Most of us are thrilled with time shifting or choice, while overlooking some of the things that these guys really value – Closed Captioning. Well, adding CC to video, especially streaming media with a somewhat unknown audience size – can be expensive and labor intensive. Why would you “over invest” in an asset by manually adding in CC if you don’t know who will be watching it – much less if someone that needs CC or SAP?

Putting the legal and regulatory issues aside, any business person probably would agree that the investment is dubious at best. However, how do you expect to become the first option in viewing if you are not as feature rich as the old technology.

In short – cost effective process automation needs to be implemented to deliver content in many flavors – this includes the ‘3 screens’ (today’s focus) as well as for people that like to ‘hear’ it in various ways. Robert and Jamie did some good detective work to find Signiant.

Learn how you can collaboratively create, manage and distribute your content on a global basis. You’ll have a good laugh at this video too - yes, it’s a spoof on one of the most addictive and acclaimed dramas on television today, 24!

Tom and Ashish also discuss SIPP, Signiant’s newly launched product integration program and the benefits it provides to partners such as Interra Systems who have recently joined.

In the spirit of Hollywood and the infamous Top Ten List, we’ve compiled a list of what we didn’t hear at NAB this year.

1) We are happy shipping tapes and hard drives. Shipping tapes and drives meets your business needs and is cost effective – even though on average it costs $200 and as much as $700 for each one shipped. Some organizations that we have encountered are shipping as many as 130,000 tapes per year … yes $26M worth of tape shipments per year. Well, I bet their shipping company and tape suppliers are giving them a great discount. Not to mention, $0.45 per month to store each tape OR the environmental impact of all of those tapes in a landfill. Trivia fact: 130,000 tapes stacked up are 4Xs as tall as the world’s tallest building.

If you are shipping tape – check out the Tape ROI Calculator: http://www.signiant.com/tape-roi-calculator/ - the tool can show you how much money you can save.

2) We are happy with FTP in our organization. FTP is pervasive in many organizations and easy to use – even though it requires installing software on client computers, it is prone to mid-transfer failures without restart capabilities, is slow, represents a security hole of vital data without any auditing capability and finally is unmanaged. No wonder so many people are selecting Signiant to replace their FTP solution.

For more on Signiant vs. FTP, check out: http://www.signiant.com/FTP-White-Paper/ for a comparison.

3) We are already getting the most out of our WAN Bandwidth. Companies are using their networks to move all sort of files over networks and improving efficiency dramatically. However, over longer distances (e.g. Seattle to LA) as much as 95% of the bandwidth you are buying is lost due to network inefficiencies – having a dramatic impact on the value you are getting from your WAN. You could be wasting $9000 per month per location in your organization and not even know it.

Check out the Bandwidth Calculator to see how much bandwidth you are wasting: http://www.signiant.com/bandwidth-calculator-0

4) We are happy with our satellite and terrestrial file delivery services. Yes satellite is available and is effective in reaching globally but it is very expensive … over $25/GB for a file transferred. Same with Terrestrial Services – around $25/GB plus the cost of the bandwidth. Compare this with the cost of about a $1/GB for sending files over your network and the public internet. We regularly see companies shipping 200GB packages – shipping using satellite or a terrestrial service would be $5,000 vs. just $200 worth of bandwidth on your own network.

5) We are happy with our manual processes. Everyone is probably already trained on the current processes – the trains run on time and when problems are encountered, people know what to do. However, everyone time someone touches a file or needs to manually take action – it costs money. Automating tasks and especially multi-sequences tasks can save a tremendous amount of money and people’s time. Have your people interact with the exceptions – not the processes that are operating flawlessly. As one of our partners told me, his directive is pretty clear, “make more money, and don’t make any more people”.

6) We don’t plan to monetize our content internationally, digitally or non-linearly. Many companies main business today is not syndication of content – digitally, internationally or VOD. In 2008, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said, “We can’t trade analog dollars for digital pennies”. Well – the world is changing and Mr. Zucker would be the first to tell you to jump on board. Companies like Apple and NBC have already created $B revenue streams from Digital Distribution. It is not too early to start and only Signiant can scale to meet your business needs.

