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Tag: Synamedia

  • Synamedia acquires live video streaming specialist Quortex to accelerate its SaaS offerings

    Synamedia acquires live video streaming specialist Quortex to accelerate its SaaS offerings

    Mumbai: An independent video software provider Synamedia on Tuesday announced the acquisition of the privately-held provider of a leading cloud video delivery platform Quortex, optimised for just-in-time processing of live video streaming.

    With this acquisition, Synamedia will enhance its cloud video network capabilities, complementing its vivid workflow as-a-service (WaaS) with a set of innovative solutions for OTT content processing, disaster recovery, long tail content processing for large service providers and live events.

    Using a patented,  pay-as-you-stream model, Quortex’s just-in-time technology provides exactly the resources required at any given time. If no one is watching a channel, it simply frees up those resources. This methodology provides time to market and considerable cost advantages over existing cloud approaches while ensuring that every deployed resource has a purpose. For example, for long tail content, Quortex’s technology reduces cloud costs up to 67 per cent.

    Quortex’s multi-tenant software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology builds video streams on-the-fly, based on the end users’ requirements and matched to viewers’ locations, devices and time zones. It adapts to unpredictable networks, infrastructure and audiences, and automatically scales cloud resources up and down, leveraging spot instances that take advantage of spare cloud capacity at a fraction of the typical cost, while maintaining the quality of experience. The service is designed for any live streaming provider including telcos, cable operators, direct-to-consumer (D2C) players, and broadcasters.

    As a founding member of Greening of Streaming, and as energy costs spiral and organisations commit to cutting CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions, Quortex is well positioned to play an important role in sustainability strategies.

    Synamedia EVP and general manager of video network Julien Signes said, “By pioneering just-in-time video streaming processing and delivery, Quortex has broken new ground with live services that dynamically spring to life when processing a user request. This radical change in the economics of cloud processing will accelerate the migration of live video services to the cloud. We see enormous potential as we expand Quortex’s reach globally – for the fast-growing D2C (direct-to-consumer) live streaming market as well as our traditional service provider customer base who want to reduce infrastructure costs and meet their CO2 reduction commitments.”

    An independent analyst and advisor Ben Keen commented, “True innovation often derives from a dismantling of legacy approaches to a problem and Quortex has brought some timely fresh thinking to video streaming technology. Reversing the traditional ‘push’ architecture, the Quortex team has come up with a potentially more efficient scalable ‘pull’ process that uses bandwidth only when it is required. The addition of this true SaaS proposition to the portfolio should allow Synamedia to offer live streaming services to a far broader range of increasingly cost-sensitive and environmentally-aware customers.”

    Quortex CEO and founder Marc Baillavoine said, “With our breakthrough just-in-time approach, we have turned the live streaming model on its head, ditching the need to wastefully provision streaming resources just-in-case. We believe that with Synamedia’s global reach and complementary product lines, we can accelerate our mission to transform the agility and cost of streaming and slash its carbon footprint.”

    Quortex was founded in Rennes (France) in 2018 by a team of video industry experts with more than 100 patents. Customers include beIN Group Media, M6 and Red Bee Media. The company’s employees in France and the UK will be joining Synamedia.  

    Quortex has been supported since its inception by Elaia, Go Capital, Unexo and business angels. Its technology will be part of Synamedia’s video network portfolio, and the company will continue to operate under its own brand while taking advantage of Synamedia’s customer base, financial strength and global presence.

  • GUEST COLUMN: Why Software as a Service puts video service providers in control

    GUEST COLUMN: Why Software as a Service puts video service providers in control

    How can we increase market share? Can we meet the demands of consumers who want to watch high-quality video on any screen, anywhere, anytime? What should we do to protect our content, and build new revenue streams?

    These are some of the critical questions video service providers are continually asking themselves and us. And the Software as a Service (SaaS) model is proving it has what it takes to address these burning issues by allowing providers to quickly launch, scale and update streaming services and keep focusing on the right questions to stay competitive.

