BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Media and entertainment technology company Backlight announced the latest updates and integrations across the Backlight Streaming product lines, Zype and Wildmoka. Since its public launch one year ago, Backlight has made continuous investments in innovation to enrich its solutions which provide content owners with accessible and feature-rich tools that enable them to create more content, publish everywhere and unlock new revenue streams.
Earlier this year, Backlight announced a company reorganization in which its two distribution product lines, Zype and Wildmoka, became one business division, Backlight Streaming. The recently formed business division is focused on providing cloud-based OTT video streaming, content management, media production, hyperdistribution, and monetization software.
“Our new divisional structure as Backlight Streaming has aligned two teams with complementary tech solutions,” said co-CEO of Backlight Streaming Ed Laczynski. “Together we are supercharging innovation that enables our joint customers to do more together than they were able to when we were separate. The entire team is excited about the value that this new structure is driving for our customers.”
“Every enhancement we make to our solutions is in alignment with our customers' current and future business goals and needs,” said Cristian Livadiotti, co-CEO of Backlight Streaming. “We are introducing several updates and integrations that will streamline their workflow enabling faster publish times and more enriching experience for their audiences. We are especially looking forward to introducing the newest integrations between Backlight products to our customers.”
Digital-First Playout with Zype <> Wildmoka Integration
Content owners leverage the market-leading Zype Playout solution to transform video content libraries into IP-delivered linear livestreams for millions of viewers. With the new Zype-Wildmoka integration, creating pop-up and long-run linear channels will become faster and easier. Users will be able to frame-accurately and easily mix stock video (VOD), live and near-live programs, ads, slates, and graphics into digital channels. The new integration comes with a series of extra benefits to Zype Playout, including:
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VOD Catalog to linear: In just a few clicks, create VOD-to-linear channels and stream
- O&O platforms, FAST, vMVPD partners, or to any social media destination – all at once. No technical skill is needed.
- Existing Wildmoka customers can also leverage their already-integrated custom OVP/CMS destinations to stream their new channels without further integration needed
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Near-Live VOD to Linear: To streamline the creation of VOD assets from linear channels, Backlight Streaming is offering a new feature to easily extract clips from live programs in real-time.
- Videos can be extracted manually by editors, or automatically
- Editing templates can automate integration of the proper branding, pre/post-rolls, overlays, and all required metadata on the newly extracted videos
- The flow to extract and reuse new videos becomes speedier – no download, upload or specific re-encoding needed - saving editorial resources and allowing teams to focus on value-added storytelling
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Bi-directional Content Sharing: The strengthened integration between Zype and Wildmoka means that content can be easily passed through from Wildmoka to Zype and vice versa. Joint customers can:
- Quickly create clips and edit feeds in Wildmoka and pass through to Zype’s Streaming Platform for long term storage or distribution via Zype’s embeddable video player, Zype Playout or Zype Apps Creator
- Browse the Zype catalog for video content directly from the Wildmoka interface and ingest it into the Wildmoka platform for editing, reversioning, and publishing to digital destinations
New Zype Playout Graphics Capabilities
Backlight’s release of new Zype Playout graphics capabilities make it simple for linear publishers to enhance their channels with engaging graphics, provide viewers with key information about what they’re watching and make channels look and feel like premium television. Zype’s built-in graphic design tool combines text and images into broadcast-ready graphics, making it easy to apply dynamic overlays to linear channels. Zype Playout’s new graphic capabilities include:
- Channel Branding Overlay: Customers can insert a single static image (a bug or logo) at a channel level and automatically overlay this logo on top of content playing through the linear stream
- Dynamic Graphics Overlay: Customers can design dynamic graphics directly in Playout that are powered by data and automatically inserted onto the timeline, granting powerful tools for enhancement with minimal operational investment
- Flexible CDN: The new Playout offering allows broadcasters to use their own CDN to distribute their new channels if they wish to do so
New Features in Zype Apps Creator
Zype Apps Creator is Backlight's turnkey solution for media and entertainment companies looking to build and launch beautiful and performant enterprise-grade OTT apps across digital platforms, including web, mobile, smart TVs, connected devices, gaming consoles, and more. Recent enhancements to Zype Apps Creator brings new capabilities to the solution, including:
- Support for Adobe Primetime for TV Everywhere authentication that allows end-users to authenticate using existing pay TV credentials
- Video downloads on mobile apps for easy viewing offline or in areas without network access
- Streaming on entry capabilities that can be used to engage end-users upon app entry with auto-play previews of content
- Personalized video lists that provide end-users with easy access to content they previously engaged with
- The ability to generate deep links to lists and videos to drive engagement with in-app content via push notifications
New Wildmoka Live Studio & Control Room Capabilities
Wildmoka Live Studio & Control Room is a live scheduling, editing, operation, and multi-distribution tool that makes it easy for publishers to air their live content wherever viewers can be reached. Wildmoka Live Studio’s new features and capabilities include:
- A complete end-to-end solution for single or multi-distribution of live programs
- Live edition capabilities to insert graphics or change a stream’s aspect ratio
- Live operation capabilities to switch between live sources, stored videos, or slates
- Live management capabilities to administrate, schedule, start, stop properly live events
- Live monetization capabilities with the possibility to trigger video advertising insertion of configurable lengths and insert sponsor slates or branded graphics. Wildmoka is one of the first solutions to support dynamic ads insertion when streaming to YouTube
- Advanced integration capabilities to OVP/CMS metadata workflow to enable instant Live pop-up channel creation at a click of a button
Wildmoka <> iconik Media Asset Management Platform
Iconik is Backlight’s cloud-native, media asset management solution that is designed for users to share files from any storage, collaborate on video, and enrich media with AI for high searchability—and it can scale to serve solo creators or large global teams. The platform enables users to manage their rich media assets—such as video, audio, imagery, etc.—as well as to collaborate with lightweight review and approval tools, including time-based comments and annotations. For customers using Wildmoka and iconik or Wildmoka and Zype Streaming Platform, it is now possible to exchange videos transparently between the two platforms.
- Users can register assets into iconik’s media management system from any live event running through Wildmoka
- Videos stored on iconik can be remotely accessed from the Wildmoka user interface for editors to start creating new content
- Content created within Wildmoka can be in-return made available within iconik video libraries for extensive and longer term video storage
Backlight will showcase all of its solutions at the 2023 NAB Show. To book a demo and or meeting with Backlight, register here and visit us at booth #W3157.
About Backlight
Backlight is a global media technology company that dramatically improves every stage of the video and entertainment content lifecycle - from creation through monetization. Backed by $200M in funding from PSG, Backlight has acquired six leading media software companies since launching in 2021. Video-forward organizations solve their mission-critical business and operational challenges by partnering with Backlight’s two divisions: Backlight Creative and Backlight Streaming. Backlight Creative provides award-winning software solutions for secure and efficient media management, production tracking and creative collaboration including iconik, ftrack, Gem and Celtx. Backlight Streaming provides cloud-based OTT video streaming, content management, media production, hyperdistribution, and monetization software, including Zype and Wildmoka, to world’s most innovative publishers and broadcasters. For more information visit backlight.co.
