HITS

By Mahesha Pandit, SVP Head of Disruptive Innovation Group, and Edward Altman, VP Sales & Solutions, ValueLabs

While the idea that “content is king” still resonates in the digital era, market research by leading firms such as Nielsen shows that consumers are also gravitating toward experience as a priority. As Hollywood adapts cloud for content creation workflows; social for igniting creative collaboration and consumption; and analytics for semantic modeling of user behavior, it is very much the marriage of the consumer experience with superb content that is driving the business of Hollywood today.

Hollywood is experimenting with several ideas to embrace disruptive technologies and liberate studio legacy businesses, systems, and associated business practices and processes. There is a call for platforms rooted in technology to unite the M&E industry to creatively collaborate and come together to fight privacy and protect IP as well.

A lot needs to be done to create a platform that meets all that Hollywood is dreaming of and desires. Nonetheless, a scalable platform needs to be established to support:
global digital workflows; legacy technology and business processes entrapped in studios that need to be liberated and converted to technology stacks that makes sense to the business; the break down of silos built around legacy businesses to foster collaboration – which is possible only with compelling value propositions satisfying needs of diverse stakeholders.

All of these can be collectively called the digital dreams of Hollywood.

The digital dreams platform

If an attempt is made to visualize the platform that meets Hollywood’s dreams, it would look much like the one shown.

It would consist of three layers that would map to IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) layers of a private/public cloud. Each layer consists of multiple, scalable software components that are configurable within reasonable limits.

At the base layer (infrastructure), an object storage exists to capture both structured and unstructured data. This data represents normal business data as well as digital multimedia creative data and metadata. While raw data is held as storage, views configured to match typical Hollywood data sets enable easier and more meaningful visualization of data.

The platform services layer enables several activities, some of which could be liberating. Collaboration tools enable real time collaboration amongst consumers. Workflows engine combined with a metadata block could help create custom workflows that are not served by the services layer. Third party application program interface (API) libraries help extend the platform for needs beyond initial visualization. Metering enables atomic level tracking, governance and charge-back mechanisms.

Perhaps the real differentiator is the modelbased legacy modernization engine. This innovative piece of software helps visualization of legacy software in terms of models that are easier to understand.

Using the model, an architect could add new functionality or remove or update legacy functionality. An updated model could then produce the modern state of the software, if so desired.

Typical Hollywood users need not go down to the platform or infrastructure layer. Most of the services that they need are present in the uppermost services (software) layer. Production workloads can be planned and managed; content creation workloads can be used to create, review, edit, approve, distribute or delete digital content.

Identity and access management components ensure appropriate use of the platform and content while being piped through content delivery mechanisms.

Services such as content management and digital rights management could be used to start managing content at its origin and consumption.

The platform could be powered by ideas, concepts and features from C4 – Cinema Content Creation Cloud (Cloud Project sponsored by ETC@USC) – that enable content creation and identification using C4 IDs.

Collaborative governance could be rendered as a service to multiple entities within the M&E industry to share access, control, threat and penetration data. This could pave the way for an industrywide means to help protect assets.

Relevant enterprise resource planning (ERP) services could also be provided as part of the platform avoiding the need for an external ERP system. This would include master data, procurement, physical assets management, accounts payables, receivables and project management.

Platform driving consumer experience

The digital dreams platform would help create, distribute and enable a compelling user experience with content as a natural outcome. It would lower the barriers of entry and operating costs; allocate quality resources to an extended list of dreams and enable an even better fight against the on-going threat of piracy.

M&E ecosystem: The platform connects relevant stakeholders – content makers, consumers, customers, collaborators, as well as associated vendors, partners, technology developers, and the media at large.

Compelling user experience: Nearly everything that a Hollywood creative user needs would be available in the platform as a service, including access to digital assets, data, data sets, metadata and change history, while each are subject to access rights.

Lower entry barriers: As the platform would be powered by the cloud offering scalability on demand.

Extending dreams: The platform could be based on C4 – the extensible, open source cinema content creation cloud. It can also provide services present only in the Hollywood studio to a wider audience at a lower cost.

Fighting piracy: Platform could be used to track content at the point of creation and services such as digital watermarking could be proactively provided. A database of known threats and pirates, and metadata of pirated assets, could be managed as part of the platform and shared with platform users.

Secure by design: Multi-level security can be established on stored content since cloud service providers are compliant to multiple standards such as ISO 27001, PCI, SOC, FISMAA, and HIPAA. It is also possible to log and analyze activity at the API level.

Digital marketing: Technology intensive digital marketing could be driven from the same platform that creates content and superior customer experience; after all, marketing is just that.

Analytical insights: The platform captures consumer behavior, asset and workflow meta data in addition to user’s social media activities from which useful analytical insights could be derived. The platform, when interfaced with other platforms that semantically enrich metadata, could yield deeper, intelligent insights.

Relevant for M&E business: The platform would be implemented as a new service delivery paradigm – not as a new technological solution. Technology stacks could be configured to match business needs and offered on a subscription basis.

No lock-in: As data of a user could be bundled and delivered as a package so that it can be imported into an alternate technology stack, should it exist.

Managed Services: The platform could have managed services provided by its builders. A team of experts could provide configuration, customization, extension, troubleshooting as agile services.

Summary

Along with content, the consumer experience is an equal pillar. A platform rooted in technology is visualized to consist of multiple service layers that could be implemented on a cloud. This digital dreams platform can be built in multiple steps establishing workflows for content creation, distribution and delivery, and extended to cover routine and innovative services that offer best-of-breed facilities.

This strategy is based on modern-day, proven technology, and offers an excellent platform for the M&E industry to realize its dreams.

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