    Scaling ambition

    SaaS puts customers firmly in the driving seat. Flexible, affordable, and scalable – with the onus on the software provider to host and maintain the service – it means providers can start small and pay as their ambitions scale, whilst reaping the benefits of new product enhancements, features and functionality added as frequently as multiple times a day.

    Some early adopters are already turning their backs on inflexible, bespoke technology deployments and instead embracing SaaS solutions. Interestingly, we are finding these are not just those born-in-the cloud streaming services that might first spring to mind but also more traditional pay-TV providers and telcos.

    One particular factor driving SaaS demand is the increased appetite for TV advertising. Where once the focus was on subscriber acquisition and market share, broadcasters and other service providers are now demanding the flexibility to create new Avod and Fast services that help counter the cost of content. For example, a leading provider in southeast asia is deploying Synamedia Iris, our SaaS addressable advertising solution, to manage, deliver and measure advertising consistently across its entire subscriber base including set-top boxes with one-way connectivity. Synamedia Iris is a key area of focus at our R&D centre in Bengaluru along with the development of our other SaaS solutions, including Synamedia Go.

    Increasing modularity

    Until now, service providers have had little alternative to customised, complex deployments involving heavy Software Design Kits and pre-defined, sequential phases of testing with no overlap between phases. It sometimes takes many months for acceptance testing to support the launch of a single feature or a new device. In today’s rapidly evolving business and technology environment, that’s simply unsustainable.

    By contrast, the SaaS model offers flexibility, agility and Opex models that come with public cloud, service-based delivery and DevOps. With a modular suite of solutions, providers can start small, only paying for what they need, then easily add more packs or services as their needs evolve.

    And SaaS isn’t just for the big players. Its effects are disruptive because the entry barrier to these new levels of experimentation and creativity has been lowered and its modular nature opens up opportunities for smaller and non-conventional businesses.

    Our SaaS transformation

    At Synamedia, we are living and breathing multi-tenant SaaS internally and witnessing its power first-hand. As one example, in just the first six weeks of 2022 we made 130 discreet feature drops into production in our Synamedia Iris addressable advertising solution. In the previous generation software-based solution, we had releases every six months and our customers typically added two or three months of testing on top of that.

    In a rapidly changing world, this velocity and agility is game changing for us and more importantly for our customers. It has impacted every department in our company including the way we sell, support, and contract with customers. Where once our platform deployments were bespoke for each customer, with the SaaS model any customisation now only needs to happen at the edges.

    The result is our pace of change of product delivery has increased an order of magnitude over the last year. Importantly, we have also evolved our development approach to one that considers the complete customer experience. We are now more focused and efficient when releasing new features and everything is delivered with built-in market validation.

    Keeping pace with change

    Our industry is a late adopter of SaaS and one of the main reasons is that it requires changes not just within the vendor community but also within the user community. Put simply, users cannot realize the benefits of SaaS without changing their operating model to accommodate a high velocity and multi-tenanted approach, most notably acceptance testing.

    Those that don’t change will be outmanoeuvred by more agile competitors, maybe not in the short run, but inevitably over time. Those that adopt SaaS will give their subscribers a better service and will benefit from a much lower cost of ownership.

    Importantly, the product won’t just be better from a user experience and feature functionality perspective: releasing software in small batches that can be easily verified and backed out as necessary dramatically increases quality as well.

    And, finally, well-designed cloud-based APIs support a new level of openness that gives users the option of integrating point solutions or procuring suites of solutions from their preferred software suppliers. This openness is something that Synamedia has embraced strongly for its own solutions.

    Delivery the SaaS way has shifted Synamedia’s cultural mindset, and our internal teams have had to reorganise to support different priorities and responsibilities. In this golden age of content, where consumers want to change what and how they watch in the blink of an eye, it’s time for video service providers to buckle-up, rev-up the SaaS engine and make sure they’re not lagging behind.

