sdvi update
Optimizing Localization in the Media Supply Chain
Consumer demand for content, particularly international content, continues to grow exponentially. Meeting that demand with content that has been localized for each distinct market and audience has become a key challenge for most media companies. It is not uncommon for a piece of content to be re-versioned more than a hundred times to meet these distribution requirements.
The SDVI Rally media supply chain platform makes it possible to keep up with the demands and opportunities for your content around the world in a time- and cost-efficient manner. Leveraging cloud-based media supply chains, with the scalability and elasticity to handle bursts in content workloads, gives you the power and flexibility to produce as many versions of your content as you need.
Supply Chain Thinking:
Keeping Up with Global Demand for Culturally Relevant Content
Geoff Stedman, Chief Marketing Officer
Earlier this year at IBC2022, SDVI was part of a consortium of companies that published the Cloud Localization Blueprint (CLB). The project was an opportunity for vendors to map out cloud-based content localization workflows and, more specifically, how those workflows can be automated, orchestrated, and accelerated from the time a deal is signed to the moment localized content is delivered.
Our goal was to help media organizations to minimize time to revenue and maximize the relevancy of content for global distribution, using the cloud — again, with the benefit of automation and orchestration — to streamline that process as much as possible. The blueprint itself provides a useful framework for cloud-based supply chain integration, serving as a model implementation that demonstrates best practices using best-in-class vendors and partners.
Content localization is a particularly compelling target for optimization because fast, cost-effective localization enables media organizations to move faster in delivering culturally relevant content to new markets and audiences. Content attracts and keeps viewers when it is culturally relevant, when it speaks their language, and conforms to their needs and cultural standards. And, as we all know, demand for relevant content is immense and only growing.
Global media consumers expect that content produced in other places — and particularly in dominant content-producing markets such as the U.S. and U.K. — will be made accessible to them. They also expect that it will have some of their own region’s attributes, be that a dubbed language track, subtitles, or even cultural references. What’s more, they expect that those elements will be additive, not an afterthought. Along with other improvements to audio and video, such as higher resolution and advanced audio technologies, they expect a dub of good quality, subtitles that are correct, and so on.
Traditionally, adding these elements, creating new versions from original assets, and managing packaging in the appropriate formats and profiles has been a labor-intensive process, and thus a costly one too. With the rapid expansion of global audiences and explosion in demand for content, however, efficient high-volume localization has become a critical enabler of new business opportunities.
Read the full blog post to find out how — and how the CLB can help your business implement a high-volume localization that opens up new opportunity for your business.
From Our Technical Solutions Team:
TMBD Presents an Opportunity for Efficiency
Brian Pelletier, VP of Technical Solutions, Americas
For Rally users looking to optimize their localization supply chain, it is hard to overstate the efficiencies you gain when you mine content for and fully leverage time-based metadata (TBMD). In an optimized media supply chain, TBMD guides operators directly to scenes that need moderation or modification with a single click.
When content is received, either from an external content producer or from archive, and submitted into the supply chain, Rally inspects the content and extracts technical metadata, storing it as searchable information in the system.
But beyond that, Rally can leverage any number of AI tools — Amazon Rekognition, Google Video Intelligence, Microsoft Azure Video Analyzer, and VideoAI from Comcast Technology Solutions — to gather additional information about the content. These tools automatically perform tasks like object, scene, and activity identification; text detection; and face detection and analysis. Metadata associated with any desired result (nudity, inappropriate language, alcohol, etc.) is harmonized by Rally as TBMD, which then initiates a work order for manual review by a QC operator or compliance editor.
Rally presents all the items detected in a custom panel within Adobe Premiere Pro or Accurate.Video so that editors can move quickly from scene to scene to make necessary edits. We’ve seen this guided process reduce the time it takes Rally users to create approved versions of localized content by as much as 80%. And then, when the work order is marked complete, Rally registers it as finished, updates the asset status, and moves the content on to the next step in the supply chain.
Taking advantage of TBMD and using the latest and greatest AI-driven processing tools to enhance their metadata, Rally users can make the management of human and creative elements of localization dramatically more efficient. By minimizing and streamlining manual work, you can produce as many versions of content as your audiences and markets require.
If you’d like to find out how to better utilize TBMD in your Rally supply chains – for localization, archiving, and more – reach out to your TAM or solutions architect.
New in Rally:
Updates to Rally in Q3 2022 provide more customization and control to operators, making the platform even easier to use. These updates continue to make workflows smarter and increase efficiency across media supply chains. Two highlights include:
Audio QC and metadata updates for Accurate.Video Validate
An update to Accurate.Video Validate brings multiple new features and enhancements to Rally QC and review tasks. QC operators can now listen to, review and verify multi-track audio in MP4 proxies. Previously, only the first track of muxed audio was available for playback. Now users can select all tracks muxed in the proxy file, eliminating the need to extract audio tracks into external audio files or remux the proxy file, speeding up Rally workorder prep time.
Additionally the metadata capabilities for non-time-based metadata have been expanded. Asset-based metadata can now display a wide variety of custom data fields, in configurable sections. This metadata can now be edited, allowing operators to verify and correct not only time-based events, like QC and AI data, but also general information about the asset and its tracks, checking audio languages, and other descriptive fields. By expanding the metadata functionality to include a wider array of fields and properties, a single user can complete more tasks in a single session, reducing overhead in the supply chain.
New Asset Inventory
The Asset inventory view in Rally Core and Gateway UIs have been updated to allow for column resizing and reordering, as well as inline column selection. The display of Instances has moved into a new model that also allows for configurable columns. As a result, operators in Rally can dynamically see the important data in a constantly changing business environment, while Gateway administrators can now configure UIs to fit their operator needs in an even more granular manner.
Application Spotlight
Closed Caption Converter
Closed Caption Converter is a complete solution for automating closed caption workflows. Convert closed captioning, and subtitles to over 30 different formats including SCC, WebVTT, XML, TTML, STL, and more.
Closed Caption Converter can handle more than just simple conversions. It can be used to segment files, correct for caption drift, offset timecodes, and automatically insert blank frames when required. Closed Caption Converter includes access to a web-based GUI for validating new file formats and workflows.
Learn more about the full spectrum of best-in-class tools in the Rally Application Services Market.
Upcoming Events
AWS re:Invent
This year at re:Invent 2022, don’t miss the following M&E sessions:
Wednesday, November 30, 2022 | 10:00am – 11:00am
How A+E Networks built a cloud-based media supply chain for scale & agility
Presenters:
Don Jarvis, SVP Global Broadcast Operations and Engineering, A+E Networks
David Klee, VP Strategic Media Solutions, A+E Networks
Wednesday, November 30, 2022 | 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Sky’s journey to migrate live sports and news to AWSPresenter: David Travis, Group Director of Content, Broadcast & Platforms, Sky
