Verimatrix shows how a focus on secure data gathering and analytics improves a media business

“Service providers are turning to the power of big data to enhance their subscriber’s experience and find new revenue opportunities, but as approaches to data analytics become more sophisticated, operators are realizing the need to maintain a high level of security and privacy.” That is the observation of Petr Peterka, CTO of Verimatrix, who reckons his company (a long-time specialist in multiplatform content protection) is the natural choice to aggregate and curate this potentially sensitive data.

This is the premise for the Verspective solution from Verimatrix, which gathers data, keeps it secure, routes it to where it needs to be, and securely exposes it to analytics systems owned by a media company or their trusted partners. “This service is designed from the ground up to emphasize data security and integrity as a foundation for actionable intelligence,” Verimatrix explains. The company used NAB Show this week to formally launched its Verspective Operator Analytics solution suite of subscriber intelligence tools, which forms part of the overall Verspective vision. 

The company has been showcasing Verspective Operator Analytics in Las Vegas. It also revealed that a number of Tier I operators are operational with early profiles of the solution.

“Our deep expertise in client security implementation enables crucial data collection from set-top boxes and CE devices – a valuable data source, but one that requires critical attention to issues of data integrity and privacy,” Verimatrix says, setting the context for the solution launch. “This information is enriched through additional headend subsystems data sources, including VOD platforms, operator CDNs and metadata systems. Working together, these data sets enable correlation of multiple operational viewpoints, creating an ideal analytics platform for multi-network and multi-screen service providers.”

Verspective Operator Analytics harnesses census-based video service data, providing a combination of real-time and historical perspectives of service and subscriber usage. While providing detailed reporting on collected data, Verspective Operator Analytics also enables data export to leading pre-integrated third-party analytics partners, as well as the operator’s own business intelligence tools.  

Operators can rapidly deploy and use pre-integrated third-party services that minimize subscriber churn, optimize advertising revenue and enhance the discovery experience with state-of-the-art recommendation and personalization algorithms. The third-party visualization tools currently supported include Genius Digital and Think Analytics and there are plans to add many more.

According to Avni Rambhia, Industry Principal, Digital Transformation at the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan: “The value proposition of DRM solutions is shifting from pure anti-piracy towards comprehensive monetization. Security clients and servers are unique in their visibility into the last inch of content consumption, with the rich context of user, device and network information. 

“As consumers transfer loyalty towards personalized, individually tailored content experiences, predictive and prescriptive analytics derived from client instrumentation have the potential to deliver a significantly differentiated and sticky user experience. This in turn is a decisive factor in driving subscriber numbers, level of subscriber engagement and therefore revenue and profitability.”

The Operator Analytics solution also offers the option to integrate with the cloud-based, globally-interconnected Verspective Intelligence Center from Verimatrix (more about that here). This extends the overall value proposition for Verimatrix security and analytics solutions for Verimatrix customers.