Benelux Business Awards 2019

18 EU BUSINESS NEWS / 2019 Benelux Business Awards , OPNS Best Automatic Content Recognition Solution 2019 Jun19389 For more than 30 years OPNS has been providing cutting- edge software and consultancy services to clients across the broadcastingmarket. We profile the firm to find out more about how it came to be awarded one of our prestigious 2019 Benelux Business Awards. Founded in 1989, OPNS is a Benelux entity that occupies around 30 people and has activities in Belgium, Luxembourg, the north of France and also in the Middle East. Among the firm’s innovative solutions is its unique SoundID, a solution that is based on audio fingerprinting technology and is the result of more than eight years of research and development. SoundID is a powerful automatic content recognition (ACR) platform specially designed for broadcast monitoring. SoundID, result of years of development is able to create for each sound and video, a unique identifier through a complex mathematical framework based on finger- printing technology. The key in content recognition is the accuracy of results. Alternate technologies typically cap on 90% accuracy in the best situation. Thanks to their own algorithms and the output combination of multiple expert (and auto-learning) processes, the solution can reach perfection or, to stay on the safe side, commit to +99% of recognition of fingerprinted source items inside broadcast streams. Based on noise resistant fingerprint comparison methods, it delivers content recognition able to generate effective broadcast playlists on any type of content such as ad spots, music, jingles, fillers, interviews, and to produce related reports and statistics (e.g. quota validation, broadcast certificate). It also provides content discovery by fingerprint pattern recurrences to detect any unknown content item from competitor’s streams. Another business use of our technology is the effective audience measurement based on fingerprints dynamically generated on smartphones from a panel of volunteers. It can even be used to trigger actions on content recognition events to cover the so-called device sync. They differentiate themself from others by offering: • best accuracy recognition levels • high performance • almost no duration constraints (upper or lower) on content to recognize • recurrent pattern recognition adding, to the recognition dimension, discovery capabilities needed in the case of competition analysis • highly modular architecture allowing to distribute the different processes (cpu intensive, storage I/O intensive, network intensive) on best designed/ optimised systems • possible one-stop shopping by combining SoundID with our mature Audiospy (multi-channel, multi-format) recorder • on-premise or cloud-based offering • pure software, licensing based on perpetual licenses or subscriptions, or project-based licensing Main market needs fulfilled are: • Accurate and time-stamped broadcast confirmation (needed for advertisers, copyright/author rights management companies, media sales departments) • Automatic Competition analysis (for program managers, sales managers, marketing managers) • Quota validation for control authorities (based on recognized items metadata: e.g. language, year of production, style and based on integrated speech/music analysis) • Effective radio audience measurement from panels (accurate results and ease of use for the panel volunteers compared to manual declaration). • Content database deduplication (for technical managers to clean up and compact their repositories). SoundID is one product of the broadcast family. OPNS delivers also other solutions such as DigiPlan which optimises the commercial spot schedule for single radio “Among the firm’s innovative solutions is its unique SoundID, a solution that is based on audio fingerprinting technology and is the result of more than eight years of research and development.”