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NAB 2019: MESA Members Bring New Workflow Offerings to Vegas

By Jeff Berman and Chris Tribbey –

This is the second of three stories previewing some of the workflow solutions being showcased at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas. You can read the first story here. Members of the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) representing the workflow space at the 2019 NAB Show discussed here include Cognizant, Gracenote, GrayMeta, IYUNO Media Group, Mediamorph, NAGRA, Prime Focus Technologies, SHIFT and Signiant.

Here’s a quick look at what each company is bringing to the show:

Cognizant

Cognizant will show off its Customer Intelligence offering with Google Cloud, which enables better marketing and customer engagement through data sciences and AI, at Google Cloud’s booth (SU218), all day at NAB April 10. The joint solution aims to help companies better predict behavior, and guide customers toward the best next action, delivering human-centric, omni-channel capabilities.

Additionally at NAB, Cognizant’s Saleha Williams will take part in several panel discussions: on April 7 she’ll be joined by reps from Hubbard Radio and UNLV for the panel “Building a Culture of Innovation” (North Hall 262-264); on April 9, Williams will be joined by execs from Bitmovin, Verizon Digital Media Services and the NAB Education Foundation for the discussion “Women in Broadcasting: Equality and Diversity – All Talk, no Action?” (CMIP Presentation Theater); and also on April 9, she’ll take part in the panel “Power of Alliances III – Engaging with F.A. Fans Around the World” (North Hall 262-264).

Lastly, on April 10, Tiran Dagan, Cognizant’s chief digital officer for communications and media, will take part in the panel session “Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will: Business Agility in the Shift to Digital Ad” (South Hall Advanced Ads Pavilion Theater), joined by reps from NBCU, Viacom Media Networks and E.W. Scripps.

Gracenote

Nielsen-owned Gracenote has long been dedicated to helping people connect to the music, TV, movies and sports they want, across the world’s most popular entertainment platforms and devices, everyone from Apple to Amazon to Time Warner Cable. The company’s Studio System, a web-based service and mobile app that enables subscribers to track TV, film and digital content, will be on display at NAB, as well as Gracenote’s offerings in sports data, music for TV and more.

Additionally, on April 11, Simon Adams, chief product officer for Gracenote, will take part in the panel discussion “Voice Control and AI: Pushing the TV Experience Forward,” in the South Hall of the Convention Center. Wynn Hospitality Suites

GrayMeta

GrayMeta, which is exhibiting at its Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner booth during NAB, is expected to again showcase its Curio platform and Iris media player.

GrayMeta’s platform can reduce the time needed to ensure compliance by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the review of audio, on-screen text and video, according to the company. By quickly finding details including nudity, graphic violence and gore, weapons and sexually explicit content, an organization’s teams can “streamline workflows and monetize assets more efficiently,” the company said.

Iris, meanwhile, “enables media professionals to quickly and accurately collaborate and deliver ALL forms of professional file content through the production lifecycle from asset acquisition, post-production on through to approval and distribution,” according to the company. SU2202

IYUNO Media Group

IYUNO will be demonstrating MSX and MDX at NAB 2019.

MSX is a “new generation” of IYUNO’s proprietary cloud-based project management system for global localization projects, the company said. The new MSX system “replaces our existing project management system, iMTrax, and creates efficiencies for both IYUNO and our customers,” it said, adding MSX also “fully supports” application program interface (API) “integrations with our customers.”

Clients can take advantage of MSX’s: Automated ordering system; faster transfer of materials; full visibility into project status; and weekly reports of project status, according to the company.

The goals are “full visibility into assigned projects and a significant reduction in email communications,” according to the company, explaining: “When placing orders, clients can simply choose from the rate cards agreed with IYUNO that specifies the job scope — or easily create a new one. For an easier and faster way to transfer materials, clients can keep their materials inside of their MAM. Then API integration with MSX will allow them to choose materials to hand over. MSX will take it from there and provide full tracking of material delivery status. Once orders are placed, clients can take advantage of MSX’s unique workflow visualization for full tracking of orders at a glance. MSX allows our clients to stay on top of the project and reduce stress with real-time tracking of project status.”


MDX, meanwhile, is a content distribution platform for content owners and distributors that the company said “opens up new monetization opportunities.” MDX offers Platform In Platform (PIP) partnership, enabling any content buyer – even over-the-top (OTT) platforms — to “easily integrate the MDX video player to service the content available on MDX,” according to the company.

MDX also offers tool sets to help owners and distributors sell their content effectively and efficiently, while MDX’s Digital Screener offers a simpler way for potential buyers to preview content, while maintaining strict security, the company said. And MDX’s Content Marketing Wizard allows users to “create content proposals ready to be sent out to buyers — within just a few clicks,” the company said. SU10802

Mediamorph

Mediamorph, which says its Content Value Management (CVM) cloud platform “powers the largest entertainment companies in the world,” will unveil a new solution at NAB it promises will be “vital to any company launching a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) offering.”

