Today, the world has an endless array of streaming services. People are spending more for on-demand video services than they would for a TV subscription. However, starting an Over the Top (OTT) media distribution service is not easy. With over a dozen computing platforms such as Android, iOS, Xbox, Fire TV Stick, and more, building an OTT service for each of these can be quite troublesome. Adding to the complication is the requirement of a video workflow management system for streaming, transcoding, encoding, and content delivery network (CDN) to provide content to the end users. All these factors make OTT a time-consuming, expensive endeavor for content providers.

Customer’s challenge,

A) Disparate Tech stack
B) Legacy Infrastructure
C) Delivery Complexity
D) High Investment’s and people risk

To address these numerous problems, Digital Convergence Technologies (DCT) has come up with a unique solution. Partnering with Verizon for video workflow management, storage, and distribution, DCT has developed D Café, a platform that allows content providers to leverage the benefits of delivering a video streaming service on more than 13 different platforms. D Café is a single location for transcoding, encoding, content ingestion, and content dissemination, making the entire workflow seamless. DCT also templatizes the UI and UX, depending on the deployed platform to suit the requirements of the provider.

“If a viewer wants to watch Game of Thrones, he will surf through various streaming services and watch it at any cost. The power lies in the content. If we can help content providers achieve a seamless engagement with viewers, that serves our purpose,” explains Dhawan. The company enables budding providers who host content on YouTube to build their own OTT services.

On the other hand, it also helps veteran content providers with huge content to migrate to their own OTT services by consolidating disparate systems, vendors, multiple contracts, and service profiles. Besides content management and delivery, the platform empowers providers with marketing, understanding consumer behavior, and delivering the right content to the right viewer with a tightly coupled monetization strategy.

We aim to ensure that the ownership of the content stays with the content providers and empower them to monetize their content

“We aim to ensure that the ownership of content stays with the content providers, thereby empowering them to monetize their content. This means that amazing content is no longer monopolized by a few people who run technology,” remarks Vineet Dhawan, CEO, DCT. To this end, DCT takes zero Capex (Capital Expenditure) approach with a 4-6 weeks deployable model. The company implements a niche-yet-economical strategy where content providers pay only for the hours of content consumed, which allows them to monetize through either subscriptions or advertisements. “This is the unique proposition we have: ‘You make money; we make money’.”

“We were the first to build an ‘on-demand’ video platform for 21st Century Fox’s subsidiary network Star, India. Our team is equipped with immense expertise, both in technology and in the entertainment media industry,” adds Dhawan. The company works closely with their customers as a Systems Integrator to ensure a seamless on boarding experience. Bolstered by the collective skill set of the team, DCT envisions a multi-lingual feature set, which extends to regional language users in the near future. “In a nutshell, we empower the content providers to bring life to their content while ensuring the monetization control is theirs,” concludes Dhawan.

Source: CIO Review 20 Most Promising Media and Entertainment Technology Solutions Providers 2018