Curing the common code

June 20, 2011
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Just as the book business has the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and retail has the Universal Product Code identification number (UPC) and its associated barcode, the entertainment industry needs a common code to handle the plethora of platforms it now serves, according to Entertainment Identifier Registry (EIDR) head Kip Welch.

Welch is President of the non-profit EIDR and also VP Business Development and Special Projects at the Hollywood studio funded technology lab Motion Picture Laboratories, Inc. (MovieLabs).

He likens the need for EIDR, which serves as a standard identifier with a 27-digit code providing a unique identity for every entertainment product in the digital supply chain, to plumbing.

“Digital distribution is getting to the point where we can no longer afford the manual processing that we currently go through,” he told delegates at the Futuresource Entertainment Summit (FES) in London last week.

“We need to get ourselves organised; to put the plumbing in place that will allow the efficiencies of a computerised system to generate new types of revenue. We have to avoid the mistakes that are slowing the growth of some of the revenue plans that we all talk about so enthusiastically.”

Almost 40 years on from the first time a store scanned the first product — a packet of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum — retailers are completely dependent on the UPC and barcode throughout the supply chain.

“Walk into a retail store, even a ‘Mom and Pop’ store, and everything has a barcode with the product code on it. That assists with inventory control and all the systems that manage those products. They help people to make money and to move money through the system,” said Welch.

Yet, he noted, the film and television industry has struggled with several incompatible numbering systems that make it impossible to track digital assets through the entertainment pipeline.

EIDR, a B2B registry of audiovisual assets that extends from titles at the top level through different versions and encodings to clips and trailers, is designed to solve that problem.

“Give it a number and every one of your service providers and vendors can exploit it, look it up in a centralised service and share all the benefits, which extend to rights management and enhanced metadata services,” Welch explained.

EIDR, which is interoperable with other identifier systems, can be extended easily to cover new and emerging applications.

He compared the EIDR number to international phone calling: “Dial a number in Brazil and the phone company there understands that number; you are put through to the person you want to talk to. Imagine if every time you crossed a national border, you had to translate the number into a regional telephone numbering system before you could get through. That is what we do, to some extent, in digital distribution today.”

EIDR, however, is not simply about identifying film clips for YouTube, though it embraces that need, across multiple languages and technical platforms. It meets the requirements of international television distribution, digital cinema operators, advertisers and rights owners and it coexists with any identifier already in use.

Once a piece of content has an EIDR number, a service provider or supply chain participant can register as a “look-up user” to ask about a title and its related metadata in the registry, just as they would search a telephone directory.

The EIDR identifier remains with the content, regardless of changes in control or ownership of the underlying asset. It contains no information about the actual content, since all the relevant data is stored in a central database. A sophisticated de-duplication system checks that each allocated EIDR code is unique, after which the registration and its associated metadata is recorded in the registry.

The arrival of the digital rights locker — UltraViolet is one example — provides a further impetus for the adoption of EIDR. Digital ownership will involve many different providers delivering the same content to the consumer from different masters and in differing formats.

For example, a film may be sold as a Blu-ray disc, along with the rights to download and stream to the buyer’s connected TV, mobile phone and tablet device. The retailer, streaming provider and download service all play a role in delivering the film to the consumer and each party needs to ensure that they deliver precisely the same content.

“There are few usage restrictions on EIDR. It is meant to oil the wheels of commerce and it doesn’t come with a complicated agreement. You can do pretty much anything you like with it. We want members to help support it and it is not intended to compete with anyone else in the industry: it is there to enable what you are doing,” said Welch.

He acknowledged the need for international agreement to reap the benefits that EIDR could bring and the fact that it is not something that a small group of companies in California can impose.

“We need European support to benefit all of us, so let us know of your interest, particularly if you have ideas for features that we have not yet thought of,” he said.

“A lot of you can use it to help make money and run your business. I’m not here to make money from you, simply to help all of us do a better and more efficient job in digital distribution.”

Welch brings enthusiasm and expertise to the project and he emphasised the collaborative nature of the organisation. The intention is not to generate a profit but to cover the set-up and operating overheads associated with the project. With registration costing between $5,000 (£3,000) and $20,000 (£12,000), rights owners may hold back until they can see the prospects for a quantifiable return on their outlay.

EIDR must confront this dilemma. Unless there is a rapid uptake over the next few months, much of the hard work and investment in digital delivery will go down the drain.