still long away," he adds. "How you get there and who occupies which positions in the value chain will be difficult to work out."

 

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Disney-Hulu Tie Doesn’t Solve Hulu’s Monetization Challenge

By
charlie
Posted in: Content Ecosystem, Development & Market Strategies

May 4, 2009 – Now that the dust has settled on the Disney Hulu pair-up, the multi-million-dollar question is whether Hulu can begin to do a better job making money on its site.

Hulu is the third-most visited online video destination, behind only YouTube and MySpace, but it’s been thin on ads in recent weeks. The paucity of ads is all the more concerning now that Hulu has landed Disney-owned ABC in a camp that also includes existing corporate owners Fox and NBC Universal. With a site that can boast it carries most of the prime-time broadcast network programming online, Hulu doesn’t appear to be able to sell very much of it. So far in the spring, most of the ad inventory has consisted of public service announcements from the likes of the Ad Council, Foundation Rwanda and One Laptop Per Child.

That may change now that ABC is on board, since ABC has been selling out its inventory on ABC.com and the network is profitable when it comes to streaming episodes online. Disney-ABC will be able to sell some of its ad inventory on Hulu, perhaps rejuvenating what appears to be flagging ad support for the site.

The media company’s online ad philosophy might also rub off on Hulu, resulting in perhaps more ads per show. Earlier this year, Disney-ABC digital chief Albert Cheng said upping the number of ads from four to eight in a 44-minute online show did not impact the audience experience or brand recall, according to ABC’s research.

Another interesting wrinkle from the deal is whether Hulu is better positioned now in comparison to YouTube. In March, Hulu served up 380 million streams to nearly 42 million unique visitors in the United States, with only YouTube and Fox Interactive’s MySpace ahead, according to comScore. YouTube still has a massive lead in views with nearly six billion streams delivered to 100 million users in that timeframe.

At first blush, the Disney-Hulu deal suggests that Hulu is winning the race for premium content by adding ABC to the fold, especially because there is little overlap between the Hulu.com and ABC.com audiences. ABC said only eight percent of ABC.com users visit Hulu, while just 13 percent of Hulu users visit ABC.com regularly.

The deal with Disney also keeps full-length ABC and other Disney shows off of YouTube for at least a year. Under terms of the deal, Disney can’t add any new online distribution partners for some time. While YouTube gets to run short-form videos from Disney per the deal Disney and YouTube struck in late March, the video giant can’t run full episodes from Disney programming for some time.

The battle between Hulu and YouTube is not black-and-white, however. Hulu focuses on premium content, while YouTube, which is bolstering its lineup in that area, is also committed to a broad range of non-premium content. YouTube has said it is exploring ad formats not just for premium shows but these other forms as well.

There’s no guarantee Hulu can maintain its appeal if it does succeed in achieving profitability through advertising, since a significant increase in the volume of ads running in its shows could drive viewers away. “One of the reasons users love Hulu is because it is so light on ads,” notes Will Richmond, analyst and publisher of the enewsletter VideoNuze. “But will Hulu’s traffic flatten or decline when the non-skipppable ad load is 2x, 3x or 4x what it is currently?”

Hulu also should reach out to new advertisers, Richmond says. “The ads on Hulu appear to be the same as seen on-air, suggesting Hulu hasn’t been able to persuade its brand advertisers to invest in custom creative to leverage the Hulu environment.”

Hulu did not respond to requests for comment about its advertising business.

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Adobe-Brightcove Deal Underscores Momentum Behind Partnerships

By
charlie
Posted in: Asset & Operations Management, Content Ecosystem

Jeremy Allaire, CEO, Brightcove

Jeremy Allaire, CEO, Brightcove

April 27, 2009 – It's becoming a matter of partner or perish in the new media business these days.

The latest evidence of that trend came at the recent National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas where Adobe and Brightcove announced a strategic alliance that promises to strengthen both companies' market positions in Internet video by integrating technology, sales and marketing.

The pair-up gives the partners access not only to the other's software, but also to their customers. That's where the deal carries the most potential to pay off and to serve as a model for other media companies to imitate. By tapping into each other's client base, Adobe and Brightcove can win new customers faster than they could without the partnership.