    The author is Paul Segre, CEO, Synamedia

  • Synamedia acquires Utelly to boost Synamedia Go’s content discovery capabilities

    Synamedia acquires Utelly to boost Synamedia Go’s content discovery capabilities

    Mumbai: World’s largest independent video software provider Synamedia has announced the acquisition of Utelly, a UK-based privately-owned content discovery platform provider.

    As a part of this deal, Synamedia has acquired the company with products targeted at the entertainment industry. Its offerings include metadata aggregation, search and recommendations, as well as content management and a content promotion engine.

    Utelly’s solution simplifies the complexity of users’ content discovery across TV channels, demand and multiple streaming services. Its SaaS-based technology is already pre-integrated with the Synamedia Go video platform and will now be embedded in the Go.

    Aggregate add-on pack to solve one of the major challenges that viewers face such as finding content across TV and apps on any screen. Utelly’s technology achieves this through metadata aggregation, intelligent asset linking, AI and machine learning.

    Utelly aggregates data in real-time from multiple metadata providers – pre-integrated with Gracenote, TiVo, IMDB, Netflix and fifty other platforms. By unifying data and using AI to enrich sparse data sets, Utelly provides customers with search and recommendations that enhance viewers’ content discovery experiences. The result is an increase in customers’ Net Promoter Score (NPS), subscriber retention, and ARPU.

    This acquisition strengthens the Synamedia Go offering and underlines a new phase of investment in Synamedia’s portfolio of SaaS streaming solutions which also includes Synamedia Clarissa, Synamedia Iris, VIVID Workflow as a Service, and Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard.

    Speaking of this development, Synamedia CEO Paul Segre said, “Every day we hear from customers that metadata aggregation is an obstacle that is negatively impacting viewer engagement. Utelly was ahead of the curve in recognizing this and developing a SaaS solution that enables end-users to find content across aggregated TV and video services. Its AI-powered solution eliminates the complexity of combining data from multiple metadata providers and is a great addition to our Synamedia Go streaming platform.”

    Utelly founder and CEO Romain Eude commented, “This acquisition is testament to the hard work and ingenuity of our tight-knit team of developers who have put Utelly on the map. We look forward to the next step in Utelly’s journey as we become part of the Synamedia family and embrace the new opportunities on a global scale.”

  • How viewer data analytics are shaping operators’ revenue and content strategies

    How viewer data analytics are shaping operators’ revenue and content strategies

    Mumbai: Indiantelevision.com, in partnership with Synamedia, organised a virtual webinar on ‘how analytics shaping operators’ revenues and content strategy?’ on 23 March. The panel discussion was joined by Altbalaji’s Divya Dixit, MX Player’s Viraj Jit Singh, Zee5’s Abhirup Datta, and Synamedia’s Amruta Shankar. Shankar, who is Synamedia’s director of data and analytics, has penned observations of the panelists and highlighted the crux of the discussion.

    During a recent IndianTelevision webinar, I was joined by leading Indian OTT streaming platforms, Altbalaji, MX Player and Zee5 to discuss their wealth of video data, and how it can be leveraged to address their pain points and achieve genuine business-boosting results.

    Bringing together all the digital clues that viewers leave behind when they watch video content across an ever-increasing number of screens is critical to ensuring data caters to the different needs of the organisation. It helps the content rights manager to understand what viewers want to watch, or the marketing director to realise when and how they want to watch content. The product manager can use data to ensure that the content is searchable and keeps viewers engaged.

    “Our entire business and growth are based on data,” said MX Player’s senior vice president and head of revenue Viraj Jit Singh.

    For streaming providers and operators, the content remains king, but data is the jewel in their crown. A source of priceless insights from across the video ecosystem, data can help to drive viewer engagement, reduce churn, slash operational costs and grow revenue.

