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NAB 2019: Gracenote Digs Deep into Metadata

LAS VEGAS — Kamran Lotfi, director of product, search and discovery, for Gracenote, spends a lot of time thinking about how metadata can make content — and the user experience in finding it — better. His efforts, and the efforts of Nielsen’s Gracenote division, were on full display at NAB

“The consumer discovery challenge is still present for many, and we constantly think about how we can help our clients do a better job making search and discovery tailored to the viewer,” Lotfi said.

He showed how Gracenote’s giant curated portfolio of movie and TV metadata can be used to better predict what a viewer will want to watch next, using a wide array of terms. If you’re feeling like watching a rom-com, but don’t want to see anything with Ashton Kutcher, a few simple changes in discovery preferences will pull up what you want.

And Gracenote has also found a way to make use of otherwise static TV and movie promo images … want to watch a war movie, but it needs a drama element, one or two “mood” changes in the discovery preferences will pull up just the right images.

“We’re going much, much deeper in descriptive content, which is critical toward driving recommendations,” Lotfi said. These more nuanced, small adjustments in how search is enabled “is the way things need to go to really make the best recommendations.”

Gracenote’s Video Descriptors, next-gen descriptive metadata solution launched in January, and marks the first of the company’s new Advanced Discovery products, all geared toward enabling OTT services, pay TV providers, and connected device manufacturers to find better user engagement and loyalty. While search and discovery areas such as “Themes,” “Scenarios,” “Mood” and “Characters” are already available, look for more Advanced Discovery tools from the company — including more detailed character descriptors, popularity scoring, and more — out soon.