Startin’Blox is a co-founding member and a technical expert of the TAMIS project – Audiovisual Traceability of distributed Secured Metadata. The European film and media industry faces significant challenges related to data management. Data loss, information incompatibility between companies, and copyright management issues impede the efficiency and competitiveness of this dynamic sector.
What is TAMIS?
TAMIS is a project spearheaded by CST, of which Startin’blox is a co-founder and leading technical solution provider, along with other key members like France TV, Newen Studios, ISAN, Procirep and CST.
Which problem is it trying to address?
The aim of TAMIS is to respond to the data sharing issues raised in the film industry. It is implementing data interoperability solutions to address several concrete use cases in the film industry, namely:
- The under usage of movie assets, such as subtitles, 3D models, or entire movies
- The difficulty to identify the copyright owner of a given asset, i.e. a subtitle
- The constant wheel reinvention by recreating subtitles, 3D models or scenary catalogs that were already created by another actor of the ecosystem, but in a way that is not discoverable
- The overall data loss along the production line of a movie, preventing for instance to automatically list the musics played in the movie
What’s the envisioned solution?
Solutions that data interoperability can bring to the movie industry’s pain points created interest and awareness around the TAMIS initiative. Asset owners can expect to grow their revenue by increasing the sales of their assets, while buyers will save the cost and hassle to recreate these assets.
To maximize assets usage, assets need to be easily and intuitively found. When a broadcaster is looking for a subtitle, she should find it instantly, and she should have a simple and trustful way to contract with its copyright owner. The digital twins of these assets, or the metadata describing these assets, must be expressed in a way that is consistent and findable in order to foster their reusability.
What’s Startin’blox’s role in the project?
Startin’Blox plays an essential role in transforming TAMIS’ vision into deployed solutions in the movie industry.
Data Interoperability
One first step is to define a common Data format. Ontologies such as EBUCore already exist to align the different data formats. As semantic web experts, we’ll ensure that existing ontologies are put to use, and that the different data driven use-cases expressed above are covered by a common format any newcomer can easily align herself with. Having an industry-wide data format will facilitate asset discovery and copyright owner identification.
Open Source commodities
The creation of open-source components and connectors facilitates interoperability among various digital solutions within the film industry ecosystem. Data converters, connectors and interface components are among the commodities we’ll produce to help the different members of TAMIS to align their digital twins with the common vocabulary, find and share assets with the rest of the movie ecosystem and easily build applications, e.g. a decentralized subtitle finder.
Creating Interoperable Applications
Startin’blox will leverage the produced digital commodities and develop interoperable applications for the different members of TAMIS to avoid reinventing the wheel and avoid re-developing a 3D model that already exists, or increase the monetization of a scenery catalog.
Startin’Blox plays a crucial role within the TAMIS initiative, aimed at addressing data management issues, information incompatibility, and copyright management in the European film industry.
TAMIS is defining common data formats, developing open-source components, and creating interoperable applications.If you have a data sharing or a data interoperability challenge, if you are in the process of creating a data space, or if you simply want to learn more, reach out to us. We’ll be happy to hear about your initiative and to share our expertise. You can contact us at alex@startinblox.com
