Nagra’s DVnor division hasn’t exactly been thrown into the spotlight since the Oslo-based firm’s acquisition by the Kudelski Group nearly three years ago, playing a backseat media asset management (MAM) role within the Swiss security powerhouse. In a rare sighting, DVnor secured a deal this week at the Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) – to secure and distribute titles to film festivals globally.
DVnor’s technology has since been integrated with Conax, working closely with the conditional access arm to develop additional value for new pay TV operator offerings, but really came to life when Nagra unveiled the myCinema service in April 2018, a content-as-a-service cloud-based platform for the movie theater industry.
For NFI, DVnor’s core product, DVnor Organizer, provides an automated all-in-one platform for metadata and digital file management, transcoding storage, distribution and post-production services. Content titles are transcoded and distributed via the Nagra cloud using in-house security technologies including NexGuard forensic watermarking. DVnor Organizer allows NFI to receive, store and distribute cinema titles in high-quality from major Norwegian movie producers and production companies, with storage for up to 300 movies. Admittedly, this is substantially smaller than the libraries we’re used to reporting on, but this is a niche market.
It took nearly a year before Nagra first showcased DVnor’s MAM capabilities alongside its own anti-piracy and watermarking products at a public event, arriving at the NAB show two years back. In fact, this was DVnor’s last public appearance prior to this week.
DVnor’s Secure Facility technology is used for post-production and ingestion, along with other core security technologies including NexGuard watermarking, playback control watermarking, monitoring and breach response.
The long-term plan for myCinema is to transform the way major cinema chains do business. As far as we can tell, myCinema (and therefore DVnor) remains a niche service for alternative movie events such as Cannes Film Festival, whose President, Pierre Lescure, happens to sit on the Kudelski Group board. At the time of launch, Lescure called myCinema “the response to the rise of digital platforms for home entertainment.”
Some specialist cinema events have retained use of 35mm projectors for authenticity, while mainstream theaters moved to digital formats long ago which is where Nagra’s myCinema appeared to be targeted. Of course, the cinema industry moves significantly slower than neighboring video markets.
myCinema quickly expanded into esports in April 2018, launching RacerXClub which comprises a network of esports teams sponsored by the movie theater teams. myCinema then announced support for HEVC compression in September 2018, claiming a world-first use for the H.265 codec in the digital cinema sphere.
“The deployment of a media asset solution that will make it easy for us to store and distribute our film assets around the world in a highly secure environment with just one click,” said Stine Helgeland, Head of Department Communications, Strategic Insight and International Relations, NFI. “The best part is that all of our needs are met with one solution, making the process extremely efficient and streamlined.”
Clearly myCinema and DVnor haven’t set the world alight, yet establishing these platforms in niche cinema environments and movie distribution circles puts the technology in a decent position in a market resistant to change – but one that must embrace it.