"We've worked with Adobe on long-form media delivery and content protection in the past, but this alliance will take it to a deeper level where we're approaching customers together with complete solutions," said Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire.

Deals like this are likely to become the norm in both new and traditional media because they immediately open treasure troves of potential leads, making business development a more efficient process, especially as partners learn to share resources and co-market. Business development is a time-consuming process, so anything that shortens the window to a sale is beneficial.

The Adobe-Brightcove deal calls for the partners to collaborate on both technology and sales efforts. The partners will integrate Adobe's technology into Brightcove's service for long-form, high-definition video delivery and better content protection, Brightcove said. In addition, Adobe's video editing software will include a Brightcove plug-in. That level of integration makes it much easier for Brightcove and Adobe customers to use the other company's technology.

The upshot is Brightcove gets a deeper foothold with Adobe's Flash, the popular technology for Web video that Brightcove has been using with its video delivery services. A tie-in with Adobe can help Brightcove protect its current position as a market leader in delivering online video services, officials said. Brightcove competes with other Web video technology firms such as thePlatform, Extend Media, Grab Networks and Maven Networks.

For Adobe, the alliance bolsters its position in the online video business, because Brightcove counts as customers some of the biggest media companies, including the Showtime and Lifetime networks.

"Expanding our successful long-term collaboration with a market leader like Brightcove and its significant global reach will further accelerate the adoption of the Adobe Flash Platform, and pave the way for new initiatives like Adobe Strobe, our open and extensible media player framework," said Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager of dynamic media at Adobe.

Adobe also gains an advantage on Microsoft's Silverlight for now in the race to become the Web standard for video, said Kaan Yigit, analyst with Solutions Research Group. Silverlight is a competitive product that enables Web video streaming. Adobe's case is strengthened by Brightcove's deep ties with so many different video producers and publishers, he said. In addition, "Adobe works with Facebook, whereas [Microsoft's Silverlight technology] is with MySpace, and the momentum has been on the side of Facebook on that one," Yigit said.

The deal is also noteworthy because of the integration of Adobe tools into the delivery of long-form programming online. While short viral videos on YouTube are incredibly popular, consumers are also gravitating toward longer content. Online audience measurement service comScore said the average online Internet user is watching 3.5 minutes at a time and that keeps increasing.

"Major media companies are getting more and more serious about online distribution, and having a variety of robust tools will only fuel further market development," said Will Richmond, analyst with VideoNuze.com. "In terms of competition, the online video space continues to be marked by innovation across the entire technology ecosystem. This deal is just the latest evidence of how dynamic the online video space is."

Finally, the partnership will also help both companies push online video services beyond their media roots, underscoring how Web video is becoming a must-have not just for the media business but for most businesses. Brightcove, for one, has expanded its business recently both internationally and into non-media businesses. The company powers online video for both the San Diego Zoo and Rhode School of Design, among other non-media entities, and has also struck deals with marketers and media companies in Japan for online video technology.

This new crop of businesses Brightcove is pitching may now be more apt to use Adobe's technology because of the deal. The two partners also said they'll announce more marketing, sales and technology initiatives throughout the year.
 

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New Searchable Platform Addresses Complexities of Video Management

By
charlie
Posted in: Asset & Operations Management, Content Ecosystem

Richard Myerson, president of Media Distributors

Richard Myerson, president of Media Distributors

April 27, 2009 – Mounting demand from content suppliers and production houses for an easy-to-manage, massively scalable and searchable approach to archiving and distributing video assets has engendered a groundbreaking solution that taps next-generation technology originally developed for NASA, the FBI and other government agencies.

Marketed by Media Distributors, long known as a leading retail supplier of products for professional audio and video production houses, the new Constellation VCM asset management system is under review at several Hollywood studios and already in deployment at Universal Sports, a joint programming venture of NBC Universal and Intermedia Partners, says Richard Myerson, president of Media Distributors. Just launched publicly, the system has received a "phenomenal response," he says, naming Disney and TV producer and syndicator FreMantleMedia as two of the companies now taking a hard look at the platform.