7) We don’t need to collaborate with other people globally. Many organizations are self contained and only collaborate to produce content with people in their own building. However, increasingly worldwide collaboration for editing, dubbing, special effects or just review is the rule not the exception – even small marketing organizations need to collaborate with people all over the world. If you are producing content – chances are you either are or will need to exchange files on deadline with someone across town, across the country or on another continent.

We don’t need to get content in from the field, remote shoots or from users quickly, reliably and securely and our clients are happy to have us send them tapes. In some cases, content is produced, edited and packaged at a single site. There is no need to get the news in from where it is happening, there is no location shoot or content that a citizen journalist captured and wants to upload to you and you have no desire to deal with user generated content. However, more and more content that is captured remotely professionally or on a cell phone has great value and getting that content from that device can provide the jump on your competitor who is vying for the same content.

9) We have complete visibility to where our files are at all times and when they arrive at their destination. Some small manual operations where a single person is responsible for all file transfers – it is easy to know what files have arrived, what files are in transit and what files still need to be moved. But for almost any organization, where more than one person is involved in the creation, management or distribution of content – being able to track all of the files, the formats and their destinations quickly becomes a logistics nightmare. Oh, has anyone ever called and said the file never got there? Try proving a file has arrived without a signed digital signature.

10) We are happy with the method and speed we can delivery big media files around the world. Whether it is a 15MB Power Point File, 50 MB viral video, 500MB iTune file or 5GB Digital Daily – no one can make this claim. Moving big files over networks to meet business deadlines is a problem we all face – whether you are using email, ftp or any other application. If you are trying to move many large files to many locations – well the problems grows from a simple file movement problem to a logistics nightmare. A problem Signiant can help you with … just ask many of the companies that we are managing the movement and transformation of millions of files to hundreds of destinations.

Has anyone in your organization muttered any of the above? We didn’t think so.

***We recommend clicking on “download” so you can view the video more clearly.***

Listen in as the NHL’s VP of Technology, Grant Nodine, discusses why he chose Signiant on this recorded webinar. Grant discusses the digital media distribution challenges he sought to overcome, the solutions he evaluated and the results of his Signiant implementation. Grant also fields questions from the audience at the conclusion of his presentation. ***Click on the NHL logo to start the presentation.***

Signiant’s CSO Tom Ohanian sits down with Tara Bartley to discuss what happened in 2008 for our media and entertainment customers and his predictions for 2009. Our New Year’s resolution is to provide you with more Podcasts! …and briefer Podcasts, we know you time is valuable! Have a listen.

AS A business traveler, I’ve witnessed a very interesting shift over the past two years. Business fliers, first to watch DVDs or videos on their laptops, are now watching movies and TV shows on their iPhones or iPod touch — while laptop playback is on the decline.

Now, this certainly isn’t a scientific study, but given how much I fly, it tells me that the ubiquity and ease of use of a mobile device will put more mobile media in the hands of more people faster than anything else thus far. This is worth noting since new technologies often find themselves in the hands of business travelers before they make the jump to the larger, more profitable consumer market.

So why should media professionals, Hollywood studios, wireless carriers (other than AT&T) and phone manufacturers (other than Apple) pay attention to this?

You can find the rest of the article on our web site at: http://www.signiant.com/company/news/apple-and-wal-mart/

In this video, Signiant’s CTO, Ian Hamilton walks you through Signiant’s latest version of its Content Distribution Management software. Ian demonstrates the new functionality of the software including enhancements to the workflow modeling engine, enhanced media integrations and agent load balancing in Media Exchange. The video is less than 15 minutes but is packed with information.

Watch this narrated presentation of Signiant to learn about the company and its software. The video provides a brief overview of the company, a clip of customer testimonials, as well as a technical overview of Signiant’s Content Distribution Management software and Media Exchange with a real world customer example. It’s only 11 minutes long.

At the start, the workflow builder simply chooses the appropriate “Start” component and places it on the canvas. In this case, a workflow is starting with a Media Exchange upload….to learn more, have a walk-through this three-minute tutorial.