Entertainment companies “will face daunting challenges in putting together internal and external video supply chains, optimizing their content mix and transparency in intra-company content payments,” according to Mediamorph. Its CVM platform is “meeting these challenges for the DTC pioneers with our supply chain activation, content value analytics and content financial control products,” the company said.

“We have become the key partner for organizations pivoting to a DTC model where data drives everything,” Rob Gardos, Mediamorph CEO, said, adding: “Our CVM platform eliminates the barriers that plague the ‘DTC journey,’ enabling customers to focus on driving the most value from the content they own.” N6517

NAGRA

At NAB NAGRA will demonstrate its latest technologies in content protection, anti-piracy services, watermarking, and active content monetization.

“With traditional TV and OTT now synonymous and with numerous needs to address, such as protecting premium content, especially in sports, fighting new forms of piracy, integrating various sources of content and running cloud operations, players in the media and entertainment space must have the right strategy in place for success,” said Tom Wirth, SVP Americas for NAGRA. “We are now at a stage where operators, broadcasters and content owners must drive business transformation forward and adapt to current markets needs by leveraging solutions that are simple, smart, flexible and efficient – this will be the focus of our NAB showcase.”

NAGRA’s key themes and demonstrations at NAB Show will include: cloud-based content value protection, anti-piracy services and forensic watermarking, active content monetization, and smart business operations with data analytics and AI. SU3624

Prime Focus Technologies

Prime Focus Technologies (PFT) will showcase the latest innovations in CLEAR Media ERP Suite, including automation-led solutions and proven managed services, at the upcoming NAB Show 2019. PFT’s latest solutions also include Vision Cloud, a host of AI-led micro services that are ready-to-deploy, offering automation and data to accelerate the adoption of AI within specific M&E business use cases.

“With Media ERP, our focus has always been to help M&E enterprises solve specific operational challenges through automation, on the back of ONE software. The latest additions to our solutions & services will continue to enhance automation for our customers, assisting them in their collective effort to manage supply chains, while reducing Total Cost of Operations,” said Ramki Sankaranarayanan, founder and global CEO, Prime Focus Technologies. “We’re particularly thrilled with the progress we’ve made on the AI/ML front with Vision Cloud, and we are extremely excited to be taking our AI-led micro services to the market for solving real business use cases.”

PFT’s patent pending Machine Wisdom technology, Vision Cloud, is a native media recognition AI engine that synthesizes and focuses on the most diverse & relevant annotations to deliver actionable search results that are meaningful and contextual. The engine’s ready to use AI-led micro services deliver automation and data to accelerate the adoption of AI within M&E businesses.

PFT’s transformational cloud-based solutions help media and entertainment (M&E) enterprises leverage automation to solve the key challenges they face in today’s multi-platform universe – from creation and acquisition to delivery and distribution. These solutions, combined with PFT’s wide array of technical and creative Managed Services will help customers drive automation-led efficiencies to achieve lower Total Cost of Operations (TCOP) and unlock new monetization opportunities. SL9605

SHIFT

For 20 years, content creators used both Mediasilo and Wiredrive to tell their stories, safeguard content using SafeStream’s on-demand watermarking technology, and deliver and access pre-release content on Screeners.com. Those combined technologies, solving the industry’s most pressing workflow challenges, redefining the future of video post-production, now fall under the SHIFT brand, with the team from the company ready to show off new post needs and give demos of the new SHIFT platform at NAB.

SafeStream by SHIFT will also be the main sponsor for the April 7 Cybersecurity & Content Protection Summit, presented by the NAB Show and the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA). SL8705

Signiant

At NAB 2019, Signiant is introducing Jet, a new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that it said makes it simple to “automate and accelerate the transfer of large files between geographically dispersed locations.” Targeted at simple “lights-out” use cases, Signiant Jet meets the growing need to replace scripted File Transfer Protocol (FTP) with a faster, more reliable and more secure alternative, the company said.

Jet leverages Signiant’s SaaS platform, which also underpins the company’s widely-deployed Media Shuttle solution that is now used by more than 400,000 professionals to send and share large files around the world, according to the company. Jet’s tightly curated feature set and accessible price point allows small and mid-sized companies to easily automate system-to-system workflows, as well as recurring data exchange with partners.

“Jet fills a growing need in the industry,” Cory Bialowas, SVP of product management at Signiant, said in a news release https://www.mesaonline.org/2019/03/12/nab-2019-signiant-introduces-jet-the-newest-product-on-its-saas-platform-mesa/ announcing Jet March 12.

“With Media Shuttle, Signiant has demonstrated that SaaS innovation can bring the power of our technology to companies of all sizes,” Bialowas said, adding: “As customers face increasing pressure to eliminate FTP and unwieldy first-generation acceleration products, they have been clamoring for a Media Shuttle companion product to handle automated transfers. Jet extends our SaaS platform to address these use cases within the global media supply chain.”

Like all Signiant products, Jet uses a proprietary transport protocol that optimizes network performance for fast, reliable movement of large files under all network conditions, the company said, adding: “Coupled with enterprise-grade security and features tuned for media professionals, Signiant products are designed to enable the global flow of content, within and between companies, in a hybrid cloud world.” SL10216