Coming to IBC 2022 from Markham, Ontario-based Nextologies Ltd. — a new auto commercial detection solution and a remote production solution.
The Canadian company is debuting its auto commercial detection (ACD) product by pitching it as a tool that addresses a cumbersome challenge in the industry — how to do dynamic ad insertion without having SCTE because your playout does not support or have it.
Nextologies notes, “The solution is a system that can analyze any live IP-based video stream and—in real time—detect and mark detected commercials with SCTE for downstream replacement, or can do the replacement on its own. Video on demand streaming lends itself easily to this kind of targeted ad insertion, but until now, there has been no workable easy and cost effective solution for linear streaming because the legacy systems had limited or no SCTE inside the feed, which typical replacement engines must use to dynamically insert data-driven, customized advertising to viewers.”
As Nextologies sees it, incorporating addressable, or targeted, advertising into linear streaming has significant revenue driving potential.
“The standard approach to resolve this problem is to use meta data (like SCTE 35/104 markers) to determine intervals and video information,” says the company’s CEO, Sasha Zivanovic. “These markers are inserted into the video stream on the production level, and then ads can be replaced within the marked intervals. In the IP-based video stream, those markers don’t exist, but they will be required for downstream signal takers. So we developed a method to automatically identify the commercials and add SCTE where SCTE didn’t exist prior.”
The Nextologies auto commercial detection solution uses various conditions to identify commercials, which are then verified by a technician, either on the client’s team or by a Nextologies technician. Once the system has been taught the particular characteristics necessary to detect ads within a particular stream, the solution can achieve 90 percent detection accuracy on the first pass of commercials. Using the mechanical turk service to flag commercials that slipped through the first time, the solution is able to achieve 100% accuracy, as well as always detect thereafter those commercials that slipped through initially.
At the same time, Nextologies is bringing to market NexToMeet, which it says eliminates “a lot of the headache in a traditional remote production workflow” by being engineered specifically to do exactly what is needed without all the equipment, apps, custom setup, passwords, and workarounds.
NexToMeet is an instant web/mobile to SDI video network accomplished by implementing custom video solutions, along with IP stream’s routing capability, to allow production teams to film interviews in any location with an iPhone or iPad webcam, then deliver that signal directly to SDI, no workarounds required.
“Even prior to the pandemic, sending equipment to remote locations for interviews was expensive and complicated, requiring at least one expert to go along to run the equipment, as well,” Zivanovic says. “iPhone cameras are actually quite good, but there was no easy way to interact with a production switcher or get that camera with a clean output on the receiving side. In addition to that, multiple-person interviews must each be on a separate SDI output. None of the existing video conferencing solutions could meet those specs without adding multiple computers to get seperate SDI outputs for each guest; They simply weren’t built for it. We built NexToMeet for broadcasters to make their lives and work easier.”