    On-demand content is driving a lot of today’s consumption, and so to keep pace with changing viewing habits, “you have to be platform-agnostic,’’ remarked Altbalaji senior vice president of marketing, partnerships and revenue Divya Dixit. Whilst content ‘snacking’ on small screen devices is growing in prevalence, particularly through social platforms like TikTok, the lure of long-form content on the big screen in the living room continues to endure.

    ALSO READ | ‘Lock Upp’ is ALTBalaji’s ‘KBC moment’ as it forays into AVOD: Divya Dixit

    With data underpinning all the big decisions, including monetisation and advertising, all the panelists agreed that getting the tech stack right to cope with all the available data is vital. Equally important is ensuring the data is of sufficient quality to avoid a shifting base, where the numbers simply don’t add up from one month to another.

    Using data for business decisions certainly added up for Altbalaji and MX player’s latest joint venture, a new show called “Lock Upp,” which achieved over 100 million views in less than 20 days.

    Because MX Player is an AVOD platform, Singh emphasises the importance of understanding viewers “to get the right brands to advertise to the relevant audience, which obviously leads to higher efficiencies for advertisers but also better viewing for our subscribers.”

    Zee5 head of AVOD marketing Abhirup Datta agreed and said, “Leveraging data to showcase the right content to the consumer is very important….also using data about the viewing devices and what kind of content they end up watching.”

    Tackling pain points

    Datta shared how data can also help alleviate pain points including how to address ‘guest users’ on Zee5; juggling and balancing the risk of bringing new releases onto the platform at the expense of older consistently performing content; and ensuring an ad is served to the right cohort.

    For Dixit, her greatest headache is understanding why a consumer drops out at the subscription page or in the middle of sampling the first episode. She added, “the helping hand of somebody who can map out where the churn is coming from, and what needs to be done to rectify this, could obviously add a lot of value.”

    Listening to customers and optimising their experience

    For Singh, this is an ongoing process “we work very hard to listen to our consumers and try to over-deliver on their expectations.”

    Datta agreed that “a user’s experience is at the core of everything we do. It is our North star.”

    In business, the customer is always right, but more importantly, the customer’s data never lies. Scrutinising and validating that data objectively, and validating it using a trusted, independent third party has the power to deliver a treasure trove of valuable business insights.

    The last word goes to MX Player’s Singh, “listening to your consumer, understanding that data, and seeing how you can mix it all together and figure out a solution for them is the best metric you can work on today,” he said.

  • GUEST COLUMN: How to combat streaming piracy with OTT’s broken protocol?

    GUEST COLUMN: How to combat streaming piracy with OTT’s broken protocol?

    Mumbai: With vast sums of money to be made, it’s not surprising that streaming pirates are continually upping their game to keep their highly profitable illegal businesses afloat.  A recent global study conducted by Ampere Analysis for Synamedia found that sports streaming piracy alone is worth over $28 billion and the Global Innovation Policy Centre places the global TV industry’s losses from digital piracy between $39.3 to $95.4 billion per year.

    From Bollywood and Hollywood blockbusters to LIVE sports including IPL and women’s football, streaming piracy has reached an industrial scale in India. Within minutes of release, stolen content is circulated, exchanged and sold on open internet sites and social media platforms, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, as well as on closed subscription-based pirate networks and dedicated OTT applications. Some illegitimate, subscription-based pirate services are now so good that consumers think they are using the brand’s own service, damaging the brand of the legitimate service and preventing upsell opportunities.

    But with superior intelligence and the appropriate technology and legal procedures in place, the industry can stay one step ahead, protect its revenue streams and stop criminals siphoning off billions in revenue that rightfully belong to content owners and services providers.

    Pirate profiteers raise the stakes

    Although low quality pirate content filmed surreptitiously in cinemas is still available, as more consumers switch to digital platforms, pirates are using increasingly sophisticated ways to steal content – and deliver it in pristine quality.

