This year marks SDVI’s 7th annual Media Supply Chain Council. These events gather industry leaders together for candid discussions on the state of media technology and the media business, our challenges and opportunities.
For the first time this year, we are holding two Council sessions, including our first in Europe, hosted by ITV in London. That event concluded yesterday and the enthusiasm during the discussions was infectious. Turnout was excellent, and participants were eager have frank discussions about what we need to be successful in the new media landscape.
We wish to thank all of the participants for their generous contributions, and thank ITV for their support. We’re looking forward to the New York edition of this event coming in two weeks, and you can look forward to hearing some of takeaways in our June newsletter.
You don’t need to look far to see it. International shows are thriving on global platforms, and audiences barely blink when watching content dubbed from another language. Dubbing and subtitling truly have matured to the point that viewers today can comfortably enjoy content from anywhere, often in their language of choice.
The result? Demand for content has gone global, and it’s not slowing down. With an increasingly global mindset, media companies are forming partnerships, launching regional versions of their services, and repackaging vast content libraries for delivery to new platforms and new audiences.
But that kind of reach requires scale. And scale brings friction if not planned.
Media companies are delivering entire catalogs across dozens of endpoints, each with its own format, language, metadata requirements, and deadlines. Today’s challenge is to implement a media supply chain that allows you to do so efficiently, repeatable, and cost-effectively.
Historically, when we’ve talked about “media supply chain,” we’ve mostly meant internal operations: automating the ingest, transformation, QC, and packaging of content inside one organization. But what if we extend the model? Today’s biggest bottlenecks and inefficiencies happen not inside the factory, but between factories. The friction lies in the exchange of content between companies — suppliers, producers, owners, and distributors.
Imagine a world in which packaging decisions are informed by the needs of the destination platform. Where supply chains don’t just operate independently but connect with one another intelligently. Where awareness of prior processing and QC allows a content recipient to eliminate redundant checks and tasks.
In the blog, we assert that the time is ripe for interconnection: doing the right work once and making it go further, replacing friction with flow.
To handle the high volumes of content media companies need to deliver today, organizations must be able to deliver to a wide range of endpoints, each with its own unique format, technical specifications, and workflows. Preparing content manually to meet each platform’s requirements can be incredibly resource-intensive. Doing so across dozens or even hundreds of endpoints quickly becomes unsustainable. That’s where SDVI Rally Connect changes things.
Connect is a service within Rally that was created to simplify content delivery. Building upon the scalable, efficient infrastructure of the Rally platform, Connect automates and verifies the exchange of content between media business partners. Media assets—along with associated metadata, artwork, and other components—are processed and transformed to meet each platform’s specifications, then delivered automatically. Connect supports all common delivery actions, including initial delivery, metadata updates, takedowns, and redeliveries.
In the blog, we take a closer look at Rally Connect.
New in Rally
Enhancements To Help Users Work More Efficiently
In recent months, integrations with the Rally platform took center stage.
But, not to be overlooked: usability enhancements make platform tasks more efficient and further streamline content preparation across the supply chain.
Asset Details Metadata Update
The metadata display on the Asset Details page has been updated to support faster rendering of metadata while also improving the search functionality. Search now highlights results, allows users to step through found text, and automatically expands metadata sections as the user steps through. As a result, Rally users can quickly traverse huge metadata payloads, an especially valuable capability when troubleshooting unexpected supply chain results.
Insight Number Chart Type
Rally Insight now supports a new chart type called “Number.” This chart type displays a single number — for example, an average queue time, total cost, or similar — to greatly improve available display options and increase efficiency in observing current trends.
Asset Tags and Thumbnails in Work Order Widget
The Work Order widget in Rally Gateway can now show the asset thumbnail as well as asset tags, if configured to do so. This reduces the time it takes Rally Gateway users to identify the work order they are looking for, in turn improving the efficiency of manual operations.
These are just a few of the recent updates made to the Rally platform. Read more in our latest Rally Updates blog.
Partner Spotlight
Vionlabs Efficiency Suite
The Efficiency Suite from Visionlabs is designed handle large volumes of content while maintaining high levels of accuracy. The Efficiency Suite can process a wide range of long-form content types, including movies, TV shows, documentaries, news programs, and reality shows. Its algorithms are designed to analyze these formats, identifying optimal ad-break placements and monitoring for content safety across multiple languages and genres. This makes the Efficiency Suite an ideal solution for streaming platforms and broadcasters with diverse content libraries.
Vionlabs’ ad-break placement leverages a multi-layered AI approach that analyzes content from multiple angles, using Black Frame and Speech Avoidance Detector, Deep Learning Story Flow Analysis, Scene Boundary Detector, and Shot-Similarity Algorithm to identify the most natural and non-intrusive moments for ad placement. This ensures that ads are inserted at points that minimize disruption to the viewing experience. The result is higher viewer satisfaction, reduced churn, and increased monetization opportunities.
Learn more about the full spectrum of best-in-class tools in the Rally Application Services Market.
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