Digital Rapids Connects Top-Tier Content Owners to YouTube with Integrated Content ID Support

IP Media Expo 2009: Digital Rapids – the leading provider of tools and solutions for bringing television, film and web content to wider audiences – today announced that the company is working with YouTube to integrate support for Content ID, YouTube’s content identification and management system, directly into Digital Rapids’ award-winning range of media production and repurposing systems.

Digital Rapids’ encoding and transcoding systems are used by leading media organizations to transform live, tape and file-based video and audio content into the formats required for viewing on multiple platforms including broadcast, cable and satellite television; IPTV; the Web; mobile phones and personal media players.

The integration of YouTube Content ID support with Digital Rapids’ systems enables users to generate Content ID reference files – often referred to as “fingerprints” – immediately from the content during the encoding or transcoding process. These digital fingerprints are then uploaded to YouTube’s Content ID system. YouTube’s content identification tools compare existing and incoming user-uploaded videos against the reference file, identifying the ownership of such content and taking the action specified by the owner’s usage policies. Content owners can choose to block user-uploaded content, permit it on YouTube while simply tracking usage data, or monetize the uploaded media by running advertising against it.

The creation of Content ID reference files directly within existing encoding and transcoding workflows increases productivity and reduces operational costs by eliminating the need for separate steps to create the fingerprints. By generating the Content ID reference files during production, content owners also need only upload the much smaller ID file to YouTube for tracking and protection, rather than the actual content itself – increasing security and significantly shortening the time before YouTube can begin blocking, tracking or monetizing uploaded copies of the content.

"We’re excited to be working with YouTube to streamline their interactions with content owners. Content identification technologies are often thought of strictly in terms of protection against piracy, but they also enable new monetization opportunities," said Brick Eksten, President of Digital Rapids Corporation. "The automatic identification of content and its ownership gives content owners the option of capitalizing on additional revenue opportunities wherever the content appears. The integration of YouTube’s Content ID technology into our systems makes it easy for media organizations to take advantage of these capabilities within efficient, automated media production workflows.”

“We’re pleased to be working with Digital Rapids to integrate our Content ID technology with their solutions, which are used by leading broadcasters, motion picture studies and content providers worldwide,” said George Salem, Content ID Product Manager at YouTube. “Easing content owners’ ability to identify their content on YouTube is critical to how they work with us to both control and monetize their assets. Support for Content ID directly within Digital Rapids powered live ingest, encoding and file-based transcoding workflows lets their customers easily provide us with ID files at almost the exact same time the content is produced, without changing how they currently do business.”

Integrated YouTube Content ID support will be available in upcoming versions of Digital Rapids’ StreamZ™ and StreamZHD™ multi-format ingest and encoding systems and the Digital Rapids Transcode Manager® enterprise-class, high-volume transcoding software. Fingerprints of archived streams from the TouchStream® live streaming appliance can also be generated.

For more information about Digital Rapids, please visit www.digital-rapids.com.

About Digital Rapids Corporation – Digital Rapids develops market-leading hardware and software solutions for transforming and delivering media, enabling the multi-platform experiences that are defining the future of digital video. Scaling from individual applications to enterprise and global operations, Digital Rapids systems span the critical points in today’s complex media workflows. Recipient of two prestigious Frost & Sullivan awards in the World Video Encoders and Transcoders market, Digital Rapids combines innovative technology with proven expertise to help our customers maximize their productivity, quality, and the value of their content in the evolving digital media market. Digital Rapids Corporation ( www.digital-rapids.com) is headquartered in Ontario, Canada with offices in the United States, the UK, Australia, Argentina and Hong Kong.

Copyright 2009 Digital Rapids Corporation. All rights reserved. Digital Rapids, the Digital Rapids logo, StreamZ, StreamZHD and Digital Rapids Transcode Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of Digital Rapids Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. Features, pricing, availability and specifications are subject to change without notice.