“The number of players delivering movies is enormous,” said Microsoft’s Richard Doherty, who moderated a panel titled Consumer Delivery: Mayhem. “However the services differ.”
Panelists shared their strategies and views:

Morgan Fiumi, Deluxe Digital Studios:
–“People have underestimated the complexity of getting the assets organized. … A lot of the assets need to be prepared for delivery”
–“We have added some services that enable metadata to be searchable”

Brad Collar, Warner Bros.:
–From a tech POV, we have two buckets: Core video assets and interactivity. On the core asset side, we developed an internal system (with a) mezzanine format in a digital vault. On the navigation side, sub buckets include operation using a touch interface and a mouse.
–Codecs? “H.264 is very efficient, but it is so fragmented out there.”
–“Settled internally on about 12 file formats for metadata. There are discussions about standards”

Ellen Goodridge, Sony Pictures Entertainment:
–“Without standards, it is really hard to scale. In the last couple years, it has become even more complex. The logistics of sending mezzanine files in different specs can be very complicated and cause a lot of stoppages in the overall supply chain. We think UltraViolet is a really great long-term fix for the supply chain.”
–We want consumers to want own (their content). We have to get (quality) right to grow this business.

Chuck Parker, Technicolor:
–“We try to encourage our customers to standardize (codecs) as much as possible”
–Do consumers care about quality? “My view is consumers have an expectation of less that DVD quality.”
–“Contextual metadata is the next frontier in this space”