The system is designed to manage and search through voluminous amounts of video content, whether stored in a single location or across a "federated repository" consisting of different types of storage platforms. "There's no limit to the amount of content the system can manage," Myerson says, noting the system easily conforms to existing workflows. The platform is suited for small as well as large production houses with pricing based on the amount of content to be managed.

Advanced search capabilities are a key benefit of the platform, encompassing all types of metadata as well as other information associated with the content, such as scripts, ads, customer names and even email messages. "The search function is like Google on steroids," Myerson says.

Media Distributors has promised customers the search will be enhanced with readouts of closed captioning and then with voice recognition technology, allowing all audio content to be read and catalogued at ingest. "We're presently at about 60-70 percent accuracy on speech-to-text translation," says Mark Armstrong, president of SoleraTec, which has partnered with Media Distributors in development of the Constellation platform. "We want to get that up to 85-90 percent before we offer it commercially."

To find any asset across the entire repository content managers simply choose the type of search they want to employ, type in the topic and click, Armstrong says. "You don't have to know how anything works," he adds.

Finding and reviewing content is facilitated by the fact that all content is copied to low resolution formats at ingest. Producers and editors can quickly access anything they want to see through search, and, once they make a choice, pull out the segment they need from the original high resolution file and move it to the editing station or ship it to a customer, no matter where the content resides. 

"The information repository is the embodiment of all islands of storage," Armstrong says. "When you get to national operations, you have assets syndicated to many different areas, and all of that has to be easily accessed. For example, one company we're working with is a big production house with 15 offices across the U.S. They want to be able to pull in footage from all these locations and make that content available throughout the organization. There's no human intervention in the entire process."

The power to find and distribute to any type of end user, at the professional level or below, any piece of content in the repository is of keen interest to FreMantle, Armstrong notes. "They own vast resources of old shows, which they want to make available for sale over a virtual online kiosk to professionals and non-professionals," he says.

Another organization Media Distributors is working with wants to make footage of live events it shoots searchable for sale online. "People will be able to download the content in H.264 based on what they are authorized to access," Armstrong says.

Security, including what Media Distributors says is the first use of fingerprinting in an asset management system, is a vital component to the Constellation platform, Armstrong notes. "We ensure the integrity of data as assets are moved around," he says. "This includes support for setting usage policies and authentication functions in conjunction with whatever type of business model you require."

SoleraTec, a storage market supplier based in San Diego, originally developed the foundation technology used in Constellation on an OEM basis for suppliers to government agencies. The FBI, Census Bureau, NASA and others have huge data repositories which they wanted to easily search and access across multiple storage points. In 2007 Media Distributors, with a desire to develop a technology solutions business that would leverage its strong client base in the content industry, tapped SoleraTec to refine its technology for use in video storage and management.

"Every company Media Distributors talks to needs a solution, and, because they have a long-standing relationship with these companies, they're comfortable to bring them in," Armstrong says. "They're dealing with the who's who of Hollywood, most of them now in the third or fourth stage of discussions."

According to company specifications, the Constellation system recognizes and supports data from the leading video editing solutions, including HDCAM SR, HDCAM, XDCAM, EX3, P2, RED, Codex, Apple Final Cut Studio, Avid, Pro Tools and PilotWare. The system supports all SAN, NAS, RAID, JBOD and external drives.  It also supports XSAN, Avid Unity, Blu-ray Disc and DVD library systems, and all tape drives and tape library systems, as well as a wide range of operating systems, including Windows 2000, 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, OS-X, Linux and Unix.   
 

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Compression Gains Provide Sps Leg Up in Bandwidth Planning

By
charlie
Posted in: Content Ecosystem, Processing & Protection

Jamie Howard, CEO, Imagine Communications

Jamie Howard, CEO, Imagine Communications

April 20, 2009 – Advances in MPEG-based compression technology will soon set important new bandwidth-efficiency benchmarks for cable and telco networks, offering network operators the option to increase the number of video streams over a given amount of spectrum with no diminution in quality or to significantly increase the quality at current stream counts.

What this means for cable operators, say Harmonic, Inc. and Imagine Communications, the two suppliers who have announced the new performance benchmarks, is the ability to pack four HDTV channels into a single 6 MHz RF channel in conjunction with dynamic selection of content to optimize the four-channel performance. "What was the quality level for 3:1 HD ratios can now be achieved at 4:1, and you can get 2:1 quality going to 3:1," says Jamie Howard, CEO of Imagine.

