1.

What's the biggest technology challenge you face in adding (or boosting)
your online and/or streaming video elements?
There are couple of challenges that we would want to talk about; ranging from reliable
infrastructure in different regions, different secure streaming standards for different device types to
unavailability of technical solution for next gen ad features on majority of video players.

Reliable infrastructure: Looking at the diverse regional presence (From existing SEA to newly Africa),
it is very important to have a very reliable CDN (content delivery/streaming network) partner to
deliver the streaming service which is closest to serving as per customer expectation of instant
streaming without buffering etc.

It is amusing to find that even the most known names in the industry don’t have same level of
reliable presence in all those diverse markets where we operate. This ultimately pushes us to adopt
the strategy of keeping engaged with more than one CDN partners in different regions, with
advanced technological solutions to avoid any latency evolving from resolving queries around which
CDN to choose for a particular delivery. This is one of our main challenges.

Secure streaming: The term “multi-screen” has literally replaced “Second-screen”. Gone are the
days when smart phones are only alternative to big screens (TVs). Now it is almost everything that
has screen, is delivering the OTT content. This brings multiple operating systems and various other
system resources in to play to ensure highest level of content protection.

So, gone are the days when one type of content protection was possible for all type of devices. Now
it is required to carefully observe the spectrum of devices in every market and plan the business
strategy around Hollywood grade content protection compliant streaming methods on each type of
device.

Next gen Ad features on players: TO drive engagement and monetization, industry is trying to move
from ad related features as we know now towards interactive ads. As there are variety of content
consumption devices; each one of them has different video player, which makes it difficult to come
up with technical solution around integrating these players with different type of ad related
features. E.g. there is no word from google about support of interactive ads (VPAID standard etc.) on
their android video player “exoPlayer”. So, even if we solve this problem, we may not be able to
offer similar experience to user across different devices.

2. Is there any one particular technology that has made a radical difference to
the way you operate? What is it?
Being a technology driven company, we have invested in developing multiple tools and functions,
which have been core to business and operations of this company. However, with changing time,
company has realized that management of content rights and files has become more important
today than ever before, especially when awareness and compliance towards IPR related
requirements of content has really matured. At the same time, the industry has moved from USB
based direct ingestions to OTT system to sophisticated and controlled ingestion and management
systems. Our company has been no exception to this change. We are in process of adopting this
change where more complex rights can now be handled by click of few buttons; and the entire
process from ingesting a content, transcoding it and making it available for delivery has become
automated with operational simplicity like a BPM (business process management) tool. These are
our next gen CMS (content management systems) and RMS (Rights Managements systems).
3. What do you wish broadcast/streaming tech vendors would do (or say or
offer) for you that they aren't doing now?

Modular and flexible solutions (Which are not always bundled).

We came across many technology solutions which are bundled as one product and may be very
suitable for companies which totally rely on technology partners. But for the companies like us, who
not only rely on external tech partners but also make investments to develop some differentiator
technology solution; the entire bundle may not be suitable, but a part of the offering may be. But,
solution providers have been seen shying away from offering smaller piece of the overall solution
offering.

E.g. A tech partner can name a service a recommendation service. But the underlying solution may
include more than one component which may involve interactive way of programming/scheduling
the content library (with or without recommendation as provided by the original service). But the
solution providers won’t offer it.

Also, we wish that technology partners can pay attention to different type of business models
adopted by different OTT service provider before making commercial offers on same but unrelated
parameters.

E.g. Number of users (in a free OTT service) doesn’t really mean number of subscribed users; so if a
solution cost is based around how many total number of users are engaged with a service, then it
may not be fair to free service providers (unless it is a revenue share type of arrangement).

4. What's at the top of your tech wish list for 2019?

We are focusing on technically transforming our platform to providing highest operational efficiency
and end user experience.

With this in mind, we are marching towards adopting robust metadata operations tools and
processes, integration of unified video player for all of our target devices with all possible next gen
ad features, implementation of most modern encoding systems, implementation of all required
security standards on our platforms and last but not least, real adaptation of AI/ML in our
operational process for creative groups and subtitles etc. and also in providing higher video quality
with reduced data consumption (hence driving more engagement).