    And the pirates’ methods have advanced considerably since they simply exploited “the analogue hole”: in other words, stole content from the HDMI ports of Set Top Boxes. As license owners and operators have increased their protection methods, cracking down with a combination of source-detection and disruption technologies as well as legal action, pirates have been hunting for new and more concealed ways to source content and find the weak link in the chain.

    From Digital Rights Management (DRM) hacking as seen recently with Widevine, to bypassing client watermarking and manipulating legitimate OTT applications, today’s streaming pirates have found ways to steal not just high-quality content but entire OTT services, including redistributing directly from the service provider’s content delivery network (CDN).

    Sourcing, aggregating and distributing content

    A quick Google search will quickly take you into a world of organised crime: industrial scale professional hackers, criminal technology experts with content aggregators, content wholesalers and content resellers conducting the biggest criminal heist the world has ever seen.

    Current anti-piracy approaches – such as DRM, client hardening and concurrency restrictions are simply scratching the surface of OTT piracy and pirates continue to profit.

    Using the intelligence provided by our operational security team and with access to pirates’ scripts, we have unearthed the root source of this problem – the OTT protocol is broken. The technology of OTT delivery makes it simple and cheap to set up as a pirate operator. Pirates don’t necessarily need to break the DRM to steal content. Using pirate servers and clients, pirates are hacking the OTT protocol to get the DRM license and redirect pirate clients to legitimate service and content providers’ CDNs.

    With little to no acquisition or content costs, pirates have become ultimate media super-aggregators. They can bring highly-sought after content together at an unbeatable price with no geo restrictions or competition law challenges – and then redistribute the stolen content to their paying customers at the expense of the video service provider by using their infrastructure undetected. 

    Protecting content across the ecosystem

    With an understanding about the methods used and insight into how pirates operate, Synamedia has developed the industry’s first solution to systemically address the inherent weaknesses that make it easy for pirates to not only steal content but also entire OTT services, including gaining access to the service provider’s CDN.

    Synamedia OTT ServiceGuard makes it possible to securely distribute content on open platforms by validating that only legitimate subscribers and applications are granted authorised access and receive content. It gives each client a unique identity that is not cloneable and allocates secure keys for signing service requests, ensuring all client messages are validated for their authenticity and origin. This has a critical role to play in protecting content, but tackling piracy requires an all-round team approach, blending pre-breach approaches with proactive detection and disruption technologies and solutions.

    Synamedia’s unrivalled intelligence-based model leverages AI technologies alongside human intelligence – including undercover investigators and cyber security, psychology, criminology, and sociology experts – to monitor and map the piracy supply chain, detect, deter and disrupt piracy and orchestrate anti-piracy activities and legal and technical takedowns.

    The financial rewards on offer and the ease of set-up – combined with the low risk of arrest or meaningful punishment – means the problem of piracy will not go away.  But, by making life as difficult as possible for both pirates and viewers of illicit streams and making legal subscriptions more attractive, content owners and rights holders can not only protect their content investments, but video service providers can cut infrastructure costs and create the opportunity to capture new subscribers.

    (Deepak Bhatia is general manager and head of sales, India at Synamedia. The views expressed in this column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them)

     

  • OACT2021: Plugging the gap of measurability

    OACT2021: Plugging the gap of measurability

    Mumbai: The burgeoning of OTT content consumption in the past couple of years fuelled a proportional increase in the demand for third-party viewership data which, in turn, led to the proliferation of tools and technology available for digital measurement. Some of the important trends and challenges that emerged as a result of these developments were discussed at the OTT Advertising and Connected TV Summit organised by Indiantelevision.com on 7 and 8 October. The two-day event was powered by Mediasmart, an Affle Company and summit partner The Q.

