Media Distillery’s New AI-Powered Solution for Video Previews

Media Distillery, a leading provider of AI technology for video user experience (UX) optimization, has announced the launch of its latest solution for video service providers, Preview Distillery. A new addition to the company’s award-winning product portfolio, Preview Distillery automatically creates representative preview clips from live broadcast and on-demand video content. The solution leverages the power of AI and ML to create short, full-motion video snippets that communicate what the show is about, helping viewers more easily decide what to watch.

Dynamically generated video clips provide a quick taste of what a program is about by presenting a segment from a program, such as a scene from a documentary or sitcom, a segment from a talk show, or a series of clips from a sports program. This allows viewers to discover interesting content to watch more quickly and reduces viewing time. Critically, this capability reduces user frustration, thus increasing entertainment and engagement.

The solution produces near real-time previews for live broadcast programs, which benefits TV service operators because they can use previews when most catch-up and replays are occurring, helping more people make the right viewing choices faster. Fully automated, Preview Distillery requires no human intervention such as editing and manual reviews, making the solution both cost-effective and scalable.

The company sees Preview Distillery as the logical next step to its Image Distillery solution, which produces unique episodic still images for each show as an alternative to the series’ stock footage.

Similar to the autoplay functions on Instagram and YouTube, having video previews helps viewers decide what to watch faster. By giving the user a better idea of ​​what a show is about, they can more easily find something interesting to enjoy.

Preview Distillery creates previews by performing audiovisual analysis of a program. The solution uses a number of AI techniques (scene detection, content segmentation/chapters, topic detection, audio and speech detection, etc.) to create a representative cross-section that gives the viewer a better understanding of what the program is about. To avoid spoilers, previews are created from the first episode of a program.

For live broadcasts, Preview Distillery leverages the company’s flagship solutions, EPG Correction Distillery and Ad Break Distillery, to ensure content is selected from the correct program and is ad-free.

TV service operators may receive movie and series trailers for some of their content. However, this may only represent a small percentage of the program catalog. Even if movie or series trailers are available, they may not be available to every service provider. By deploying Preview Distillery, the provider can be sure to have access to interesting segments that will appeal to viewers. Preview Distillery is therefore complementary to existing movie or program trailers already in use.