Rethinking ID Mapping: Adapting to Chaos in Movie and Series Cataloging
Speak to any broadcaster, streamer or aggregator or anyone working the backend of any entertainment platform, and when asking them about their movie and program ID tagging, they will tell you something along the lines of “it’s messy / hard to manage / difficult to scale”.
Program & movie ID tagging becomes not only annoying to manage and having to rely on other factors (like title) when mapping content from different platforms, but also when transforming it or matching it to both external and internal systems. Sadly this mess when ID tagging has become a standard, similar to the standards each company is trying to install when tagging their content.
The ID Tagging Dilemma
The industry has long faced problems with ID tagging systems. It's common for broadcasters to lack a solid tagging system, leading to difficulties in matching and organizing content accurately. This disarray not only complicates internal operations but also impacts content delivery to audiences. The traditional method of grouping IDs often falls short, having to fallback on, well, fallbacks for title matching and dealing with duplicates which can get messy and frankly, annoying.
Why do we rely on titles to match content? Apply various fallback rules? Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?
At Clipsource we recognize these challenges, we have revamped our approach to handling IDs within our Program Catalog. Instead of relying on a single ID per program, we now collect all IDs provided by our clients from their various sources. Easier said than done, right? This shift offers many advantages and opens up new possibilities for managing media more effectively. Let's be better, together!
Previously we (and many systems) only save contentID and mediaID for a program from one source, regardless if we received the same program from other sources. That meant that we couldn't use IDs from other sources to connect metadata, nor for example, use mediaIDs to connect to other external systems, such as image systems or video systems.
In order to connect, we had to rely on Title matching, which is a very unstable way of doing that since the titles are often added by humans which opens up for mistakes (whoops). Also, titles can vary a lot. Like for example:
Now, with this upgrade in place, we can save all the IDs we receive from our customer's systems, and that opens up for us to:
Use more IDs to connect programs and "only" use title matching as a final fallback.
Better control and define what data to use where. E.g. use Titles from source X and Synopsis from source Y.
Connect even to more external media systems.
And probably a lot more that we cannot come up with right now.
“As we receive more data and media from several sources into the program, we will save and visualize the IDs we collect, including IDs from different regions in the event the program is synchronized between different program directories.”
What does this mean for you as an entertainment provider?
Better Program Matching
By using IDs from multiple sources, we improve the accuracy of program matching. For instance, this approach allows us to synchronize images and other media from different systems more effectively.
Better Content Management
With the capability to store multiple IDs per piece of content, we can now more easily develop features like merge/split functions in the Program Catalog. This functionality allows our customers to manage duplicates and special programs without the need for manual intervention, greatly reducing the workload on their end and enhancing overall efficiency.
Better Collection of Media
Spend less time searching for related media, the program catalog draws all different types of media so you can forget about searching in different drives, folders, links, emails. Stop it. Find more regardless of content source.
Conclusion
By collecting multiple IDs and integrating them into our system, we not only solve a common industry problem but also, ehem, better the functionality and user experience of our Program Catalog.
This approach not only simplifies the content management process but also ensures that all content, regardless of its source, is accurately matched and easily accessible. The introduction of collecting multiple IDs for each program is a small step for Clipsource, a giant leap in content management.
Our sales team won’t take you on long walks off short piers. Step into a brighter future with us? Send us an email at sales@clipsource.com and let’s start matching your IDs, better.
