Minerva Networks - Innovation of the Year

Company: Minerva Networks, San Jose, CA
Entry Submitted By: Larkin / VolPatt
Company Description: Minerva is the leading provider of management platforms for the delivery of next-generation television services. Over 300 operators worldwide have deployed Minerva’s solutions to power advanced entertainment services that delight millions of subscribers. Minerva enables operators and content providers to transform their video offerings and deliver unique experiences anywhere and on any device.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Innovation of the Year - Business Products Industries

Nomination Title: Minerva Networks Smarts Highlights

Minerva Networks provides turnkey TV service platform infrastructure and hosted services to TV service providers. Minerva has more than 15 years experience and hundreds of operator customers delivering the primary video entertainment service to millions of subscribers around the world. Minerva is unique in providing both a powerful service back-office that is pre-integrated to the video industries best of breed ecosystem components and also an award winning video client available for mobile, web and connected TV devices.

With Minerva Netowrks, operators can easily launch and manage personalized, curated, live and on demand TV services that increase user satisfaction and engagement.

Over the past 18 months, Minerva Networks has been developing new technologies to expand the TV experience. Now that many users are watching more video over IP networks on more kinds of devices, we have been exploring how to improve their engagement with the content they watch. Because Minerva’s customer is the TV service operator, we are focussed on how to create value and unique differentiation for their service.

Minerva developed the Smart Highlights cloud DVR service, which is a new way to record and watch content. This ground breaking technology initially targeting sporting events allows users to opt-in to an AI assisted service that automatically analyzes recorded games and categorizes highlights by identifying and ranking plays and players. It then presents this as a set of custom playlists allowing the user to watch highlights for the game however they want.

In today's hyper-competitive market, where pay TV operators are in competition with their content providers, operators need compelling features to differentiate their service and add value around content. PayTV providers typically rely on live linear TV to compete and live sports is considered the most valuable live TV content. By creating additional engagement around this content we are helping our operators to minimize churn and maximize the value they can deliver to their customers.

Technologically, the Minerva Smart Highlightis service is significant because we have taken an old idea - recordings - and make them relevant again. With a system that can analyse video content, tag and value weight a snippet based on importance of the play and excitement level of the game, recordings become a sports fan's most powerful tool. In addition to showing highlights of a specific play type like all the goals or penalties or players, the system can shorten total game time significantly. Televised games that run 3 hours can be condensed into 20-30 minutes with all deadtime removed. Or we can create a highlight video of any shorter length, so viewers can watch the game in whatever time they have available. Smart highlights not only shows the major events of the game, but it’s able to preserve the emotional story and excitement in the game. The service works across all the popular video devices, including connected TV, mobile and browsers. To see an explanatory video and try out the service, click here. https://www.minervanetworks.com/smart-highlights/