During her acceptance speech at the 2008 Emmy’s Tina Fey made what was essentially an appeal for more viewers for her critically acclaimed but ratings poor show. This statement represents something more … this is a landmark event in the world of digital media and the revolution that is taking place. Granted Ms. Fey is very intelligent and also a writer and therefore in tune with the business of media. However, when else has ‘talent’ talked about the distribution methods of their work as opposed to thanking someone for ‘opportunity to make such a rich character come alive”.

When you look at the media and entertainment market – the trends are pretty clear:

· Traditional Broadcast Revenue is Shrinking
· Digital Media Revenue is Growing

Some examples:

In addition, Ms. Fey is using her impression of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin to boost rating of not only SNL (up 42% year over year) but also to help 30 Rock heading into the season premiere. Her Palin impression is driving so much traffic to Hulu and nbc.com that according to Solutions Research Group more people have seen the skit on the web than on “actual TV”. That is why I support her as the only candidate for the role of VP of the Digital Media Economy.

So … what does all this mean? Some predictions …

· Tonight’s “SNL Weekend Update Thursdays” leading up to the election will draw record numbers.

· 30 Rock’s already low ratings were slipping as it wrapped up last season. I predict that based on the Emmy wins, Fey’s popularity and the Palin impressions – record numbers turn in to view the season premiere on October 30th.

· Finally … Tina Fey’s popularity will also help CBS’ “The New Adventures of Old Christine” – another critically acclaimed show with low ratings. In her acceptance speech, Fey gave credit to Julia Louis-Dreyfus saying to paraphrase — “when in doubt – I just act like Julia Louis-Dreyfus”. I predict Elaine gets the Emmy next year!

Anyone want to bet a 5 pound lobster on these predictions —- I already have a few “in the bank” from the real elections – want to capitalize on my Digital Media Economy predictions?

Does digital media distribution herald the replacement of satellite? In the session, Tony answers this question with what he describes as the “Any Dream”: any content, any time, anywhere on any device. Tony cites real world examples where digital media distribution is being used to reduce costs and fulfill the “Any Dream”.

As is usually the case, I didn’t get too far from the Signiant booth until the last day of the show when I typically have to run around and see what new products there are and what companies are innovating. One of the most impressive was Maximum Throughput. The MaxEdit Server Edition and Web Edition are excellent products and truly represent innovation. I remember seeing these products at NAB and they have changed quite a bit since then. I saw web-based editorial (what I refer to as “editing on the wire”) and changes made on the flash-based web version resulting in an edited sequence which you can access on an i-Phone. Further, Max-T actually has a neat review and approval app that they’ve built, complete with grease-marker capability to highlight/annotate areas and that newly marked up version shows up back in the LAN version (because you are always manipulating the content metadata at the source) I urge you to check it out.

It was a GREAT IBC show for Signiant and hopefully for you if you attended!

HD is certainly forming a large component of what people are looking at, but hardware and software applications to support IPTV and Mobile initiatives are getting their fair share of increased floor presence and associated foot traffic.

The theme for this year’s IBC is “the world of content creation, management, and delivery” and I think particularly we are seeing more emphasis on, in order, delivery and management than ever before. Any content creator who has a volume of content is now seriously looking at how to manage and to keep track of that content—hence must look at both asset management and content management systems. And, files must be distributed to all the locations that require them—to affiliate stations, cable head ends, telcos, and the vast amount of business partners that are part of this ever morphing world of what we call the media and entertainment industry.

One of the clichés in this business is “NAB is hectic and IBC is much more tranquil”. I don’t find that to be the case at all. In 1991, the pace of IBC was very slow. Today, the pace is fast and people are coming to make evaluations and to make decisions!

In this podcast, Signiant’s Tom Ohanian speaks with Current’s Chief Technology Officer, Steven Blumenfeld. Steven describes Current and explains that the company’s mission is to “democratize television”.  He states that although quality is important to Current, it’s not as important as the story and the in-depth reporting that’s involved in getting the story. Steven also describes the challenges of ingesting content from citizen journalists and where Signiant fits in by automating Current’s workflow, taking humans out of the equation and thereby eliminating human error. There’s a lot more interesting insight from Steven, have a listen.