Similar gains are available to telcos using MPEG-4 AVC compression, which could have an important impact on strategic decisions regarding the extent to which they need to upgrade DSL-based access networks to accommodate delivery of greater volumes of HD streams to the home. Where the current capacity allocated to HD channels has been pegged around 6-8 megabits per second, telcos will now have the option to operate HD at around 5 mbps, says Nimrod Ben-Natan, vice president of product marketing, solutions and strategy at Harmonic.

"These are CBR (constant bit rate) data rates," Ben-Natan notes. "Using VBR (variable bit rate) the average MPEG-4 data rate per HD channel would be even lower." VBR encoding is commonly used in situations like the cable RF channelization scheme where several individual content streams are multiplexed together in a given RF segment.

While both companies have their roots in cable, Harmonic has long been a major supplier in the telco IPTV realm as well. Imagine, which has designed its high-performance video processing tools for IPTV as well as cable, is primarily focused in cable and the TV content source market with some six million cable households now served by operators who employ its ICE (Interchangeable Compressed Elements) Broadcast System. Both companies displayed their new compression capabilities, which rely on various combinations of hardware and software advances, at the recent National Cable Show in Washington, D.C.

The practice of squeezing three HD channels into a single 6 MHz 256 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) output has become more commonplace over the past year as operators invest in advanced processing systems from these and other vendors that allow them to accomplish such ratios at acceptable quality levels. But most cable systems still deliver just two HD streams per RF channel, and no one is doing four.

Now, however, with the volume of linear HD channels growing rapidly as cable operators push to catch up with satellite competitors and to keep pace with telcos, the ability to double the number of HD channels offered within a given bandwidth allocation could prompt many who have been reluctant to spend on the 3:1 advancements to opt for 4:1, even if they're using other means such as switched digital video to increase capacity. With HD content permeating everything from the least watched VOD movies and TV programs in the long tail to live broadcast, operators have the opportunity to leverage varying quality expectations for these different classes of content to create an overall service experience that easily meets consumer requirements at these higher ratios, Ben-Natan says.

"As you get into a broad mix of popular and long-tale programming to choose from, some of it formatted at 1080p, some at 1080i, some at 720p, some full resolution, some three quarters resolution, you can afford to combine them at a four-to-one ratio while maintaining good quality," Ben-Natan says. "As cable operators struggle with how to accommodate more than 100 channels of HD, this technology offers a good tradeoff between quality and bandwidth. The feedback on this from our customers has really been positive."

At a 4:1 ratio over a 256 QAM channel, the average bit rate per MPEG-2 HD channel works out to just over 9 mbps, or about half the bit rate that was once considered essential for acceptable HD quality. To achieve this capability the system must be able to dynamically assign HD streams into specific QAM channels so that high-motion, relatively high-bandwidth-consuming content is mixed with less motion filled content and the varying bandwidth requirements of the different HD formats are exploited as well.

"Your average may be 9 mbps, but at any given moment you might have one channel stream operating at 4.5 mbps and another at 18 mbps and others in between," Ben-Natan says. "You want to balance things out with combinations of high-value and lower value content multiplexed together so that, if push comes to shove and you have to sacrifice quality to maintain the ratio, you can cut the quality on the lower-value content. The flexibility to dynamically mix streams and manage bit rates is really important."

Harmonic has packaged the new platform as the Electra 8000, the successor to the widely deployed Electra 7000, but Ben-Natan makes clear customers operating on the Electra 7000 can upgrade to 8000 capabilities on the existing platform. "The Electra has been in the market for some time," he says. "The ability to make improvements over time is part of our original promise."

Ben-Natan stresses there is a lot of innovation beyond applying new generations of hardware that keep Harmonic at the cutting edge of compression technology, which has seen different vendors surging ahead of the pack at different points in time over the past many years. "The secret sauce is in the video architecture and video compression core," he says. "There are a lot of components working together. We use the best of breed in ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits), FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) and DSPs (digital signal processors) that are available at any given time. But it's not just about capturing the benefits of the latest generation of ASIC, FPGA or DSP."