    During the session titled ‘Plugging the gap of measurability’ the expert panel comprising of Integral Ad Science- India Country Head, VP Engineering & Operations – Mehul Desai, DoubleVerify- head of sales, India, Nachiket Deole, Synamedia- principal product manager, Advanced Advertising – Synamedia, Daniel Wohlfart, and Nielsen Media India MD, Dolly Jha shed light on why digital measurement cannot be a simple ‘plug and play’ game, and the need for evolving metrics, for data sharing as well as well-thought-out measurement strategies optimised for through-the-funnel advertising. The discussion was moderated by Madison World, Madison Media Sigma CEO Vanita Keswani.

    Sharing some stark facts to explain the emergence of fraud prevention as the top trend in the digital measurement space, Integral Ad Science’s Mehul Desai said, “Annually, close to 35 billion advertising dollars are lost to global ad fraud. It is the second biggest industry, after drugs, in terms of organised crime.” Daniel Wohlfart further pointed out that “almost every ad campaign in Europe comes with a built-in requirement for ad verification by third-party.”

    In the Indian context where OTT measurement is in the early stages and many advertisers are starting out on their digital journeys, trends point towards increasing awareness on the issue.

    At Neilsen, measuring the percentage of ad fraud is one of the deliverables on every campaign, yet “not more than 25-30 per cent of ad spends are getting measured currently,” observed Dolly Jha. She added that systematic and consistent measurement of ROIs, the technology and tools for which exist and are being implemented as well, has to be set in to scale up ad fraud prevention, attributions, data sharing, and other aspects of OTT measurement.

    As Desai indicated the growing importance of brand suitability for a particular ad environment and context matching in a world where “advertising has changed from being persona and user-driven to being context-driven”, Nachiket Deole of DoubleVerify shared his understanding of marketers moving beyond traditional metrics such as CTR, VTR, CPRP, and even polls and attributions to measure the impact of consumer action in real-time – how consumers are responding to/engaging with their campaigns. “We always recommend our clients to optimise campaigns on all aspects – ad fraud, viewability, brand safety. Every single impression must pass through all three quality parameters for it to become a quality impression and deliver results.” 

    With the above, almost all components for evolving a third-party cross-platform digital measurement ecosystem – the demand for which is seeing a significant push from advertisers across categories, are in place, except the industry has to work around accessing, and not breaching, the Walled Gardens. Jha shared that while there has been some tight-fisting from expected quarters “the number of publishers that have come on board for measurement at Nielsen in the past nearly 18 months has been phenomenal.”

    Concerted efforts are needed to sustain this extremely positive development towards the inevitable goal. “There is increasing awareness among the walled gardens and independent broadcasters/publishers of third-party cross-platform measurement as a thing that advertisers want to achieve. The unique identifiers that these broadcasters have are their most valuable asset; naturally, they want to be able to monetise as well as safeguard it. As platform providers, it is important for us to convince and enable them – through tech and tools – to buy at their own standards, because otherwise, the budgets are just not there,” Synamedia’s Wohlfart explained in his closing remarks to the session.

  • Synamedia launches pre-integrated security & business solutions for Android TV

    Synamedia launches pre-integrated security & business solutions for Android TV

    Mumbai: Independent video software provider Synamedia on Wednesday announced that it has integrated a broad range of its video offerings with Android TV and has extended its Infinite cloud TV platform to support Android TV devices.

    Using Google’s Broadcast Stack for hybrid set-top boxes (STBs) powered by Android TV, Synamedia has developed pre-integrated solutions including user interfaces, watermarking and broadcast/OTT security, Clarissa business insights, and Synamedia Iris addressable advertising, the company said in a statement.

    Launched in October 2020, Google’s Broadcast Stack is designed to accelerate the reach of the Android TV operating system by providing the video technology providers with clarity and direction about how hybrid services can be deployed rapidly and economically.

    Video service providers can now pick and mix from these pre-integrated services to build an Android TV solution that best meets their needs, while also having the option to use the entire bundle for a complete end-to-end package. Each service is tested and proven to work with a choice of STB hardware, said the statement.