As I travel, evangelizing Digital Media Distribution to Media and Entertainment business – I walk through their hallways, I often find myself squeezing by boxes of blank video tapes stacked in hallways or anywhere else that they can find a spot. I usually ask some innocent questions and typically get some startling answers ….

“Wow, how many tapes do you use per month here?”

• It is always a much larger number than I imagined and usually answered with a chest-puffed out pride: “ 10,000 tapes per month” “20 tapes per day” “130,000 tapes per year”. Really wow.

“What is the cost to distribute your content on Physical Media (ok maybe I say Tape)”?

• This question is usually taken literally and typically even looks past the cost of the tape, “well we use FedEx so we pay $15 or $20, whatever they charge now for a standard overnight package.”

$15 … nope, $20 … nope. There have been lots of studies done and the real cost to produce, delivery, ingest and track a single video tape is in the $100-500 range. If you add more exotic factors like VAT or the cost to deliver a print of a big budget feature to an international country – we are easily into the $1,000s.

The Hard Costs of Tape Delivery

Let’s focus on the vanilla distribution of a pro video tape from one location to another – this could be for the production and editing process or for distribution of a promo or syndication of a TV show or movie. There are many factors that add up to the true figure of $100-500.

Duplication Cost – The marginal cost to replicate a 30 minute DVCPro (or similar Beta-SP, DVCam) tape including the labor, stock and labeling will be about $75. If it is longer or HD the cost will easily approach $200. You are paying this for each tape produced each month (of those 10,000 per month!). In most cases, it is seen as the cost of doing business and is either fundamental to producing your product or is absorbed by someone else and is just an accepted practice.

Shipping – I guess we are not living in Dr. Strangelove’s time when gas was $0.30/gallon. Or in 1999 when it truly was $15 to ship something overnight via FedEx. Consider the table below which details the cost to ship a 2lb package via FedEx today from New York to Los Angeles. Wow – almost $100 to ship a tape overnight from coast to coast — and what is not an emergency in the entertainment world!

FedEx First Overnight®: $96.21
FedEx Priority Overnight®: $63.09
FedEx Standard Overnight®: $56.60
FedEx 2Day®: $28.90
FedEx Express Saver®: $24.86

So the true cost to ship is not $15-20 but more likely $50 or more for each tape! In addition – there are people staffing the mail room at each end to box it, enter the address, receive it, check it in and delivery it to the intended person. While you could argue there will always be a mail room – when you look at the volume of tapes that you are dealing with – there are incremental heads in your mail room due to the large volume of tapes being produced and shipped.

Courier Cost – In the case where content is either so valuable that it needs to be hand carried internationally to ensure chain of control or where there are multiple local facilities involved in production and ultimately the airing of content (news, sports, episodic content) – couriers are used. Whenever you are involving air travel with a bonded courier – you are easily going to exceed $2,000.

Another example is if you produce content in Manhattan and your master control is on Long Island or in Southern Connecticut – using a courier to shuttle tapes between your facilities costs between $100-200 for each trip. Obviously this is spread over multiple tapes but the cost to delivery content for play to air in this case could easily approach $500-600 per day.

Ingest Cost – When Dr. Strangelove was broadcast on network television – it was likely played to air from an Ampex Quad machine but not before some inappropriate (well for the 1960s) parts were cut out with a blade. Thankfully, tape is becoming more and more of a transport and storage medium versus something that people actually work in. Once the tape is received it needs to be “ingested” as a file(s) into a system for editing or playout (or some other task). Ingest from tape and the associated QC process is a real time process (it takes 30 minutes to ingest a 30 minute tape) is estimated to cost approximately $50 for each tape. This cost includes the labor and tape machine cost including maintenance. In the case where a file is moved over a network and the data integrity ensured, the file can move seamlessly and automatically from one system to the next with no human intervention.