The capability to decode and encode both MPEG-2 and AVC enables operators to accommodate both existing and future architectures using a single hardware platform, Ben-Natan notes. For instance, the Electra 8000 can be used to receive AVC content and re-encode in MPEG-2, supporting the growing trend toward primary distribution of content in AVC and HD formats.

"The MPEG-4 element is very compelling to operators," he says. "They're starting to look at MPEG-4 as a delivery format whether for getting content to new set-tops or for experimentation in IPTV. The Electra platform gives you the insurance policy to make adjustments as you need."

Imagine, too, has its own secret sauce, which includes a means by which operators can maintain assurance that they are maintaining acceptable quality levels at whatever ratio of HD channels to 6 MHz they employ. This capability, which Imagine calls ICE-Q, depends on video quality measurement algorithms that accurately emulate the human visual perception system in response to the quality of each frame element.

The ICE encoding process recompresses each macroblock – a fixed set of pixels within each MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 frame – in the video stream to the minimum bit rate for a given level of quality. The ICE software compares the compressed video with the source video using the ICE-Q video quality measurement algorithms. Source video sequences are replaced by recompressed sequences when the Imagine ICE-Q algorithms determine that an expert eye could not discern the difference, thereby ensuring the highest video quality at any given bit rate.

By breaking down the video performance analysis to the macroblock level the system is able to determine the impact of an artifact on perception depending on its position in the frame. An artifact on the periphery typically has less impact than one in the center and is scored accordingly, Howard notes.

In the ICE-Q scoring system, which uses a scale of 1 to 100, a score of 96 is deemed to be the level where no defects are perceivable. "When an operator sets the target at 96 and wants to transmit four HDs per QAM, the system dynamically chooses the four streams that can be fed through that QAM to meet that quality target," Howard says. "Our system is monitoring, measuring and reporting the actual delivered video quality so operators know they've delivered video to the set-top that meets their quality requirements."

This monitoring and measuring is taking place on the streams at a rate of once every 300 milliseconds, Howard adds. "We're collecting the data and rolling it up into a suite of reports the operator can customize to suit their needs," he explains. "If a video stream goes below the targeted threshold, the operator is alerted and can take action to remedy the situation."

In side-by-side demos of each of four channels that were running through the 4:1 processing on one side and 2:1 processing on the other with the quality threshold set at 96, Imagine challenged visitors to its booth at the cable show to determine which was which. Observers consistently found no discernable differences between the two feeds, Howard notes.

Imagine also demonstrated another use of its technology where no discernable differences were registered with regard to content that was highly compressed in comparison to content that wasn't. Here the idea was to show how source video delivered at 50 mbps could be compressed to 15 mbps at no loss in discernable quality. "The technology has important applications across the entire delivery chain," Howard says, noting that along with supporting four HD streams per QAM the new platform is capable of processing eight HD streams in a single RU.

The new ICE Video Processor, to be made commercially available later this year, is based on the latest advances in Intel processors, Howard notes. "We tune our algorithms to make maximum use of next-generation processors," he adds.

Howard revealed that customer reaction to the benefits of the quality measurement system has prompted Imagine to work on ways to expand the process to where probes can be inserted downstream from the ICE platform to provide the same level of frame-by-frame, macroblock-by-macroblock quality assessment. "We're looking at how we can add this capability in a way that is seamless to the existing network monitoring processes," he says.

The expanded capabilities will also focus more on quality assurance in the Internet content domain in response to providers' growing interest in delivering a TV-quality experience to viewers of such content. "We're looking at a variety of innovative tools to package along with the existing video quality management into a suite of applications and services that gives operators the ability to manage and control quality of experience whatever the type of video might be," Howard says.

This means the Imagine platform will be able to judge performance on progressive downloads as well as streamed content, Howard notes. "Progressive download is going to be impacted by congestion," he says. "If you're trying to watch an HD movie and the bit rate suddenly throttles down from 5 or 6 mbps to 3 or 1.5 mbps, the buffer is going to kick in, resulting in a 30-second or so interruption. Providers need to know this is happening in order to ensure that customers who have paid for content are getting a consistently good experience."
 

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