HITS

LAS VEGAS — ATSC 3.0, the next-gen, over-the-air digital broadcast standard, is still in its early days. But already TiVo is looking at how to give owners of its hardware access to all the features ATSC 3.0 offers, without having to start over.

“It may be early in ATSC 3.0, but the time is right to take it seriously,” said Ted Malone, VP of consumer for TiVo, as he showed off minor workarounds — in concept — that would allow owners of both the TiVo Bolt and Bolt OTA to be ATSC 3.0 capable. “It feels like the front edge of the wave is coming.”

The workaround involves software developed by TiVo that enables current DVR hardware to enable a network ATSC 3.0 tuner, delivering ATSC 3.0 capabilities for a potentially low-cost and easy upgrade. “We wanted to prove that the Bolt hardware is perfectly capable of playing back ATSC 3.0,” Malone said. “What we hope the takeaway here is we’re looking at ways people can upgrade their products as affordably as possible.”

Also during NAB, TiVo announced that movie kiosk and streaming operator Redbox will use TiVo to deliver personalized content experiences to customers, using TiVo’s Personalized Content Discovery platform, with Redbox deploying TiVo’s search, recommendations and insights services across ts Redbox.com, Redbox On Demand streaming apps and physical kiosks.

Redbox will also enable TiVo’s video and video game metadata.

Also at NAB:

FilmTrack Gets Reactions

An all-new user interface and user experience for FilmTrack’s end-to-end rights management solution was on display at NAB, and company president Stephen Kassin couldn’t be happier with the feedback.

“The vibe with the show was amazing,” he said. “It’s an exciting time.”

The financial capabilities of FilmTrack’s SaaS platform — which helps clients streamline workflows and accelerate sales processes — are proving especially useful for companies looking to make sense of revenue data around royalties, participations, and financials. Older reporting systems are being pushed to their limits, Kassin said, and changes in the way things need to be reported are having more and more media and entertainment companies looking FilmTrack’s way.

“There are a lot of exciting opportunities in the partnership realm, and our ability to handle rights and availabilities, royalties and participations using a single unified code base is making the user experience easier,” he said.

Deluxe Shows Off One

Deluxe Entertainment Services Group came into NAB with a big partnership announcement, inking a multi-year deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer faster, at-scale solutions for both content creators and distributors. Deluxe pegged AWS as its primary cloud provider, integrating AWS services to enable end-to-end content solutions for the Deluxe One platform.

“As more companies adopt native cloud workflows, our combined efforts are establishing how the modern digital media supply chain functions,” said Andy Shenkler, chief product officer for Deluxe, in a statement. “We’re going all-in with AWS to leverage every aspect of their services across our Deluxe One ecosystem, enabling us to jointly provide content creators and distributors with innovative solutions across the end-to-end media ecosystem, as well as expanding the automation and enhancing the efficiency of our business operations and interactions with our customers.”

During NAB, Shenkler showed off the power of Deluxe One, the company’s cloud-based platform that aims to unify the media supply chain, with an open API architecture, and advanced automation tools. He showed how Deluxe One can quickly and easily sync foreign audio tracks to TV shows, and pull out metadata to give users better insight into performance.

“A lot of people have workflow solutions,” he said. “This isn’t just about workflows. We have a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and a world-class team. The whole point is we can eliminate confusion.”