Tracking Cost – Data Wranglers are on staff to ensure that the hand off of these tapes goes smoothly and that all things are at the right place at the right time. A daunting challenge and often involves a “hand-shake” with someone on the other end with the same job. Good Data Wranglers make things go smoothly and there’s usually none of the….“the tape never got there” or “where’s the tape, we’re on deadline”. However, it’s a very detailed and labor intensive job to ensure that everything moves as it should. This does not come without cost. It is estimated that for each tape that is shipped there is $25 of overhead in people and systems to ensure that tapes are at the right place at the right time and that nothing slips through the cracks.

Total Hard Costs

Duplication: $75.00
Shipping: $50.00
Ingest: $50.00
Tracking: $25.00
Total Nominal Hard Costs: $200.00

The Intangible Costs of Tape Delivery

Environmental Cost – they may not be as bad for the environment as “the Bomb” but millions of tapes being produced and shipped each year come pretty close. Imagine the lifecycle of a single video tape cassette and the environmental impact

• From Production of the plastic and metal tape – energy, pollution, waste material
• to the assembly and packaging – energy, packaging waste
• to the shipping to the warehouse – energy in the form of fuel for boats, planes and trucks
• to distribution to the end user - energy in the form of fuel for boats, planes and trucks
• duplication – energy to run tape machines, pollution in the form of heavy metal due to tape heads running across metal oxide tape
• shipping – energy in the form of fuel for boats, planes and trucks, more packaging waste
• ingest - energy to run tape machines, pollution in the form of heavy metal due to tape heads running across metal oxide tape
• disposal – thrown in a landfill at the end of its useful life

Multiply this environmental impact by millions of tapes each year and it is probably much worse for the environment than the explosion of a single nuclear bomb.

International Shipping Cost – Our examination of the “hard costs” did not factor in the impact of shipping internationally. The costs to ship internationally can be dramatically higher – this can be attributed to:

• Actual Shipping Cost
• Delays Due to Customs – in the world of iPods and IPTV, 1 year or 3 month delays from the time that a program is aired in the origination country to when it is available internationally is just not tolerated. Delays in customs can have a ripple effect on the repackaging for specific countries (format conversion, dubbing and subtitling) and ultimately unacceptable air dates.

VAT Cost – Historically, when importing a tape into a country, Value Added Tax (VAT) was charged on the stock cost of a tape. The tax would be charged at the rate of the importing country and range from 5% to 20%. So a Digibeta Tape costs $50. So to import it to Argentina for example would be 21% of $50 or $10.50. The price of doing business. Recently countries have wised up and realized that the Intellectual Content on the tape is worth much more than the tape in the company’s ability to monetize it in the destination country and are taxing that revenue stream. For example, for one company, Argentina was going to charge them VAT on the Intellectual Content on the tape they were shipping. They were going to charge them 21% of the revenue that the content was going to generate. With margins in the 10-15% range, paying VAT is the difference between making and losing money.

Opportunity Cost – Kinetic Content – you all have it. You might be inspired to watch Dr. Strangelove but how do you get it now? Content stored on a tape on a shelf getting dusty that has value to someone is Kinetic Content. It has value to someone but that value is locked in a pile of dust and lack of movement. In the case of Dr. Strangelove, NetFlix could ship you a disk or you could go to YouTube for some clips. But how much content with value is still locked on the shelf and not being monetized – representing lost opportunity cost. Maybe someday Comcast’s Project Infinity will deliver the “Any Dream” (Any Content on Any Device Any Where at Any Time) – but for now, the long tail content is sitting on a shelf with stored value. Distribution of physical media is not going to unlock that Kinetic Content and represents lost opportunity cost.

The shipment of tapes is going to go the way of the Cold War – it will end. Maybe as suddenly as November of 1989, in a flash files will move seamlessly over networks, each one representing a dramatic incremental cost and environmental savings. When added up, the impact will be as dramatic to your business as the end of the Cold War was on the way Dr. Strangelove is viewed today.

I think we have only looked at half the story – now that we understand costs, when I get some time I will examine the ROI of implementing a Digital Media Distribution Management solution. I am thinking of titling it:

Gee, I Wish I Had One Of Them Doomsday (opps Digital Media Distribution) Machines.