Hewlett-Packard promotes benefits of content digitization

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 8/28/2007

AUG. 28 | After successfully getting a DVD of Barry Bonds’ record-breaking 756th home run to fans two days after the historic event, Hewlett-Packard and Ascent Media Group are offering their digitization services to the broader Hollywood community.

Following successful initial results with studio partners Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, among others, H-P and AMG are showing suppliers how a digital network of their content can save significant money when transitioning an analog library into digital files for delivery to various media platforms, such as DVD, broadcast, mobile and broadband.

“We are committing to 50% cost reduction in automating these [digitization] processes,” said Tom Kuehle, VP of digital content services at H-P. “These are processes that have been mostly tape-based. Once assets are digitized, it completely lubricates their distribution.”

Added Jose Royo, chief technology officer at AMG, “In the old days, if a studio wanted to launch a broadcast network overseas, they might need 800 titles before they could go on the air. That is something that would take six to 12 months. [Digitally], you can support delivery of large amounts of titles within days and weeks.”

Since signing with H-P and AMG in 2004, Sony has distributed 30,000 file-based titles to 30 various U.S. and international clients in the past eight months. In March 2007, Paramount officially signed on for H-P and AMG services and has delivered 10,000 file-based titles to broadband distributors during the past year.

H-P’s NextDayTV initiative nearly immediately translates live broadcast events into DVDs at retail. It was this program that helped Major League Baseball Productions to bow the Collector’s Replay Edition DVD, featuring Bonds’ historic home run, at San Francisco Giants Dugout Stores and major retail Web sites on Aug. 9, two days after the baseball game.

MLB Productions and H-P debuted manufactured-on-demand games in July with Collector’s Replay Edition installments 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star Game and the 2007 State Farm Home Run Derby immediately at the conclusion of the events.

NextDayTV expands H-P’s manufacturing-on-demand Video Merchant Services, which the company launched with its first retail partner, Trans World Entertainment. Customers can access various hard-to-find titles at the chain’s Web sites FYE.com and Suncoast.com.

“What you see with a lot of TV broadcasts is that it’s quickly available online the day after, but it’s still a small amount of people who make use of that,” said William de Zoete, VP and general manager at H-P Digital Entertainment Services. “The majority of people are still watching TV or buying it on DVD. Now we can turnaround a piece of content rapidly for DVD. With a digital platform, you can shoot the file to a manufacturing-on-demand facility and then Fed Ex them to stores.”

With the ramp-up, H-P’s manufacturing-on-demand business could become a bigger rival to Amazon.com, which has offered similar services via CreateSpace (formerly CustomFlix) for some time.

Studios already collaborating with H-P and Ascent on digitization models seem pleased with the changes.

“In this rapidly changing market-driven landscape, we knew we needed a digital supply chain that was both nimble and efficient, allowing us to focus on growing the business and at the same time explore new business models with far less risk,” Paramount VP of worldwide digital operations Geremie Camara said. “To make this happen, we needed to align ourselves with forward-thinking companies, which led us to Ascent and H-P.”