Cable and Broadcast Apps Drive EIDR Universal ID Solution

- CableLabs®, CIMM, and Ad-ID Prove Out EIDR Value in Advertising, Measurement, and IP Delivery

LOUISVILLE, Colorado, June 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The EIDR Universal ID solution has recently been featured in three cable and broadcast industry implementations: a CableLabs Alternate Content Interop, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement's TAXI initiative, and an Ad-ID ad testing partnership event hosted by CableLabs. The events illustrate that the EIDR (Entertainment ID Registry) identifier is increasingly leveraged in digital video supply chains involving industry partners including content owners, content distributors, electronic retailers, entertainment services and technology provider companies. 

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121212/DC28793LOGO)

The Alternate Content (AltCon) event featured testing of the cable industry's infrastructure for content to be ingested and transcoded nationally, but packaged and targeted for local distribution.  AltCon uses IP delivery and provides content variations (or blackouts) for advertising and regional programming.  During the AltCon event, EIDR was used to signal the start and end of programming using the latest version of in-band, SCTE-35 segmentation descriptors.  Furthermore, EIDR was used in simulated programmer schedules to express the primary content along with alternate content for restricted geographic regions.  "As alternate content scenarios for IP distribution grow more complicated over time, the universal nature of EIDR will scale to meet industry needs for accurately identifying content," commented David Agranoff, Senior Architect at CableLabs.

CIMM's TAXI initiative (Trackable Asset Cross-Platform Identification) is a two-year old advocacy platform designed to spark adoption of a "UPC" for all professional video content and advertising.  A core part of this industry undertaking is embedding into a broadcast stream both EIDR identifiers (for the content) along with Ad-ID identifiers (for advertisements).  Final results from TAXI feasibility studies have shown that it is possible to bind both IDs to entertainment assets so that they can survive normal distribution throughout the broadcast supply chain with minimal modifications to the existing infrastructures, thus enabling reliable viewership measurement across multiple consumer devices. Jane Clarke, Managing Director for CIMM, said, "Programmers and marketers are frustrated and hamstrung with the inefficient and inadequate tools that they have been using to track video assets.  However, our efforts successfully demonstrated that the organizations who choose to adopt these codings, and an increasing number of them are currently on board, will have a viable solution and stand to potentially benefit from increased revenue, more cost savings and a streamlining of workflow."    

The third recently completed EIDR test demonstrated the use of EIDR for better placement and tracking of advertisements within the Dynamic Ad Insertion architecture being used today in cable distribution.  CableLabs provided a distributed test bed of the industry standard SCTE 130 architecture.  Participants included a complete supply chain, including NBCUniversal (content), Canoe Ventures (ad campaign information packages), Vubiquity (content preparation and digital asset management), and Rentrak (measurement).  BlackArrow provided a campaign manager and ad decision service system, plus reporting and inventory management.

The event also leveraged EIDR's partnership with Ad-ID LLC. "By tagging each advertising asset, the most appropriate ad can be selected from available inventory, and our metadata ensures shared identification of the right advertising asset, matched to the right piece of content, across multiple cable operators," stated Harold Geller, Chief Growth Officer, Ad-ID.  

In response to these successful events, Don Dulchinos, Executive Director of EIDR, highlighted the progress these events illustrate for EIDR adoption: "EIDR continues to show more versatility in supporting the growing diversity of distribution paths, monetization opportunities, and end-user devices for digital video."

About EIDR
The EIDR Organization is a not-for-profit industry association that was founded by MovieLabs, CableLabs, Comcast and Rovi to meet a crucial need across the entertainment supply chain for universal identifiers for a broad array of audio visual objects. Recent new member companies include ClearLeap, Google, Japan CableLabs and Microsoft.  For more information, please visit www.eidr.org.

About CIMM
The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) was founded in 2009 by leading television content providers, media agencies and advertisers, in order to promote innovation in audience measurement for television and cross-platform media.
http://cimmusorg.startlogic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/CIMM-TAXI-Rollout-Briefing-from-Ernst-Young-4.18.2013.pdf

About CableLabs
Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs) was founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry. A non-profit research and development consortium, CableLabs delivers innovations that enable cable operators to be the providers of choice in their markets. Cable operators from around the world are members.  For more information, please visit www.cablelabs.com. 

About Ad-ID
Ad-ID is the industry standard for identifying advertising assets (broadcast, print and digital) across all media platforms. The Ad-ID system was developed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) in 2003. Ad-ID serves more than 800 clients including the largest advertisers and advertising agencies in the world. Ad-ID was named Media Supplier of the Year by Media Magazine in 2012.  www.Ad-ID.org