Metadata key to video industry: Adobe

Although video is beginning to take up a large portion of traffic on the internet, search engines aren't yet at the stage where they can completely index and understand the content. ZDNet Australia speaks to Adobe on how to overcome these issues using metadata.

Vice president and general manager of Adobe's professional video division, Jim Guerard, says that video is now moving from the traditional broadcast world to an IP-based distribution world.

However, given the unorganised nature of the internet, he says that the content creation industry is facing difficulties in making sure people find their content, that it is relevant to them and how to eventually make money from it.

In an interview with ZDNet Australia, Guerard discusses how those difficulties can be overcome using metadata and how, using speech-to-text technology, creators can embed information to help their video become more friendly to search engines.

He also explains the reverse of that process.

"You can turn that entire script and dialog into metadata, then through our editing tools you can match that script and that dialog to video," he says.

Further uses include making video relevant to those with hearing or vision impairments, and fulfilling legal obligations that dictate minimum levels of content accessibility.

"As subtitling and closed captioning become a legal mandate in many parts of the world for video, whether it's on-air or online, we're already working with some workflows that I think will really help address that."

With Adobe's software often the target of piracy, Guerard says the company sympathises with content creators whose work is stolen. He says that metadata is one of several mechanisms that can be used to help guard against intellectual property theft.