OTT Program Distributors

The huge success of OTT has saddled multichannel video program distributors (MVPDs) with a problem. Viewers love getting their favorite content anywhere at any time. But their OTT providers, and the content owners who supply them, are operating in a world without standards. They all use metadata inserted in video files to signal the start and end of segments and programs as well as advertising insertions and upcoming actions. But no two providers or content owners today use precisely the same SCTE metadata messages in the same way to trigger the same actions. It’s a mess.

That puts OTT distributors in the position of enforcing their own standards on the content providers, who themselves are preparing files manually and inserting metadata inconsistently. When incoming content fails to meet the distributor’s standard, time-consuming and costly re-work is needed.

Crystal provides a software solution, running on internal systems or the cloud, that analyzes and corrects video metadata to ensure that it is properly formatted and complies with business rules. Each implementation is customized to the provider’s existing playout processes and takes maximum advantage of contextual information embedded in the files. As OTT continues to evolve, Crystal provides the intelligent translation that reduces costs and complexity while delivering a higher-quality experience to viewers.