    “Our agnostic approach is designed to bring the best of Synamedia innovation to all platform eco-systems. Now, with this Android TV initiative, we are delivering on that commitment,” said Synamedia’s CTO, Nick Thexton. “For many years we have worked on Android TV applications and bespoke security integrations. With these latest solutions, we are making it easy and affordable for customers to realise all the benefits of the Android TV ecosystem, including its wealth of applications, voice control, and smart integration.”

    “Using these pre-integrated Synamedia solutions – either individually or as a bundle – operators can go live in just six months while cutting development costs,” Thexton added.

    Synamedia said it is also working to define new interfaces and integration points for advanced features so that operators can select best-in-class products for their hybrid Android TV solution.

  • Sports video operators & rights owners can unlock $28 billion in new revenue by combating piracy

    Sports video operators & rights owners can unlock $28 billion in new revenue by combating piracy

    New Delhi: Amid the growing threat posed by streaming pirates, a new research conducted by Synamedia has found that service providers and rights holders of sports events can unlock up to $28.3 billion in new revenue each year by putting some anti-piracy measures into place.

    The UK-based video software provider company undertook the survey in ten markets – Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US in March 2020 in partnership with data and analytics firm Ampere Analysis. Over 6,000 sports fans aged 18-64 years who were part of the survey were pre-filtered and chosen based on their experience of watching sports on TV.

    The online quantitative study used a new model to evaluate how different illegal viewers respond to anti-piracy measures. According to the report, 74 per cent of sports fans are willing to switch from illegal streams if a legitimate alternative is available and if the illegal streams become unreliable. Majority of these fans are younger and are often families with young children. They are avid sports viewers with many watching 10 or more different sports using connected devices.

    At least 40 per cent of the converter cohort say they would subscribe to OTT streaming sports services, including single-sport services run by rights owners, with the balance opting for traditional pay-TV services, particularly those that offer exclusive sports rights. In fact, 57 per cent of the converter cohort already pay for legitimate services and 52 per cent pay for pirate services, as per the study.

    However, converting pirate customers to legitimate ones require service providers to address the triggers that encourage consumers to seek out illegal services in the first place, said the study. Some of these measures could be a flexible access without complex installations or long contracts, ease of use, and availability on every device in any location, coupled with a price point that is often much lower than a traditional pay-TV service with premium sports tiers included.

    “After years of growth, a recent downturn in rights fees has been exacerbated by the pandemic, hitting sports rights hard. But just as the value of rights is being eroded, there is now the prospect of creating new revenues by converting illegal viewers into paid subscribers,” said Synamedia senior vice president of security Yael Fainaro. 

    While previous attempts to value the revenue leakage from sports streaming piracy took a crude approach, Fainaro said the software provider company now has the detail to develop targeted approaches and the tools to deliver quantifiable results, ensuring every investment hits the jackpot.

    The report – Pricing piracy: the value of action, uses a detailed model that takes into account all the complexities and nuances of sports piracy viewing. It identifies the demographics and characteristics of those illegal users who are most likely to convert to legal services, including their reaction when illegal viewing is disrupted.

    As service providers address the triggers that lead consumers to seek out illegal services, the report can help them in transforming piracy from a cost centre into a revenue opportunity with measurable RoI. The findings can also enable service providers to target interventions – such as disrupting streams and incentives – at those viewers most likely to switch to legitimate services: the ‘converter cohort’, said the company, which has an experience of over three decades in video security.

  • Synamedia partners with Akamai to speed up pirate takedowns

    Synamedia partners with Akamai to speed up pirate takedowns

    KOLKATA: Independent video software provider Synamedia has integrated its security and watermarking solutions with Akamai to protect customers’ streaming OTT content.

