Nexidia, a leading developer of dialogue and audio analysis products and technologies, was honored by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) with a Technology and Engineering Achievement Emmy Award for Phonetic Indexing and Timing. A team from Nexidia received this honor on January 8, 2016 at the Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, held at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The award recognizes the unique, patented speech technology behind Nexidia's products for media and entertainment — which focus on search, script-based editing, and caption verification and alignment — for its novel and creative approach to solving some of the industry's most challenging problems. Receiving the Emmy for the company, as well as individual awards, were Drew Lanham, senior vice president and general manager, Nexidia Media & Entertainment Division; Mark Clements and Peter Cardillo, founders of Nexidia and inventors of the technology; and Jacob Garland and Ken Griggs, Georgia Tech College of Computing alumni who productized the technology. The core technology of phonetic indexing and related search was developed at Tech while Cardillo was still a graduate student and formed the basis for starting the company.

Clements is the Joseph M. Pettit Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Cardillo is a Tech M.S.E.E. graduate who serves as Nexidia’s director for Research and Development.

The technology behind Nexidia Dialogue Search software has enabled broadcasters and other media organizations to dive deeper into even the largest of media archives to find assets that would have otherwise gone undiscovered, thereby making it possible to repurpose or remonetize them. Nexidia Dialogue Search is a software tool that searches for any combination of spoken words or phrases across workgroups or massive media libraries in seconds. The tool harnesses Nexidia's patented phonetic search technology to enable searches independent of logging, transcription, and/or captions.

The Nexidia Illuminate suite of software products uses the same technology to automate processes that until recently required human intervention – the most inefficient and expensive steps in the workflow. Nexidia Illuminate software checks the validity of closed captions, spoken language, and video description, ensuring that they are not only present, but also correct within file-based program creation and broadcast compliance-monitoring applications. Likewise, Nexidia Align software automates closed caption alignment by adjusting the timecodes in the caption file, ensuring the captions are properly aligned with the spoken words. The application then returns a new, accurately timed caption file that's ready for distribution. The speed and comprehensiveness provided by these solutions are critical advantages in the face of format proliferation, growing volumes of digital content, complex file-delivery requirements, and evolving Federal Communications Commission regulations.

"Digital production has led to massive and ever-growing volumes of media footage being delivered and stored, which in turn has created real challenges for content producers, owners, and distributors when it comes to finding those assets and fulfilling multiple delivery requirements for format and for caption compliance," said Lanham. "Over the 15 years it took to develop this technology, our company was driven by a singular vision — to be the first to solve some of the industry's biggest problems in an unprecedented way that's powerful, massively efficient, and delivers unparalleled ROI. We appreciate that NATAS has chosen to recognize these efforts and honor us with this award."

The Nexidia technology has proven robust and flexible enough to span the gamut of use cases in a production-centric environment — from ad hoc search, search at scale, and script-based editing, to closed caption verification and alignment. Some of Nexidia's customers include CBS, CNN, Comcast, NBC Universal, PBS, Fox, Scripps, and Turner Studios.

"The National Academy's Technology and Engineering Achievement Committee is pleased to honor Nexidia and the companies and individuals whose innovation and vision have improved the television viewing experience and continue to set the standard for technological excellence in our industry," said Robert P. Seidel, vice president of CBS Engineering and Advanced Technology and Chairman, Engineering Achievement Committee, NATAS.

Photo captions:

1) (L-R) Ken Griggs, Jacob Garland, Drew Lanham, Mark Clements, and Peter Cardillo were honored at the Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, held on January 8 at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

2) Mark Clements was among the representatives of Nexidia honored at the Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, held on January 8 at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Nexidia Agency Contact (source for most of this article):

Joe Commare

Wall Street Communications

Tel: +1 (508) 981 4858

Email: joe@wallstcom.com

Nexidia Contact:

Drew Lanham

SVP, GM, Media & Entertainment

Tel: +1 (650) 328 2585

Email: dlanham@nexidia.com