The tectonic shifts the Zixi R&D team have seen since their first video streaming product launch a decade ago continue to send shockwaves through the media industry. Rapid adoption and evolution of SVOD, OTT systems, mobile devices, gaming systems, and even newer methods of consuming content demand a head-spinning array of business models, rights-tracking, and transaction opportunities. While the Zixi team has perfected video delivery of live and live linear video to six-nines of Quality of Service, that level of data quality in delivery is starting to become important for reasons far beyond pretty pictures and sound.
Experts in the media industry are starting to call 2018 the “year of automation” due to the sheer quantity of data required to participate in today’s media cycles, as well as the massive complication in keeping track of all the different ways transactions can take place. Businesses are exploring everything from embedded metadata schemes to blockchain technologies to cloud-based solutions, in order to stay on top of an industry that provides limitless opportunity if the flexibility is there to quickly jump in (and out!) of marketplaces and trends.
This idea of process flexibility has proven itself to be a tough nut for many media vendors to crack. How do you provide years’ worth of flawless streaming content and content security while also giving content owners the flexibility to hop between on-premise heavy iron, Cloud systems, or both? This process flexibility has been available for Zixi customers for several years and has proven to be a steadfast, dependable tool for media companies. But the surprise benefit of Zixi error correction isn’t perfect streams of video and audio. Rather the ability of Zixi to protect associated streams of data in nearly any kind of public IP network. That data integrity is becoming vital as businesses rely more on data analysis for decision-making.
Zixi’s proprietary algorithms have kept live linear stream channels running for years without interruption. Companies who depend on Zixi’s protection technology are able to count on, analyze, and prove completion of content delivery. Businesses can easily and dependably layer in metadata with their video products – data that is becoming a key factor in search and recommendation relevance. As advertising models are changing at hyper speed, context data delivered in live streams will make revenue dollars much easier to earn. As companies explore the concepts of rights management and automated transaction tracking through blockchain automation, true worldwide scale can be achieved.
Each of these foreseeable media industry evolution elements have one common requirement: Data integrity from one end of the distribution chain to the other. Data cannot be “lost” as packets drop across IP networks because there cannot be a dependency on humans to “put back” lost information at scale.
Forward-looking media companies have realized that the single best investment for their long-term viability is to be 100% certain that their content and data is supported in a flexible, network aware, highly dependable failover, processing, and distribution technology, inherent in the Zixi Platform.