    Synamedia’s solutions now detect and disrupt pirate streams in real time over the Akamai Intelligent Edge Platform and redirect viewers to legitimate services. The integration of Synamedia’s Streaming Piracy Disruption (SPD) managed service with Akamai’s platform gives rights holders and content owners an added layer of anti-piracy enforcement and revenue protection.

    The digital and OTT streaming industry has expressed concerns over the epidemic of piracy, which has only grown more widespread and resilient over the past year as demand for content shot up with people cooped up in their homes and production and cinema halls shut down. The collaboration between Synamedia and Akamai is aimed at dealing a decisive blow to pirates who engage in broadcast content theft.

    Taking advantage of Synamedia’s intelligence-first security approach, Synamedia EverGuard  counter-piracy operations center predicts which client devices will be used by pirates to leak content and determines the effectiveness of different actions, including quarantining agents and prosecution, to cause maximum pain. SPD uses resilient watermark injection and verification technologies as well as smart agents embedded in the headend and client devices to deliver the industry’s most comprehensive end-to-end solution.

    “When illegal streams are disrupted, particularly during live sports, viewers tend to give up on pirated streams and switch to legal services. Akamai’s platform is used by many of our pay-TV and OTT customers and this integration will strengthen their ability to combat piracy at speed and scale,” Security Synamedia senior vice president Yael Fainaro said.

    Akamai media product management Amit Kasturia explained the network’s scalable and secure edge watermarking integrations are intended to help customers identify pirates’ attempts to capture content and minimise illegal distribution. “The seamless integration of Synamedia’s intelligence-led security solutions with our platform can offer customers a quicker way of shutting down illegal streams, which is critical for the success of streaming rights for live sports,” he added.

    Synamedia is now a member of Akamai’s Media Technology Partner program. The program is designed to foster interoperability, and referral agreements between Akamai and best-of-breed third-party solutions providers to give customers a range of options in selecting workflow components that work seamlessly with Akamai solutions deployed on its platform.

    Synamedia has 30+ years’ experience in video security solutions, and developed the longest unhacked solution on the market. Since its inception, Synamedia’s operational security team has brought many criminals to the attention of law enforcement officials. Synamedia protects approximately $70 billion in operator revenues every year.

  • Synamedia appoints Paul Segre as CEO to spearhead next growth phase

    Synamedia appoints Paul Segre as CEO to spearhead next growth phase

    MUMBAI: Video software provider Synamedia has brought in Paul Segre as CEO, with immediate effect. Segre takes over from departing CEO Yves Padrines, who has overseen the company since its inception in 2018.

    Prior to this, Segre spent 18 years at customer experience software firm Genesys, latterly as CEO and then chairman. He led the $1.6 billion spin out of Genesys from Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia) in 2012, backed by the Permira Funds. In six years, he scaled the business to become one of the ten largest privately held software companies in the world, and the largest cloud provider in its space. Paul was also president of Alcatel-Lucent’s applications group and sat on the Alcatel-Lucent Management Committee.

    Synamedia chairman Abe Peled said, “Paul’s appointment signals our readiness and enthusiasm for the next chapter in our journey. His leadership track record, breadth of business experience, and ability to scale software businesses will be invaluable as we move forward with innovative solutions and services designed for the IP era.”

    Segre’s software and telecoms software industry pedigree and his experience building high-growth businesses make him the right choice to lead Synamedia’s next phase of growth. The firm’s goal is to help existing customers and new direct-to-consumer players embrace IP distribution and build sustainable, profitable businesses.

    “Synamedia has a fantastically innovative portfolio, including the Infinite platform, a raft of anti-piracy solutions, video network technologies and the new Synamedia Iris addressable advertising solution,” added Segre. “I am thrilled to lead the firm as we accelerate our growth and become the uncontested leader of video solutions for an IP world.”

    Synamedia is a leading video-first technology specialist, which has contributed immensely to the expansion of pay-TV with OTT distribution, and the development of innovative solutions to protect revenues from streaming piracy and develop new revenue streams from addressable advertising.